Hitter and After-Politics, Culture and World Peace
HEIDEN, KONRAD
Hitter and After-Politics, Culture and World Peace Hitler's 'Thousand Year Empire -Decade Finds Nazi Dream Fading See Power of Fascist Offensive Broken By KONRAD HEIDEN •TEN YEARS! * This m«nth...
...With their help, criticisms and suggestions received from every part of the country were utilized, and "the bugs taken out of the system...
...The enmity of the Versailles victors against German democracy and German Socialism, their growing friendliness toward reaction and, at the last, toward the Nazis, must be counted among the undeserved misfortunes of the Republic—along with the undermining machinations of the Communists...
...The facts up to now furnish no basis for prophesying the future course of the war...
...He exhibits, in short, a talent worthy of his task...
...In spite of all, it deserves credit for one thing: even in the darkest noun it saw clearly and spoke honestly...
...Thus the free spirit if France has suffered only a momentary eclipse, [t has survived the defeat of 1940 and is con-Jnuing here to expand anew over the liberated Prance of the future...
...Some people are surprised at the "new Cttl* bertson System," and even amused...
...Otto Strasser attempts in this book to assume post facto a laudable role in German politics, but it would require other testimony than his' own to accord him the least importance...
...After the defeat the' Matin openly flaunted its Nazi colors in Paris, bat, to the surprise of everyone, Barres made Bis way to England...
...ip this ease the so-called victorious Germany, together with a great part of Europe, would be broken,- burnt out, bled white to at least the same extent as was victorious Franee after the last war...
...Some of the endorsements were truly remarkable...
...That this spirit was so deeply embodied ? the German people explains both the achievements and the weakness of the Social Democracy...
...What is certain and essential is that its spirit will remain...
...materials...
...But Julia Green has just completed an English translation of Jeanne eTArc which should shortly appear in New York, and he has promised to undertake other translations of Peguy...
...In fact, the Vichy crowd and all of their hangers-on injure their case in exalting Charles Peguy while simultaneously endeavoring to conceal or gloss over the essential character of his work...
...He lacks not merely the necessary culture and insight but, above all, the intellectual honesty...
...His purpose is to make us forget the real part which he has played as a National Socialist, that is, as an enemy of democracy and Christianity...
...Real soldiers understand this...
...The biography of Charles de Gaulle T>y Philippe Barres (Brentano's, New York), belongs Sethis far from worthy classification...
...But during periods of political overturn the circumstances are always difficult...
...Perhaps It's, fate...
...What then...
...It is unthinkable that this Socialist spirit should ever disappear from Germany...
...An American and a Russian who thinks of himself ·» a world citizen, Culbertson has an answer for those who believe that a World Federation PlaB is too big a job for one man to tackle...
...Through Social Democracy the masses grew into a new maturity, a maturity which, in its deepest substance, cannot be destroyed by all of the subsequent events...
...Notes on France in Exile By PAUL TEXIOR "f*HE publication of French books in America * Is a sign of the times...
...They granted Hitler no constitutional empowering act, signed no treaties with him—later on to complain of his persecutions and violations of civil liberties...
...Post-War Blueprint Culbertson Offers "Grand Slam' for World Order By ELIZABETH CHARNEY • I If REE years ago, bridge expert Ely Clbert-* son got an idea for a new "system...
...These mysteries may be cleared up later on...
...Despite her victory, Germany—just like the France of those days—would be defeated—not by her enemies, but war itself...
...The German Social Democrats and they alone—made this truth a German reality for fourteen years...
...So, Mr...
...BJward C. Lindeman, George S. Counts, Norman Thomas, and a number of men of the right as well, were formed into a committee...
...It marched forward with the people, with them hesitated, grew desperate and, at times, lost heart...
...We have here a special pleader who fools no one...
...For this sort of political failure there is no forgiveness But in spite of all, Social Democracy achieved something much greater than the conquest and maintenance of power...
...After this' preliminary period, the plan was sent out to 5,000 leaders and various intellectual and '«AoljraSr* circlei...
...It was the voice of German Social Democracy...
...We could mention a thousand details of life to demonstrate this statement...
...In France Mr...
...Af this point starts the German future...
