LETTERS To the Editor
LETTERS To the Editor Basque Leader Comments on Serge Article on Spain From MANUEL DE LA SOTA Of the Botque Delegation in USA. An article by Victor Sorgo appeared in Tbe New Leader of May 13...
...It is wrong for Mr...
...The result is that many thousands have perished on the exploded ships snd many have been sent to the Maritius Island and to this day no word has been received as to their fate...
...soldiers fought on, inspite snd not because of the 'blood-stained revolutionary committee in Paris, when it looked as if their country would be crushed—just si the -German* fight on today, not because of but inspite of Hitler...
...They concede to them (as my friend did) the honor and th* glory which come with the fight and the death of every soldier...
...I recall that I was the first volunteer worker two year* before our S.D.F...
...But more than three million Jew* of Europe havi been ilaughtered by Hitler for no reason but that they were Jews...
...The Basques," says Serge, "are entirely different (.from the Catalans...
...Serge's lack of information prevents him from realizing the importance for the future of the fact that the Basque Bishop Monsig...
...The post Hitler Germany of which I tpeak is the German people itself—the first victim of Hitlerism, and its first opponent, at a time when to pactize with Hitler waa atill the generally accepted mode of life, commanded by "expediency...
...suffered in their holy city of Guernika the first test of total drstruction'by the German bombers...
...My entire concept of peace and reconstruction rests upon the liberation of all countries from foreign rule, aa a prerequisite for the establishment of an international Commonwealth, under the rule of Morality and atable laws...
...And, finally, after the appointment of the committee on sating the Jews by Roosevelt, the British have shut the gates in the face of the Jews in the midst of the crisis...
...Soloveitchik takes exception...
...Soloveitchik expresses misgivings because I did not mention the "punishment of the guilty...
...Also the question of dissrmament hit, according to Mr...
...And finally we waat to have a Government sach as the one presided over by Dr...
...In a way it ia certainly worthwhile to re-read Edmund Burke's famoua work on the terror of those dayt...
...In the present conflict the problem should be particularly clear...
...Serge says about the Vatican...
...This can hardly be called "seeking a Greater Germany...
...As I have explained in many writings, the above mentioned Papal Peace Program, te which I adhere unconditionally, provide* that all nation* must be freed from th* slavery of armaments...
...Prince Loewenstein Replies to Critic on Peace Terms for Reich From Prince HUBERTUS ZU LOEWENSTEIN To the Editor: In a "Letter to the Editor" (New Leader, May 13, 1944), Mr...
...However, should Mr...
...We want to continue being a country which prohibits the priest from becoming a member ef the Basque Parliament, as our Constitution did until 1839, in the period In which absolutism and inquisition reigned In Spain...
...To this Mr...
...According to the Papal Peace Program (adopted by all denominations in Great Britain and America) and the Atlantic Charter, all nations, large and small, victors and vanquished alike, are entitled to their freedom, their territory, their political, cultural and economic independence...
...His additional statements, however, require clarification...
...The German people, long ago, might have brought the Nazi leaders to trial for whatever crimes they have committed: high treason against the Constitution of Weimar, murder, robbery, theft, etc.—had it not been for all the encouragement and aid from abroad, which kept the regime in power...
...Mr...
...Soloveitchik, escaped my attention...
...We hope to continue to he a country where the leftist respect* tbe priest, and where the priest is not only a democrat but agrees with tile socialist in many of his social reforms...
...Also my plea for the Eastern nationa has not .passed unchallenged...
...When Eng...
...The Basque National Party," adda Mr...
...Again I can assure him that this i* not the case...
...It reminds us strongly of certain far more recent phenomena...
...Protests British Action on Jews From MRS...
...Logically thit means aa understanding between the former enemies, as soon si hostilities cease...
...they are reactionaries...
...Aguirre formed a Government of National Union, the Communists also had their reprcaentative, but he waa expelled from the Communist Party because he followed the lines of the Basque Government snd refused to obey the contradictory orders of the Communist Party, Concerning the representation of the great industrialists that Mr...
