LOSER TAKE ALL
Mayer, Milton
LOSER TAKE ALL By Milton Mayer Frankfurt, Germany In 1944 General Eisenhower of SHEAF said, "The war-making power of Germany should be eliminated." In 1946 Secretary of State James F. Byrnes...
...The reason for the long delay in the delivery of the American arms was the length of time it took the Social Democrats to deliver the German people into the embrace of militarism, which had, so recently, been the cornerstone of German totalitarianism, German war, and German ruin...
...Martin in his analysis of the amendments, "before now have set out to democratize their armies—and have had subsequent cause to regret their good intentions...
...37,000 former captains and lieutenants...
...The rubble in most of the cities is gone...
...And this is the undemocratized, unreoriented, and unreeducated Germany that everyone wants to reunify...
...Last month the Germans were rearmed...
...The amendments go on and on...
...H. G. Martin, analyzing them in the London Telegraph, said: "One wonders: how will all this work out...
...We better go easy...
...Manual labor—skilled and unskilled —is in desperately short supply because of the drive to get into the white-collar class...
...pick yourself up and get going again, with the help of those you attacked...
...I love Germany and the Germans —but, heck, I love everywhere and everybody...
...Sergeant lipreads constitutional amendments to Soldier's Bill, his brow furrowed, as (Curtain falls) Such is the German capacity for hallucination that the constitutional amendments were debated with what Schopenhauer would call tierischer Ernst, bovine seriousness, before they were passed...
...And withal, Germany is the richest country in Europe today, except for Sweden and Switzerland...
...Sergeant: Well, Private Schmidt-O'Reilly, you've got an idea there, but the Intelligence Service is still mopping up in Philadelphia...
...The interval between yesterday and today had to be long enough for Chancellor Adenauer to soften up the Germans for rearmament—and to put the Social Democrats in the position where their followers would say, "Why, yes, you told us that yesterday...
...Sergeant: Well, it is a bit of a— what shall I say?—all around...
...In other words, more than 75 per cent of the applicants, including, of course, all the officer applicants, have been members of Hitler's Wehrmacht, which was, I suppose it is unnecessary to add, not an Army of Field Marshals...
...The really rich are the new speculators—and, of course, the old Krupps...
...The employers want to protect their labor supply (they're paying bonuses now for new workmen, even though unemployment, in a nation of 48 million, was 1,827,241 on March 1, up 13,000 in the past year...
...Firing squad (ad lib): What did she say...
...Everyone respects the Germans...
...Let 'em have it...
...the Adenauer coalition had lost its two-thirds majority in both Houses...
...and then throw yourself on the market, like a Hessian, and let your old victims outbid each other for your services...
...After 1945 every German was anti-militarist...
...MILTON MAYER, a regular contributor to The Progressive, is now in Germany as part of a year-long study of conditions in Europe...
...Even before the Soldier's Bill was passed, in March, there were 204,000 applications...
...Well, I guess that does itl Such cheekl The filthy American swine...
...And the German tragedy abides...
...Sergeant: Well, Private Schmidt-O'Reilly, they are all Communists, Jews, Gypsies, and Ukranians, that we know, for sure...
...They would deliver the two-thirds majority when it was required, and vote nay when it wasn't...
...We better...
...They had done it before, in 1914, when they voted the Kaiser's war credits...
...bank loans for building are now forbidden...
...The neutralist movement never had a following...
...The question is not unanswerable...
...This very old blind woman, for instance...
...Do they like remilitarization or don't they...
...Without a firm code of discipline based on the authority and prestige of its officers and N.C.O.'s, an army will soon become a rabble...
...Firing squad: Sure, sergeant...
...Firing squad has killed Peorians, trampled their bodies with their boots, kicked them into grave...
...West Germany's present projected force, for a beginning, is greater than that with which Hitler overran the Lowlands and France in 1940...
...he had to be, in logic, of course, but, more compulsively, as a reflex...
...The Germans knew they couldn't, shouldn't, and didn't want war any more, because everybody else knew it for them...
...Private: I beg your pardon, sergeant...
...and 47,000 men with no previous service...
...like the German Junker and the American Socialists in 1939, they put the defense of the Fatherland first...
...I attended one such meeting, in a town of 50,000, and there were three or four hundred people present, all of whom knew each other...
...the United States after the Doolittle experiment in democratization of 1946...
...But what about the others...
...But white-collar workers are sinking, as they are everywhere, and in Germany their situation is acutely bad, as is that of the farmers with five hectares or less...
...it is unaskable...
...sure don't wanna get shot, you can understand that, fellows, can't you...
...Schmidt-O'Reilly: Well, I dunno, sir, but I thought I'd just ask before we fired...
...Well, gentlemen, I see we have a problem here, a problem, I think I may say, of considerable gravity...