...As to the ideas of the author, like the "Black Front" of which he is the nostalgic historiographer, they suffer from an impenetrable obscurity...
...In addition to Ca-ladian publishing houses turning out French :ditions...
...THE name of Charles Peguy has dominated * the literary thought of France since the terrible defeat in 1940...
...IT is just as difficult to understand what good * purpose is served by such a volume as one by Otto Straaser, L' Aigis Prussien sur I'AUe-magne (Brentano's, New York, and Valiquette, Montreal...
...That is a lesson taught by history about many groups and peoples...
...Peladeau was at home almost exclusively among the writers, journalists and politicians of the extreme right, more specifically among the reactionaries of "L'Action Francaise," that curiously anachronistic monarchist group...
...Many human and material weaknesses— avoidable as well as unavoidable—often dragged the party beneath the level of this revolution...
...A complete plan for the social, political and economic reorganization of the world was in the making...
...Finally, this French patriot and this universal Christian professed an unlimited admiration for the Jewish people, who had inspired some of his most beautiful, most vehement and most eloquent pages...
...The party made a poor job of the struggle for power...
...Anyone who refuses to believe this or to acknowledge it needs but to read over Hitler's speeches delivered during these fourteen years...
...It was intellectually and materially ill-prepared for it as the struggle started in 1918...
...Moreover, it is published in English...
...The panegyrics now published in Vichy contain no allusions to the most striking characteristics of the man, while the epigones pretend to find in him the precursor of the so-called national revolution, which, in reality, is nothing but an anti-national counter-revolution...
...This m«nth completes si decade of the Nazi state...
...I am not falling into the blunder of considering Hitler as already liquidated...
...He once dared, in a sense, to tell the world what to do with its time...
...In the book of Philippe Barres by far the most interesting passages are the quotations from de Gaulle...
...Of particular interest is Mr...
...As the Berlin correspondent of the Paris Matin, he never succeeded in disguising his pro-Nazi sympathies <jr complacency, or his friendship with Ribben-trop, Otto Abebz and other perfidious adversaries of France...
...It had not even any representation, in Parliament...
...This brother, who was assassinated by Hitler in his celebrated purge, had, it is true, something of personality and reputation which transcended mere Nazism...
...Textor's comments on Charles Peguy, a French Socialist killed in World War I whose writings are now being revived...
...Other distinguished authors, Andre Maurois, Jacques Maritain, \ Maurice Maeterlink, Jules Romains, hold the rank in which they established themselves in their native land...
...They constitute a continuous, wild and frequently desperate struggle against this spirit—whether he calls it "Marxist poison," "democratic confusion" or "Jewish pestilence...
...We do not know—and perhaps it doesn't matter—whether German Social Democracy will revive in the old form and under the old name...
...In accord with ill own inner nature...
...It would be a mistake to admit to the camp of the* United Nations a recruit like this...
...It is Socialism, a Socialism which begins as a spiritual attitude of the human being and works from within outward toward a physical order...
...In this country Peguy is practically unknown, for he offers the greatest difficulties to the translator, and to be appreciated he must be read in French...
...One can but wonder why it was published...
...It will be launched in the Readers Digest, followed by articles in other magazines and newspapers, and broadcast over the radio...
...Paul Peladeau, a French Canadian, is not only a.Montreal publisher (Editions Varietes), but also somewhat of a writer...
...As soon as the Plan gets a necessary minimum of public support it will be submitted for consideration to the governments of the United Nations...
...The Social Democrats simply had not mastered them...
...THIS spiritual renewal was not, it is true...
...But the reader is interested in General de Gaulle rather than in his biographer...
...Up to the bitter end the party was unequal to the task either in understanding or in attitude...
...This article by Panl Textor is not a comprehensive survey of such literature, polit-' ieal and cultural, in exile...
...He is a compatriot of Peguy, born in the same city, Orleans, and even in the same suburb of the town...
...Yet all these evidences of a new time are but images and effects of the great historical transformation of 1918-19...
...Aires, Lettres Francaises, and several French periodicals and bulletins which appear ? New York and London...
...The quality of this French literary production in foreign lands does not always reach the level which we have aright to expect...
...And announcements appear of works by Leon Werth, of Denis de Kougemont, of Roger Picard—all of which are certain to attain high quality...
