Coming to terms with Nazi guilt

Press, 2 January 1979, Page 11

Coming to terms with Nazi guilt

Bv WALTER ELLIS of the “Observer” London Bonn “Why must you always drag up the past?” Germans invariably ask of foreigners. “Hitler is dead and our country has been a democracy for nearly 30 years.” The question is a fair one. especially when put by people born after 1945, bitt it takes no account of the fact that the Germans themselves are increasinglv pre-occupied with Hitler and the Nazis and appear bent on a ruthless final period of exorcism. These days. German politicians and statesmen

are almost falling over themselves issuing qualified admissions of guilt. “Mea culpa” — but only partly so — is the order of the day and, as ever, the former soldiers, air« men, and stormtroopers are following their orders to the finish. The Prime Minister of Baden-Wurttemberg (Mr Hans Filbinger), who had been considered a possible future leader of the conservative Christian Democrats, resigned when it was disclosed that he had pursued Nazi ideology even beyond the end of the war. The Speaker of the Bundestag, (Mr Karl Carstens) admitted that he

had been a Nazi Party member, and in doing so greatly reduced his chances of becoming the C.D.U.’s candidate for the Federal Presidency next year. Mr Carstens was able to point out, however, that he was not the only one tainted by the past and. indeed, it soon transpired that the present Head of State, Mr Walter Scheel, had been transferred to the Nazi Party from the Hitler Youth in 1942. Mr Scheel conceded the truth of the charge, but said in

mitigation that he had not actually applied for membership but had been granted it while on active service on the Russian front. iMeanwhile, the influential weekly, “Die Zeit,” has just finished serialising extracts from the latest memoirs of Hitler’s Armaments Minister, Albert Speer, in which Speer almost curls up at the corners with guilt while not actually admitting that he knew any* thing about what was happening to the Jews.

It appears that he was too tied up with the problems of slave labour to concern himself with the "final solution.” Earlier in the year, the diaries of the infamous Doctor Joseph Goebbels were published in the mass-circulation magazine, “Stern,” and were, the subject of intense' interest among all shades of people, including those who were too young to have experienced the reality of Nazism and who would be indignant about

a similar political prurience on the part of foreigners. Older citizens wanted to know’ how they could possibly have been misled by so monstrous a man as Goebbels, while the young wondered nervously if it had all been a failing Of their parents or w’hether all Germans carried a tendency within them to invade the world and incinerate minorities. The fact of the matter is that in modern Ger. many there are no serious signs of incipient fascism.

In spite of the doubts of many Germans, democracy has succeeded in taking root and it is flourishing in a reasonably healthy political soil. The Hitler years cannot be washed away and forgotten, but whereas people used to recoil in htJrror from any recollection of the past, now, increasingly, they approach in horror, apparently determined to come to terms with something that has been haunting them for years. At the moment, an intermittent debate is

going on about whether or not the Government should extend the period during which Nazi murderers can be arrested and brought to trial. The original statute of limitations on such crimes was due to come into effect in 1975, 30 years after the end of the war, but was extended by an act <Jf the Bundestag until the end of 1979. Now, the Christian Democrats are uneasy about any further extention, while their far-Right partners in the Christian Social Union are clamouring for a virtual pardon of all Nazi criminals. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt seems to have judged the public mood

better, and has said that he does not think Ger* many should impose any time restrictions on the application of justice. He is naturally concerned about world opinion — especially that Of Israel — but also takes account of the new determination within his country to come clean on Nazism and to take whatever steps are necessary to punish its leaders Punishment of the leadership is, of course, an easy way of ascribing all blame for the Hitler period to a hard core of geriatric villains. It means that the nation as a whole gets off lightly, even though, at its

height, the Nazi Party had IOM members. Perhaps, though, tha' is the way it must be. for the German people -eem as amazed and appalled now by what they did as everyone else has been for years. As lung as a few' gnarled old Nazis continue tp be dragged out of the South American jungle to face trial and as long as hapless politicians continue to take it on the chin for the sins of the nation, Germany will fee! that justice is being done and that Hitler, Goebbels. Speer, and the rest of them can subsequently be consigned to history where they belong. — O.F.N.S. Copyright.