...If it is, and if we obey it, the Americans will hang us...
...I am not sure that this order is not an offense against human dignity...
...Scene: Peoria, 111., June, 1983...
...Sergeant: I see how you feel, Private Schmidt-O'Reilly, and I must say, I see a certain amount of merit in your position...
...3. The subordinate is, however, to be held responsible if he mistakenly assumes that an order is incorrect on these grounds and refuses to obey it...
...The new German army—armies, rather, East and West—will be the best and biggest and best-equipped that Germany ever had, because they are being established by the two richest and most powerful and most reckless nations in history...
...The volunteer forces—preceding conscription of 500,000 men—are to total 150,000...
...And it will not be an Army of Field Marshals...
...After all, even Harry Truman (who won the biggest war in history, dropped the atom bomb on open cities, horned America in on its first war in Asia, and ordered up the hydrogen bomb) was saying, after 1945, "There must never be another war...
...The labor and farm organizations want exemptions...
...Inflation is just getting under way on a large scale...
...The armaments had been ready and waiting, free of charge, for a long time...
...The Social Democrats opposed the rearmament of Germany because, after all, they were Social Democrats...
...111,000 former non-coms and men...
...But they guessed they had to have it because the Leader said so and the great political parties —bureaucracies with a following to which, and never from which, all arguments flow—said so...
...You don't educate people by hanging them and starving them...
...in 1954 the report leaked out of Washington that the United States had a $250,000,000 weapons stockpile plus a $100,000,000 food stockpile for six German divisions...
...but the constitutional amendments to the bill required a two-thirds majority, so the Social Democrats voted for them...
...and only then could they produce it in collaboration with their detested opponents, the ruling coalition under Adenauer...
...Sergeant: Just a minute, men, just a minute...
...If the subordinate nevertheless obeys the order, he is guilty only if he realizes, or, if under circumstances known to him at the time, it was obvious that such a crime or offense was being committed...
...Schiklgruber-Maloney in front of the bakery yesterday and uttered words so treasonable that I hesitate to repeat them in a mixed company of non-coms and privates...
...Why, that one, over there (pointing to a small boy), threw a cream-puff at Lieut...
...In 1949, Chancellor Adenauer of the new German Federal Republic pledged his Government's "earnest determination to maintain the demilitarization of the federal territory and to endeavor by all means in its power to prevent the recreation of armed forces of any kind...
...the fact that they were nonsense was overridden, such is the German constitutionality, by the fact that they were constitutional...
...They came from 9,000 ex-officers of the rank of major upwards...
...Of course, there were never again going to be any German soldiers or, for that matter, any war, so the principle was established only to appease the American professors of international law who had spent so much time inventing it...
...Germany is rearmed again, faster than any nation in history (including its own history) because all the arms were ready and waiting, free of charge, as soon as Chancellor Adenauer and his Loyal Opposition, the Social Democrats, got the new— now the old—German Constitution re-written...
...Just a minute, fellows...
...You know how it is...
...Very old blind woman: I never did nothing...
...As for their individual acts of war against us, I must confess that I do not have their records in full...
...The amendments—sponsored by the Social Democrats—create a German army consisting entirely of field marshals...
...And such is the English capacity for equilibrium that Lt...
...Everything they all said turned out, very rapidly, to be a lie...
...What the Germans debate is how they can avoid conscription personally, or get the cushiest possible job, or make the most money out of the rearmament...
...Here it is...
...Of course the new German Army of Field Marshals will not operate according to the amendments...
...To say that all these good and great men were lying is not to say that any one of them is a liar...
...Firing squad: Nein...
...But there it stood, on paper...
...an Italian, a Spanish, even a French employer will grab a German worker or clerk because he knows he can count on his industry, efficiency, and honesty...
...If you haven't, I happen to have a copy in my tunic...
...Schmidt-O'Reilly: I say shoot him down like a puppy, sir...
...You see, Hitler ordered the German field marshals to commit crimes against humanity, and the field marshals obeyed, and the Americans hanged them at Nuremberg for obeying orders and established an international law that the winners shall hang the losers for obeying orders...
...a dilemma, indeed, from which he could escape only by remaining forever putative...
...Schmidt-O'Reilly: Sure, sergeant, we understand, sir, but, like I say, we don't want to get hanged by the Americans, if they win, so we gotta be careful...
...Nobody debates remilitarization, any more than anybody in America debates the militarization of America...
...The constitutional Amendments— fourteen of them—required a two-thirds majority of the German Parliament to override the Supreme Court...
...Sergeant:—have sought to impede the progress of the Democratic German Wehrmacht across the United States in its military purpose of liberating the oppressed American people...