...The people of Germany have become different through these fourteen years...
...And tomorrow or the day after he will owe it his overthrow...
...The meaning of this spiritual maturity we know by an old and familiar name...
...The circumstances certainly were unfortunate...
...His case is precisely parallel with that of the Austrian fascist Star-hemberg, the accomplice of Dollfuss and the assassin of Viennese Social Democracy, the man whom General de Gaulle has mistakenly accepted in his ranks...
...It was this feeling which enabled the Republic to assert itself for fourteen years against the old-style stark reaction...
...But, in contrast to his father, the representative of some kind of traditional French patriotism which fought pan-Germanism, Philippe Barres became the friend of his country's worst enemies...
...an occasion to be celebrated with the tolling of funeral bells...
...OENERAL DE GAULLE is one of the most ^* important personalities emerging from this war...
...But the universal homage which is given him today is deeply tainted with hypocrisy...
...He had a Scottish-American father, a Russian mother, and a life divided between the Caucasus, Western Europe and the United States...
...It is a survey of various trends as expressed in a discussion of several books...
...The author is serious, intellect-tiq o% sb Dduuojui Xjdaap pus '^sauoq...
...This acclaim, on the part of the present masters of France as well of the officials who act as their amanuenses and ghost-writers, is nothing but imposture...
...For three years, 18 hoars a day, he worked on his "blueprint for a bridge into the future," the so-called World Federation Plan, investigating and systematizing "the realities of today and all the strains and stresses of the 70 odd sovereign nations with their economic, political, psychological and military forces . . Now Ely Culberton is ready tx> show his hand—and it includes an amazingly comprehensive program for handling the problems of a battle-weary post-war world...
...The others he seems to know only by their titlei—which is, to say the least, a strange way to prepare oneself to write a book...
...It is impossible to distinguish fact from mere assertion not merely on account of the lack of careful documentation but also on account of plain perversions of the truth...
...This fact can never be wiped from history...
...Let us suppose that Hitler manages somehow to hang on and to bold some of the conquered territory...
...which is a non-profit membership corporation) will be transferred...
...We have, too, a French review in...
...What has now happened we can read OS nearly every yellowed page of the Social Democratic press of ten or twelve years ago in the form of disturbingly accurate prophesy...
...Barres pictures his relations with the Nazis ? a characteristic way—putting the best face ??' things, hiding behind professional requirements and the natural curiosity of a journalist...
...Although the most elementary standards of the dignity of French Journalism forbade such compromising relations, he played the German game right up to the outbreak of the war...
...Word began to get around...
...No one can make ns befievethat the soealled...
...Only after the disaster oftJune, 1940, were the royalists able to play a political role under the shadow of Marshal Petain...
...But th* real incongruity is that there should be any wonder at all that the man whose mathematical genius and brilliant publicity sens* brought bridge to every household is now the creeaer of a social engineer's blueprint...
...Oswald Garrison Villard said: "Ely Culbertson's Plan is brilliant in its conjustice and fair play for all peoples of the war-torn earth as to compel my complete admiration...
...both in its achievements and in its limitations, the organized body of the spiritually rising and growing working people of Germany...
...Bertrand Russell declared: "I saw and admired the ingenuity of your plan, especially the Quota Principle...
...The second is the Quota Force mechanism for dealing with the problem of an international police force and offering a transitional assurance based on the concept of strategic zones for each of the leading United...
...Anyone will sense this t? he will let the period run like a moving picture before his mind's eye, will compare it with what went before and what came after...
...The weakness of this tiny fraction of the Nazi extreme left is no badge of merit...
...Others perceived it...
...Why...
...Along wie all other elements it lacked, in the moment of universal weakness, adequate strength for the saving deed, but even then it deceived neither itself nor the people...
...This means that the Vichy censorship has had to perform a major operation on Charles Peguy, on this man who, dead, is more alive than many of the living...
...1 U LB ? RTSON has omitted no detail—not even the method of getting the most effective hearing for his plan...
...Since this is the diity book on the subject, we must needs make the.best of it until a better one appears...
...There were the great achievements in social service, the increase in general well-being, the new education, the mutual intermingling of art and the youth movement, the great creations of modern architecture—all emerging from the spirit of the new Germany...
