PUNISHING GERMANY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25053, 17 November 1944, Page 3

PUNISHING GERMANY

KEEN DISCUSSION IN BRITAIN

"HARD" OR "SOFT" PEACE ARGUMENT

By A. H. McLACHLAN, a Special Correspondent now in London

LONDON, Nov. 14 Treatment of Germany after the war, which but a month or two ago was being argued by only a few isolated voices, is today becoming one of the main themes of.discussion in newspapers, periodicals and over the air, Until D Day had been accomplished and the great advance had begun in France it seemed to many people too much like tempting fate to talk about what should be done when Germany was defeated. But now that Allied armies are on German soil the post-war settlement is being debated with increasing keenness and a rising sense of urgency. A few rather petulant voices are demanding that the British Government should declare in detailed terms its own policy on the future of Germany, but Mr Churchill is clearly still of the opinion that the time for such a pronouncement has not arrived. The war has yet to be won, and it is his belief that the most important task at the moment is the unifying of the Allied nations' efforts and the removal of possible causes of friction between them. « Unity is Vital No peace settlement has any hope of being sustained unless the unity of the Allied nations can be so consolidated in war that it will endure into the peace. And, as Mr Churchill never tires of pointing out to his questioners, any British pronouncement on post-war policy toward Germany could not bo other than tentative and incomplete because it is not a question for Britain alone, but for all the Allied nations. A British statement now might hinder or jeopardise the building of an agreement which must bo the corner-stone of the peace settlement. Still the discussion goes on, and it tends to cover a wider and wider field. It is important if for no other reason than the indication it gives of unofficial British opinion—the unofficial opinion that must play some part in shaping official opinion later on. In much of the discussion there is a tendency to base present speculation rather too much on past events and an inability to appreciate fully the magnitude of the factors existing in this peaco settlement which were lacking in tho last. There is a great deal of talk about the last armistice and about Versailles, and many controversialists seem so fond of historical precedent that they are determined to find one even when none exists.

tanks and armed or armoured ships, must be forbidden. , (3) There must be some control or German industry, particularly the heavy industries. The two great industrial centres of Silesia in the east and the Ruhr-Rhineland in the west might be put under international control. (4) Reparation must be made by Germany for the suffering and damage she has inflicted on her enemies. Reparation might be in the form of enforced labour or financial payments or both. (5) There must be territorial adjustments either by splitting Germany into a number of States or by handing over considerable portions of her territory to her neighbours, or by both. It is under the third and fifth ings that opinions most obviously diner. There is little support for what has become known as the Morgenthau I lan and any suggestion that the Germans should be condemned to live at the level of a crowded peasantry finds little support, not because of any sympathy for tho Germans, but because of its effects on the entire European economy. On the frontier issue opinion is largely divided over the problem of minorities. One of the most interesting factors m the present discussions —a factor which has not yet received much attentionis the argument that the first essential of any settlement which requires enforcement must_ be the willingness and ability of the victors to enforce it, not only when the war ends, but 15 or years later. "Nothing could be worse than _ a severe settlement that is not maintained," recently declared the Economist, which has been devoting a great deal of its space to this argument. "What we want is the sternest peace that has any hope of being maintained. Tito most certain way of ensuring a short peace is first to give the German people a burning grievance and then let them become strong. A peaco based primarily on disarmament may he enforced in 20. years' _ timfe. A peace of permanent economic impoverishment and territorial loss most certainly will not. , , , "We would ask no more than that every advocate of severity should look into his own heart and ask himself in all seriousness whether he really thinks that the policies lie puts forward stand any chance of having great and painful efforts made to support them, not by ideal parties in an ideal country, hut by Conservatives and Labour, bv Republicans and Democrats, elected by the present methods and by the present electorates. "Only to the extent that we can successfully predict our own future moods shall we build an enduring peace. There is not much evidence of the heart-searching which the Economist suggests. In fact, 90 per cent of the correspondence it has published on this subject has condemned its argument as an advocacy of a "soft " peace. Perhaps an explanation of this is that with the enemy still disturbing their nights with flying bombs it is too much to expect the people to project their thoughts sufficiently into the future to predict or to analyse what their mood may bo in the calmer days of peace.

Zones oi Occupation Some t)f them, for example, overlook the significance of the pronouncement made by the Allied Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, on the eve of the first Allied entry into German territory and of the determination of the three major Allied Powers to establish zones of occupation, with the immediate post-war administration of Germany in th& hands of a joint Allied commission. "This decision not to have a German Government is probably one of the most momentous for the post-war world that has yet been taken," said one responsible commentator recently. It is certainly one which should underline for the controversialists the essential difference between this peace and the last. The last time there was an alternative German Government recognised by the Allies. This time even the Nazis seem determined to eliminate any possible basis for a new political system. All this may seem so obvious that it hardly needs mentioning. The surprising thing is that so much of the discussion here seems to ignore the meaning of these basic facts. For example, there is a good deal of talk about the desirable duration of the Allied occupation of Germany, but, as the Foreign Secretary, Mr Eden, hinted in a recent speech, that may not bo a decision which will be a simple matter of choice at all. Absence o! Utopian Theories Conditions in Germany may be such when the war is won that, apart altogether from punitive considerations, an Allied occupation may bo essential for a long period if there is to bo any stability in Central Europe. In other words, what fome people are now referring to as a "harsh" or "drastic" peace may not be something that the Allied nations will have to steel themselves to impose, but something which they will bo unable to avoid even if they want to. A noticeable feature of the present discussions is the absence of Utopian theories, and there are few signs of what might be called a sentimental approach to the Germans. The dark days after Dunkirk and the potentialities of the robot bombardment are still too fresh in people's memories for them to have any patience with Utopians whose idealistic theories might Involve taking risks with Germany. At the same time it would be wrong to suggest that one finds many signs of hatred here these days. The English people seem incapable of sustained hatred, but they have certainly hardened their hearts against their enemies as never before. Probably it is for this reason that the old argument about good and bad Germans is drifting more and more out of the discussions. The debate recently at the Trades Union Congress, which declared by a four-to-one majority that the German people as a whole must share the guilt of the war, was significant in this respect. Small Anti-Nazi Element

The general secretary. Sir Walter Citrine, in introducing the Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee's report on the treatment of the Germans, made the point that if the congress was to affirm that Germany must restore the devastation in the occupied countries it could not overlook the fact that the restoration would have to be done by the German people. L ,. How, he asked, could it follow this line of reasoning and suggest that the German people, apart from the Nazis, were innocent? "Nobody has wanted to see signs of revolt in Germany more than I have," Sir Walter Citrine went on. "The T.U.C. has appealed to the German labour movement. While I would bo the la-t to deny the bravery of individual trade unionists, I cannot escape the conclusion that there has been no large-scale organised resistance- in Germany since the advent of Hitlerism. It is nob pleasant for me to have to say that." , The vast majority of the congress supported this view, Mr Will Lawther, the miners' leader, attacking with characteristic bluntness»what he called sloppy pacifist sentiments and attempts to find an alibi for the German people. Five Points Beyond the point that Germany must be prevented from ever possessing the means to launch another war (on which there is unanimous agreement), it is not easy to synthesise opinion on the steps necessary to achieve that end. Broadly, however, it may be said that there is fairly general agreement under five headings. . (1) Germany must be occupied by the Allies at least until the war criminals have been routed out and the Nazi system completely eradicated. (2) There must be total disarmament of Germany. She must have no army, however small, and the ownership or manufacture of all aircraft of potentially. dangerous types, and of all gun#,