LETTERS To the Editor
LETTERS To the Editor Paul Tillich and Ruth Fischer Debate "Council on Democratic Germans" From PAUL TILLICH (k air man. Council for a Democratic Germany. To the Editor: The article,...
...In my recent book, "America's Role in Asia," I said specifically (page 441) with regard to the Congress Party's aim "to replace the British Empire in India," that— ". . . this was a demand that the Congress could not possibly enforce on ether Indians by its own powers...
...It is obvious today, in the fifth year of the second world war...
...The article numbers our council among the "Free Germany Committees" constructed about the Moscow center...
...With regard to "backwardness," there see progressive Hindus as well as Moslems, and backward Moslems as well as Hindus...
...the reverse was more likely...
...The "Council" should have given in its initial declaration a precise point of view on the Free German Committee in Moscow, clarifying its position on the Moscow plan to use large parts of the German Army, generals and officers, which should cooperate with the German Communists for the future Stalinization of Germany...
...They avoid carefully any allusion to the von SeydlitzPieck-Junker-Communist Committee...
...Bohn, half-seriously suggesting an editorial...
...Our Council has no connection whatsoever with these committees...
...There was also a misrepresentation of my attitude in one of William E. Bonn'a columns...
...Professor Tillich himself has taken such a leading and active role in the happy conclusion of the deal that the inaccuracy of such a pronouncement can be easily checked...
...From RUTH FISCHER To the Editor: Mr...
...Harry Paxton Howard States His Political Views From HARRY PAXTON HOWARD To the Editor: Because I believe that my position on various issues was somewhat distorted in articles and letters in several past issues of The New Leader, I should like to offer the following comments and restatements of my views: Robert James Harrison, in a letter arguing that "the Soviet Union offers the greatest hope to the workers of Eastern Poland," asserts that "H...
...While not ready to make cheep factionslist predictions as is the author of the article, the members of the Council believe that, as in Italy, in Germany after the defeat of the Nazis," new democratic parties will emerge, heirs of the former movements...
...I was Hitler's first American victim in Shanghai, where the Nazis in 1933—immediately following the burning of the Reichstag, and my pointedly accurate comments on the event—demanded my dismissal from the editorship of the China Press thpre...
...Decent people congratulated me when the contemptible Israel Amter devoted three articles in the verminous Daily Worker mainly to quotations and misquotations from me—¦ trying to make it appear, as Bohn by greasy "indirection" tried to make it appear, that I was one of those who want peace with Hitler and Fascism...
...And in the same issue Bill Bohn, rebuking Oswald Garrison Villard and other pacifists for calling upon God to witness the inhuman saturation bombing of Germany and the occupied countries, said: "It is a pity that God has no chance to make an appropriate reply...
...This is quite the contrary of the truth...
...I am one of those who believes that "to desire peace with Nazism and Fascism means to curse mankind...
...The fabulous production figures forecast bs>* not been realized, hy far...
...The Ford Company itself is the chief obstacle to decent social life in this srea...
...These men are not only connected with the German Communist apparatus in tha United States, rather large and wellentrenched in the American milieu, but bound to the Moscow center...
...The Council is neither nationalist nor has it made any statement concerning East Prussia...
...I understand you're neighbors...
...Russian, or any other variety...
...Professor Tillich wants to underline especially the separaticn of his Council from the Walter von Seydlitz-Wilhelm Pleck committee In Moscow...
...The Council is emphatically not "deeply convinced that all Europe will be Stalinist...
...The technical planning was successful, but the human, social aspects were ignored...
...Bohn was so good as to term my "diabolic grin" meant—asserted Bohn— that "You fallows who believe in fighting Hitler to the death are nothing but hypocrites...
...The article states as our aims, to organise "a large pressure movement in the United States, to influence a future peace treaty with Germany, which will be favorable to the Russian-German p licy...
...The long-lasting negotiations inside the German political emigration with the key men of the German Communist Party in New York are already too well-known...