...His book, Disait en France '(Brentano's, New York), is a piece of reportage on French opinion before the defeat...
...The old "Culbertson system" was expanding...
...There is a degree of military effort and self-exhaustion for which no success can compensate...
...He was a great writer and one deeply misunderstood before his death in the battle of the Marne in 1914...
...What could be more shameful th'an the manner in which they impudently falsify his biography and forbid the printing of essential pages of his writing...
...It is impossible to take any interest in a book written under such conditions...
...It was the change itself...
...This political wing had no influence upon French society exeept for a few salons or certain army and navy circles...
...It is to be hoped that his readers will not be duped...
...The first is a new Regional structure for the world together with the new political and social order...
...when the broad masses of the German people achieved a previously nonexistent sense of worth and meaning...
...The Nazi, Otto Strasser, has no license to instruct us on the subject of Germany...
...Unfortunately, of the four volumes written by the General, Barres has read only one...
...It was...
...Culbertson's Plan, while incorporating certain features of other schemes of post-war reconstruction, contains two fundamental innovations...
...It is true that two of the greatest contemporary French writers, Saint-Exupery and Georges Bernanos, ire in America and have already published books worthy of their reputations...
...Otto Strasser attempts to maxe a case—as a last resort and rather late in the day—on the basis of his Catholicism...
...He has studied at first ? hand and in detail the life of his hero...
...Even Hitler is indebted to this feeling for his victory over reaction...
...Every factor, Mr...
...It is impossible now to find in France even such a book as the Pages Choisies (prose) of Peguy because of the -passage on Bernard Lazare and the Jews...
...Not everybody is enthusistic about this plan, bat everybody is enthusiastic about the fact that a complete plan has finally been produced, so that everybody, the people and their leaders, can get their teeth into it...
...The Culbertson system is impressive ·»· overwhelming in its thoroughness, little sheet indeed of a theoretical grand slam...
...r Exile) NO nation or people can be killed if its spirit as manifested in its language and culture can find some ground to flourish...
...During fourteen years it formed and educated the German people, endowed them with a new spirit...
...They never had the revolutionary madness as did the Communists to announce: "Hitler must be allowed to come to power to create chaos, for after the chaos we shall come in and carry through the real revolution...
...Social Democracy could nA degenerate into the blindness in which one deceives himself into collaborating with National Socialism, taking advantage of its "constructive forces" and giving it a "positive direction...
...In this situation the men of this faction disgraced themselves by exploiting the misfortunes of France in the most despicable manner...
...General Hans von Sieckt devoted many of his notes to this matter...
...It was submitted to leading specialists and intellectuals, regardless of their ideology...
...It took this mountain of misfortune to confer upon him his great posthumous prestige...
...we are now indebted to several New ifork publishers for volumes in the French anguage...
...committee has ever been known to create · system of philosophy or economics, to write a poem, or to create a system...
...It was far more than that...
...and in my opinion solved all the seemingly insurmountable problems in the way of a workable scheme of World Federation...
...This victory would, in truth, be a downfall for a long period—perhaps forever...
...Oswald Garrison Villard...
...Let us hope that some publishing house will soon print the volumes by de Gaulle himself, which are, strange to say, net available at present...
...In this regard, at least, the Social Democrats have been denied the pleasure of priding themselves on blunders first committed, then recognized and later, perhaps, written off...
...For Charles Peguy was a socialist, a socialist of a special type it is true, but nevertheless one determined and steadfast in his convictions...
...Secretain merits the attention of all cultivated Americans who read French—which includes a large number of persons in the United States and Canada...
...They never whispered: "Just let Hitter have a month or two and he will destroy himself...
...Culbertson assured this writer, every last card was calculated as carefully as was humanly possibly...
...The glory of Peguy grows under the most scandalous conditions, and it is, therefore, especially fortunate that we can welcome at this time the volume by Roger Secretain, Peguy, Soldat de la Liberie (Brentano's, New York, and Valiquette, Montreal), a book remarkable for its high qualities...
...This coming spring...
...Any future changes in the plan will be made at a future national convention of members of World Federation, ception, startling in its solutions, original at many points and so actuated by a desire for Inc...
...Front" had any moral, cultural or political superiority to the Brown' Front...