...Speaking of a young English friend of mine, who has been killed in action, I wrote: "In hi* noble and knightly spirit I hsd seen much thst endow* the Occidents...
...Chamberlain, depriving us to this date of our property...
...What we Basques will never imitate is that aggressive intolerance which is one of the causes of the Spanish loss of prestige...
...But expediency, at we know by now, breeds war...
...The Basques demand that their will as a people be respected in the future as they respect other peoples' will...
...If he means a people who, like the Baaque, fought against franco...
...And the Basque*, in spite of being ¦ Cstholic people in tbe majority, rose once more against such sn obnoxiou* confusion of spiritual and political interests, to such an extent that they have been considered Franco'* enemy number one...
...Neither can peace be secure, unless the Rspallo-policy between Russia and Germany, as initiated by Walter Rathenau and continued by Gustav Stresemann, be renewed after Hitler'* fall...
...land fought the Nasi* lone-handed w* American* ware not only in sympathy but helped with lend-lease and privst* help from aN well-meaning people...
...Serge to the America n reader passionately projects their divisions and quarrels...
...Tbe cause of the Spanish democrats ss presented by Mr...
...Unless thi* batic aim be now denied, we must admit that once Hitleriam ia destroyed peace ahould be the logical result...
...As Dr...
...lost 62,000 men, either dead, wounded or imprisoned, from the 116,000 that composed the Basque Army...
...Until now it waa currently believed that the Vatican favored General Franco...
...Serge does not know that Dr...
...Thus, our Government awaits the day when the Spanish democrats in exile, laying aside their quarrels, unite under a single authority to cooperinate the effort* of the Iberian peoples against the commen enemy...
...And now let us consider what Mr...
...It it not a quettion ef reactionaries er liberal*, Vaticanism or anti-clericalism, but limply a problem ef national liberty, the same a* la Poland, Eire aad Czechoslovakia formerly...
...The Basque Government is constituted by Catholic democrats, by left-wing democrats and by socialists and is backed by the- Christian, socialist and syndicalist trade unions...
...Samton M. Soloveitschik ha* gone to great pains in repeating some conditions for a just peace, as outlined by me in an article "International Morality v...
...I said that the French...
...For it it ea»y for Franco to make dialectical propaganda on the ground that the Suaniih "Reds" burnt down churche* and butchered priests, but it is difficult for him to defend himself against the Basque* in whose country auch things never happened, because the Basque people heard their priests preaching the Holy Gospel and not politics...
...Of course, I believe in an understanding between the Western Powers and Poland on one side, and post-Hitler Germany on the other...
...M HOFFHAM T* the Editor: There is a limit to loyalty...
...In the First World War, we loat more than 160,000 tona of ahips ia the service of the Allied cause, and for thia reason my father waa made Knight Commander of the Britiah Empire...
...Any other view ' would pervert Kant's concept ef "Perpetual Peace"—so far considered essentual for civilization—into a cry for "Perpetual War," something which reason rejects and morality abhors...
...world and its youth, on whatever side they may now have to fight, with undying glory...
...After the stab in the bark at Pearl Harbor there was no limit to the .sin...
...Aguirre, we suppose he refers to tbe Baaque industrialists who, after being deprived of all their property by Franco, are now in priaon or in exile...
...had 60,000 more of their men and women in prisons and concentration camps...
...It is, however, a remarkable fact, that those who do the actual fighting and dying are free from hate and vituperations against their adversaries...
...Soloveitchik thinks that I have made an undue comparison between tbe French Revolution and the Nail regime...
...Serge, 'whose leader Jose Aguirre . . . has the reputation of representing the great industrialists who are Catholics and tied to the policies of the Vatican...
...Tbe underaigned belongs to a family of very well-known industrialists and shipowners in the Baaque Country nnd Spain...
