First Break Up Germany

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 298, 9 March 1945, Page 7

First Break Up Germany

"This Time We Have Got To Be Tough," argues=

R INCLAIR says we can either break up this great industrial empire and set out a’ multiplicity of small competing enterprises; or set it to making plenty and comfort. for the peoples of Central Europe for the next thousand years. Alas, the choice is not quite as easy as that. You cannot:solve the political problems of Europe overnight by the simple process of ignoring them. You cannot’ abolish national sovereignty by decree. The» countries which are liberated from the German:«yoke will demand freedom and rights of their own. What they surrender to any international authority will have to be surrendered voluntarily, and because they are convinced that is in their own national interest to do so. For this reason, I conSider that a lot of Hitler’s eggs will have to be unscrambled as fast as possible, so that the creation of a "Freestate" on the lines suggested by Sinclair is an unrealisable dream. "First things! first. How are we going to deal with a conquered Germany, from the military°and political point of view? At the risk of shocking some of my

readers, I am going to suggest that, this time, we have got to be tough-very tough indeed. "The Greatest Mistake at Versailles" It took the rest of the world*four years to bring Bismarck’s empire to its knees, for the Germans of the south were dazzled by the glitter and success of the Hohenzollern dynasty, and fought well. But the thing was never properly integrated, and the greatest mistake the Allies made at Versailles was not to break it up into its component parts. If, for instance, we had: allowed the Bavarians to restore their king, and with him their national pride and culture, Hitler would never have been able to set out from Munich on that terrible pilgrimage which welded the whole of Germany into the most formidable mili-

tary and industrial unit the world has yet seen. I do not agree with H. G. Wells that small sovereign States are the cutse of humanity. Before the outbreak of *this war, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland were amongst the most civilised, advanced, and progressive nations’ in the world. I do agree that modern transport. and productive capacity impose upon humanity the necessity. of large-scale organisation which cannot _be confined within national boundaries. One thing we must never again forget --that peace without power is a mirage. And, in the modern world, power must be unchallenged in the area in which it is exercised, and directly related to the real and permanent interests of those who exercise it. Any settlement in Eastern Europe which is not underwritten by Soviet Russia will be worth precisely nothing. The same thing applies to ourselves, and to France, in the West. Foch and Clemenceau have been proved right. We stand on the Rhine, or not at all. Only a sense of absolute security will induce the victorious powers to confide their ultimate right to settle disputes by force of arms to an International Court. But there is no reason why this should not come, in the course of time, if the correct solutions to the immediate problems which confront us are found.

In the meantime paper leagues and constitutions will be very much worse than useless, And we must realise that .it is upon a continuation of the Grand Alliance between Great Britain, Russia, and the United States that the freedom and safety of every other nation, large or small, will for long depend. Our duty is not to ignore the existence of political (and therefore military) power in the world, or to try to escape its responsibilities (as we did before the war), but to see that it is effectively exercised, and directed to good ends. As’ for Germany, I do not believe she can be "reeducated" by anybody except Germans, or anything except experience. The removal of the Prussian power may teach her, in the course of time, that the revival and reconstruction of provincial autonomy, on a federal basis, holds out the best hope for the future. Meanwhile the teeth must be out, and the claws cut. .