...In fact, it would not have come into being if it thought the future was decided in this way...
...the Nazi beasts, the Communist butchers...
...But Professor Tillich and his Council prefer to swim in generalizations about "democracy...
...I have never at an time made any such statement In fact, when the British first came to India, the Moslem minority was ruling the Hndu majority...
...Having spent most of my adult life in despotic countries, and seen the unspeakable misery of the common people there, I KNOW...
...The Moslems are fully convinced that they can get more by their good right arms than they can by ballots, if the Hindus ever want to try it that way...
...My own position is clear, as it has been at ALL times: There can be NO peace with Fascism or any other form of totalitarian despotism — whether of the German,' Italian...
...Harrison Introduces Oak and Bohn to God To the Editor: In last week's issue of The New Leader Liston Oak wrote: "In arguing foi a reversal of the pacifist stand of the Methodist Church, one clergyman maintained that 'God himself has a stake in the struggle.' Which' this impious department thinks is the funniest remark of the week...
...They are under tha iron diseipline of the Stalinist party...
...The striking fact of the new "Council" is its cooperation with well-known, outstanding Germsn Communists of long Stalinist training...
...I have fought for democracy— for freedom, justice, and the Rights of Man—throughout my life, and intend to continue doing so—whatever the cost to me...
...It is a conviction which I have heM throughout, and have consistently expressed not merely in democratic America, but in places where it was personally dangerous...
...It is utterly unfsir to present the "Council for s Democratic Germany" as an "independent" body, standing alone in the shining armor of real democracy in the midst of antagonistic forces of the East and West...
...With regard to the former, wa should remember such splendid figures ss the lste Rsbindrsnath Tagore, as well ss such men as Sapru today...
...that the bestformulated declarations have to be looked upon with regard to their political background and with regard to their organizational setup...
...I am NOT a believer in "peace at ANY price...
...No "majority" will be decisive in such a combination where the Russian influence must prevail...
...The factory has not delivered the goods...
...This is not a recent conviction with me, determined by the generous handouts of official or other propaganda funds...
...I am, dear sirs and brothers, fraternally yours, Char/es fait Harrison...
...Its members, all tested and proved anti-nationalists, stand out against dismemberment in their declaration in the following words: "It would be disastrous for the future of Europe if Germany were to be dismembered, and #plit up economically and politically...
...He suddenly "meshed s lot of things in his mind"— particularly Dr...
...I gave a. pre-Christmas talk at the Labor Temple on "A New Foreign Policy—Peace on Earth...
...And so the connection between the Communists and the Tillich Council comes out very clearly...
...Paxton Howard once remarked, that, if India were given her independence, the extremely backward Hindus would exterminate the progressive Moslem minority...
...Berger writes: "Anti-Fascist German Council—Late But Welcome...
...To the Editor: The article, entitled "Stalin Prepares a German Government," in your issue of May 6, in dealing with the Council for a Democratic Germany, misrepresents completely the character and the aims of this group...
...I am not responsible, of tpurie, for the workings of Mr...
...The article calls the Council "neonationalist" ready "to sacrifice East Prussia" for the Russian-German solution...
...the "Americans" (and ex Communists trying to become ''Americans") whose like - mindedness with the evil forces just mentioned hat been demonstrated by their similar attempts to shut me up, to oust me from papers and magazines, to slander, "smear," and libel me...
...That Is a rather risky statement...
...All other representatives in the Council— Catholics, democrats, intellectuals — reflect nothing else than their rather confused political opinions and present only their powerless personalities, most of them disintegrated by the defeat of 1933 in Germany, and by the depressing political zigzag of eleven years of emigration...
...It is ridiculous to pretend that in a committee including Communists acting under the strict control of the Russian machinery and, in addition, in the spotlight of the Red Army victories, the German democrats will have the same weight and influence...
...The Council has, for these reasons, been set up as a joint committee of independent persons, connected in one way or another with all of these tendencies...