...Com promi aed or no by the unwise position of the Spanish Hierarchy which from tho beginning backed th* "motorized Christian civilisation,'' the Vatican morally supported General Franco...
...cerity snd hard work for the Allies...
...An article by Victor Sorgo appeared in Tbe New Leader of May 13 under the title f'ereoneJtfiri and Trend* Among Political Refugee* in Mexico...
...Soloveitchik think that in my opinion a thoroughy republican and democratic Germany, firmly integrated into a European Commonwealth, will be morally greater than anything that would seek blood vengeance and conquest—then indeed I would have to own up to the truth of his assertion: it is precisely such a Germany, conscious once more of her millenisl Christian duties of peace and morality, for whose sake I have gone into exile, now ever eleven yesrs sgo...
...Expediency" (New Leader, April 15, 1944...
...There was no protest from any nation nor help in selfdefence...
...Serge to set our ease apart from that of the Catalans, for they cannot be so different since recently the Baaquet have been made the arbitrators in the differences among the Catalani for the formation of a National Government...
...Jose Antonio de Aguirre ia not the leader of any party but the President of the Baaque Government, freely elected by the Baaque people, which lead the war against Franco and ia now in exile directing the anti-Franco activities or the Baaquea in Europe and elsewhere...
...Since then blood is being shed by all regardlea* of race, color or creed...
...Of robrse, should international courts be created some day, the prosecution should subpoena—at least as material witnesses—also those who by appeasement or plans of hatred and destruction have supported the Nazi cause, thut contributing to slavery and prolonging the war...
...It i* a policy of friendship and economic understanding that excludes interferences with each other's home affairs...
...Aquirre, in which a tocialitt Secretary of Labor declared Good Friday a holiday because of the Catholic majority of the people, and the Catholic Secretaries proposed the socialization of several enterprises, a Government whose Secretaries never argued about social or religious questions because they agreed on the main subjects which make a nation free, prosperous, and happy...
...We continued fighting for democracy and- for our Government against Franco, and our ahipa, placed at the aervice of the Baaque Government, were used by the Secretary of the Merchant Marine, a socialist named Santiago Axnar —at present in Mexico—according to the norms of intervention in private enterprises laid down tor the emergency...
...went into exile with more than 150.000 of their citizens...
...Mujica and more than 600 priests went into exile with their people, that hundreds of Basque priests have been expelled from Basque territory to faraway dioceses, that 15 Basque priests were executed by Franco'* squads, and that our priests have shared the suffering of their people first on the battlefront as chaplaina and later in prisons and in exile...
...Soloveitchik seemi to object to any underttanding with post-Hitler Germany...
...The remainder who remained alive and had a chance to escape were prevented from landing in mandated Palestine by the British...
...We regret that auch misinformation should appear in a paper to which so many dittinguiehed writers contribute...
...Certainly, also the Eastern nationa cannot be deprived of these natural rights— st leaat not on the basis of Morality, although perhaps by "expediency...
...Besides, he shows ignorance of the Bssque problem...
...I have not...
...But wsrs sre waged with an eye on the future peace, a peace consisting of right relationships between all nation...
...All the Basques, both in our country and in exile, are united and duly organized under our legitimate Government In its fight for liberty and democracy, without internal quarrels or the formation of antagonistic national committees...
...They have also refused to grant visas, 45,000 of which have been kept by them and not used...
...I think that I can put his mind at eaae...
...Not only that...
...According to all official statements the war it waged to rid the world of Hi tier ism...
...I therefore protest as a Social Democrat and a Jew...
...Women'* Workshop was organised...
...Many of the Basque ships were in England when Franco won the war and our Sect waa turned over to him by the* Engliah Government of Mr...
...Serge confers on Dr...
...Even the diehards have joined in protest against the infamous injustice committed by the British in the last hour of hope...
...and thousands of whom were executed by the Spaniah totalitarian*, then we accept willingly the characterization of "reactionaries...
Vol. 27 • June 1944 • No. 23