...Since May 1940 the spirit of the French republic has found seed in various .democratic soils and free French papers are printed in London, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Mexico City and other 1 places...
...No one knows—just as we remain ignorant of the reasons which prompted Barres, instead of joining the army of General de Gaulle, fb sail 'for the United States, where he has published this book about the life of the general whose call to arms-he refrained from answering...
...He is merely exploiting for commercial ends the reputation of his brother, Gregor Strasser...
...At the fame time a national board will be formed to which the full control of World Federation, Inc...
...Peladeau has geatly exaggerated the importance of the monarchists before the defeat, and he exaggerates in reverse when he neglects $o emphasize the defeatism of those pretended patriots who wished to profit by the German victory, who betrayed Christianity by adopting racism, who participated in "collaboration" with the enemies of their country and who, for the sake of prolonging their political lives, eacrified every reason for living...
...This book by Otto Strasser is not devoid of interest, but it fails to inspire the least confidence...
...His narrative, his analysis and his comments render an accurate account of the intellectual and moral importance of Peguy, of his place in literature and French thought and politics from the beginning of the.century...
...But along with these we have too many vulgar journalists dashing off or compiling any sort of pot-boiler—no matter what—just so they have books coming off the press...
...the artificial' product of the Social Democracy...
...It was the sustaining force of the Republic, the only mass movement which boie testimony in word and deed to the great truth: that the people themselves must determine their fate...
...His writings on the handling of armored and mechanized forces, his views on the strategy and tactics of modern warfare, too little known and understood before the German attack on Poland, have truly a prophetic quality...
...r "YI7HAT the American people want," Culbert-son told this writer, "is a complete plan of action for the world settlement to come...
...Hitler, apparently, failed to foresee this situation—just as he was blind to many other things...
...No sooner did he complete his draft than a period of "testing" began...
...It is thinkable that the Third Reich may turn Socialist if enough time should be given it...
...The World Federation Plan will be made public throughout the world...
...The master was at work on another "grand slam...
...Let us contemplate for a moment the picture of the worst that can happen...
...Philippe Barres is the eon of the great writer, Maurice Barres, who was an individualistic anarchist in his youth and later turned into a reactionary nationalist...
...GERMANY and the world owe a twofold debt to the German Social Democracy...
...There is a Co-operative of Nations, an eleven-state Regionalism, a World Federation, and a sombre controlling principle which holds that ¦"only an adequate world-organized military force, and a new economic approach can effectively deal with the evils of war and fascism...
...It Is almost ten years since the voice of the great people's movement has been heard in Germany, the voice which denounced in advance most loudly, truly and fearlessly the horrors Which accompanied and followed Hitlerism...
...A reader unprovided with knowledge or critical apparatus has no means of verifying the assertions, the references, the facts confusedly jumbled in the text...
...It will serve as an excellent introduction to the understanding of Charles Peguy, child of the people, great writer and poet, French patriot, Christian mystic, faithful socialist...
...After the experiences of the last World War he prophesied that mass-wars of the future would lay low the victors alongside the vanquished...
...Nations until the machinery of peace is ? smooth operation...
...Take for granted that in some imaginable way he achieves a victory, wears down his opponents, separates their various fronts—or wins out by any other turn of fortune...
...But it remains to be seen whether the master wiH ?» able to finesse around historical realities...
...It may last a long time...
...It is the end of ten years which have seemed like a thousand...
...In the meantime, this biography by Mr...
...I am more in agreement with your plan than with any other...
...Max Eastman said: ". . . Culbertson has boldly met...
...Social Democracy was not the creator of the intellectual and spiritual transformation, a change which—in the very nature of things— could not be manufactured...
...This socialist was also a patriot, but a patriot who was equaled by no other in the purity of his sentiments and his love of the working people...
...This socialist was, moreover, a Christion, but a Christian who did not go to church, who had a horror of religious pretentions and who lived in the utmost simplicity according to his principles and his faith...
...They stooped to the level of taking vengeance on.the democrats and socialists and participated openly in racial persecutions...
...Tie The Social Democrats never ran off the trade on the side of idiotic cleverness...
...Nevertheless, we are safe in saying that Hitler's thousand years have gone down in blood and fire...
Vol. 26 • January 1943 • No. 3