...The labor turnover is 4,500 monthly...
...Hartmann's "Peace Now" movement—and proceeded to write in his column that in my "proposal" was "an important moral implication " What Mr...
...Bohn...
...My position, indeed, is attested to by the character of my enemies: the Japanese militarists...
...Absenteeism is unchecked, production is crippled...
...On that occasion the misrepretensation was by indirection...
...Alber H. Schreiner, Felix Boehnheim, Bert Brecht, etc., etc., sre not "independent" persons who represent s "tendency" mirroring future political tendencies in post-Hitler Germany, as Professor Tillich writes with such a surprising attitude of apparent "naivete...
...The Germsn Communist Hans Berger contradicts Professor Tillich's statement in the 'Daily Worker of May 8, 1944...
...Psul Tillich's remarks on my article misrepresent completely the central point of my criticsl analysis...
...Good Will to Men...
...My recent book convinced mors than one person that peace may at times be negotiated with most evil purposes, and have most calamitous consequences...
...living conditions in the trailer-camps and tentcities are shocking...
...Democratic liberties are tremendously worth fighting for...
...Ford's Folly . . . Henry Ford's gigantic Willow Run aircraft plant is a veritable masterpiece of engineering—but a social fsilure...
...Nrr is it the aim of the Council to support a one-sided solution of the peace, (n its declaration the Council speaks out for an "east-west" solution as foll»ws: "Only through cooperation between the western powers and Russia, will it be possible to achieve the reconstruction of Europe . . . any kind of unilateral settlement of Europe imposed by the East or the West, would lay the foundation of new worldwide conflicts...
...They will certainly include Socialists, s .rial Democrats, trade unionists, Communists, Catholics, anti-Nazi Protestants, as they exist in nucleus in the underground movements today...
...Why don't you two guys get together some time...
...It is unnecessary even to mention the characterization of the members of the Council as given in the article...
...I mentioned the title to Mr...
...Ford refused to consider housing plsns...
...With regard to the latter, we may consider the Moslems associated with the Congress Party...
...Oak, meet Dr...
...It ia far better to die on one's feet thsn to live on one's knees...
...For these conditions the Michigan University faculty of medicine blsmes Ford...
...Long before that I had been the victim of the Japanese Imperial gangsters, who had deported me from Japan in 1922 following publication of my book on The Socialist and Labor Movement in Jajmn...
...Bohn et al were sitting safe and secure in the United States, where the Roosevelt Government was steadily building up and supplying the Japanese Imperialists in their war against China, was building up the Nazi military power from its near-zero in 1932 to its tremendous force of 1941-2...
...Vice snd disease sre rampant...
...In the meantime, they have accepted political democracy snd are making it work...
...Neither the members of the Council, nor the 57 outstanding Americans who have sponsored its first public declaration — about whom there is no mention in the article—intend to organize any pressure movement at all...
...He has either read none of my writings, or misunderstood them...
...I left Shanghai in May, 1941, because of my life being in danger as a result of my straightforwerd writings about treachery and double-dealing as a part of Japanese diplomatic hist ry All of this, while Mr...
...Both of these allegations sre free inventions...
...Of course, Berger presents himself also camouflaged as a genuine democrat and depicts the .Council as "an honest attempt to help the United Nations...
...You may rest assured, however, thst the membership includes neither "chorus girls" nor "capitalists" nor OGPU agents...
...He was saying to me that the pacifists are the only real Christians...
...Bohn's mind...
...If British forces were withdrawn frost India and the Indian Army disarmed...
...I simply wish to note, however, that I am one of the "fellows who believe in fighting Hitler to the death...
...Bohn, Mr...
...The 150.000,000 caste Hindus of British India could not conquer the 80,000.009 self-reliant Moslems of those areas with their fighting traditions...
...When it does not actively obstruct, »t pursues a negative policy of non-cooperation...
...Mr...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 21
