The Dominion SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1944. GERMANY, AFTER DEFEAT

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 23, 21 October 1944, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1944. GERMANY, AFTER DEFEAT

It is inevitable that the announcement of Anglo-American plans for the policing of Germany after her defeat will intensify world-wide discussion of the much larger problem of the peace terms. Here are two separate and distinct issues, though one may have some indirect bearing on the other. The occupation and control of Germany after her capitulation (which, the Allies have resolved, must take the simple form of unconditional surrender) is a matter of immediate military policy—and, perhaps, of expediency, in the event of desperate Nazi groups attempting to prolong resistance by guerrilla tactics.Though certain forms of this military control may be carried forward into the post-war era under the terms of peace decided upon by the Allies, it does not follow that the one set of conditions will determine or even influence the other. It would be possible, for example, for a strict period of occupation and subjugation to be replaced by conditions, devised under the peace terms, in which laxity or futility of supervision would gradually open the way once more to a revival of the German spirit of aggression. All civilization is agreed that this must not happen again; but it is one thing to express such a conviction, when the struggle is by no means over, and quite another thing to ensure the structure of a peace that will be built on a lasting basis. The Allied plans for the post-capitulation government of the Reich, as outlined by General Eisenhower’s deputy chief of staff for civil affairs, appear straightforward and forthright to a degree which will give general satisfaction. Recently there has been some anxiety lest occupying troops, by good-natured fraternization with the enemy civil population, should fail to apply the stern discipline required to impress the German mentality. The supreme Allied commander speedily ordered a correction of this potentially-grave error, and his disclosure of the terms of military control may be expected to help disabuse the enemy of any idea that Nazism can escape its just retribution. The Nazi Party is to be “stamped out,” and as the Allied troops advance into Germany, military government will be set up to ensure the safety of the occupying forces, to maintain order and to seize war criminals. There is also provision for the righting of injustices under Nazi rule and the granting of some measure of political freedom; but as the Eisenhower programme applies to the period before “all organized resistance ends” it is obvious that the freedom referred to will be restricted to local political administration under military supervision, perhaps on the lines permitted in the southern communities of Italy after the Allied occupation. Such is the broad outline of the plan for the immediate management of defeated Germany; but there can be no intention of permanency about it. Occupation and military supervision will serve only until such time as the future Germany, purged of her warlike elements, and saddled with adequate penalty for her crimes against humanity, shall be permitted to reorganize on a lasting basis of peace. To state the terms of penalty and reorganization is the vital task of the peace conference, and it has been soundly urged that the paramount consideration at the conference table must be that of constructing a peace that will last. Whether Germany ever again becomes a menace (says “The Economist” in a recent article) depends not on what the Allies do to her when she is helpless, but whether they agree on a policy about which they will still be in agreement live, ten, twenty years hence. No punishment, however drastic, can prevent Germany from again becoming a great Power, if the Allies, falling out among themselves as they did after 1919, again seek to build up her resources against each other. On the other hand, if the Allies remain united and watchful, there is no way in which Germany can become dangerous, whatever we do now. Thus, although the plans for the occupying and policing of Germany are important for the time being, particularly in their effect today in conquered border regions, and on the minds of communities yet to be reached by the advancing Allied forces, they are, at the most, interim plans. The major problem of shaping permanent conditions of peace has yet to be resolved. So far no Allied Government has disclosed, other than in the most general terms, what solution to this problem it is prepared—or is preparing—to offer.