WE ARE NO LONGER AT WAR WITH GERMANY

Wanganui Chronicle, 21 September 1950, Page 4

WE ARE NO LONGER AT WAR WITH GERMANY

|T has been decided that, the three Western Nations—Britain, United States, and France—are 'no longer at war with Germany. Actual hostilities ceased five years ago, and it was six years before that that Mr. Neville Chamberlain dramatically told the world that Britain had declared war on the German nation. That it has taken so long to end the state of war in a formal sense has been due to the attitude of the other great partner in the Allied attack on Germany, Soviet Russia. She has not been able to agree with the West as to what should be done with Germany. Russia’s belief is that Germany, as a State, should cease to exist. The German race would remain, perhaps, but the German nation should not be allowed to rehabilitate itself, but that it should become a satellite of the power of the Kremlin, fettered to a set-up that knows no other lord but Stalin. The West, even France, a nation which has little cause to love Germany, holds to a belief that such a people as the Germans cannot long be subjected to the iron heel of a conqueror. There is in their racial pride and in their nationhood, that which would, in the end, revolt against tyranny. For a time the hand of the master would prevail, but it would drive underground all those forces which proved so potent a force against, the Germany of Hitler. Russia’s belief is that Germany should be ruled by the sword, but the age-old truth that he who lives and rules by the sword will one day perish by the Aword. is as true as ever it was. The German people must be permitted to rehabilitate themselves, and it is a great pity that Soviet Russia does not realise the wisdom of facilitating that rehabilitation. Under the way of Russia Germany must henceforth be regarded always as an enemy. I nder the way of the West it is possible for Germany to regain her place as a nation in the economic fabric of the world, and though it is admittedly something of a gamble, the German people should be allowed some freedom to mould their own strength of arms for self-protection. It is fairly safe to say that for many, many years the German people will not be the seekers of war. They have good reason, if ever a nation had good reason, to shun war and all its implications. The West offers a chance to regain lost glory and dignity, the East offers the way of serfdom.