...Ill Bear with me, now, and read, and then re-read, these three amendments covering the new German soldier's obligation not to obey orders: 1. An order must not be obeyed if a crime or an offense against human dignity would thereby be committed...
...They got to mop up in Joisey City and Toledo and Pittsburgh and some other places, so they won't get here for another six months...
...but the report is absolutely valid and is nowhere challenged in Germany...
...It took them so long to deliver the German people because of the terror that besets every German (and American) politician: that his followers will some day say, "But you told us the opposite yesterday...
...So we may say that they are positively guilty only of elision...
...2. There is no disobedience in the non-execution of an order which offends human dignity or is not given for military purposes...
...the Germany that was going to be democratized, and reoriented, and reeducated...
...This is the New Germany, established, not by the Old Nazis or the New Ones (who amounted to nothing), but by the United States of America, in cooperation with the U.S.S.R...
...Maybe you have your hands full educating yourself...
...Schmidt-O'Reilly: Well, then, sergeant, I guess we just gotta wait for them...
...Union wages are high...
...Private: Just a minute, sergeant...
...A few months ago, when the German government suddenly discovered the tremendous gains of the Communists in the factories, there was an American tendency to put quotation marks around "discovery" on the suspicion that anybody who wants more money, more men, and more guns from America has to discover great Communist gains...
...Our Panzer division made it here from Cleveland last night, and we've only been here half an hour...
...but neither do you educate them by giving them guns for their birthday, when that is how they got to be ignorant in the first place...
...Far from it...
...Each should have interpolated the words "this afternoon" or, at the very least, "for the next ten minutes...
...We don't none of us wanna monkey around with these constitutional amendments...
...In the Paris treaties Germany undertook not to produce atomic weapons...
...off duty he will salute only certain officers of his own unit...
...So they had to persuade their followers that they could no longer prevent it...
...I call your attention to the third amendment, which indicates, if I read it right, that if you are mistaken in your invocation of the first two, I must have you shot, aber gleich...
...Sergeant (reads...
...get yourself beaten all bloody and blue...
...They don't debate it...
...Other governments," said Lt...
...In 1946 Secretary of State James F. Byrnes said, "It is not in the interest of the German people or in the interest of world peace that Germany should become a pawn or partner in a military struggle for power between East and West...
...if he obeyed, and the superior ordered him to commit a crime against humanity, the Americans would hang him after the war...
...Sergeant: I been to Milwaukee, so I understand pretty good English, and she said, "We all say, death to the invadersl" Firing squad (ad lib): Did you hear that, fellows...
...After they were passed they were not, of course, any longer debated...
...IV Meanwhile communism—real communism—is rising spectacularly in the Ruhr and the big cities of the north, especially in such works as Opel, where the labor conditions are bad...
...The West-East traffic of returning refugees—the American government has never produced any figures or estimates—is greater all the time, with disillusion in the West's refugee camps, amnesty granted by all the Eastern countries, and intense propaganda by the Russian "Committee for Return to the Homeland...
...And such is the American capacity for mumbo-jumbo, all of it in the name of democracy, that the Americans forced the whole thing on Adenauer, who, losing ground steadily because of his dictatorial tendencies, forced it on the Germans...
...But everyone is afraid of them, and everyone (not least of all the hard-pressed English) resents what seems to be the current lesson: Go N azi and attack the world...
...II The amendments to the bill were the funniest thing—if you think that anything is funny any more-—that has happened in a long time anywhere, and the funniest thing that has ever happened in the country that invented Prussianism...
...it will be a German army...
...Lemme read these constitutional amendments to the Soldier's Bill again...
...Serceant: Fire, you swine...
...Everyone admires their virtues...
...then, to firing squad): Hmmm...
...When the German Parliament passed the Soldier's Bill last month, it established a volunteer army (to be followed immediately by a Conscription Bill), and the new German soldier's last chance to remain putative was gone...
...Sergeant: Fire...
...At least somebody did...
...They didn't want remilitarization and they don't want it now...
...I must confess, I'm stumped...
...This obviously put the putative German soldier in a dilemma...
...the Germany that was going to be demilitarized forever...
...On duty the private will salute his superiors only once a day...
...If he refused to obey, his superior would have him shot immediately...
...If, on paper, there should ever again be a German soldier (which, of course, there never would be), he would have to decide whether to obey each order given him by his superior...
...The constitutional amendments to the Soldier's Bill were all-important because they would also cover the Conscript Law, and the Social Democrats, who believe in Democracy, sponsored the Amendments (which were constitu-tionalized in the Lower House by a vote of 390 to 20) to establish the Democratic Army, or Army of Field Marshals...
...German firing squad with American-made machine-guns face them, under command of sergeant...
...The present figure—the leak has reached the "semi-official" or "Defense Ministry spokesman" stage—is the free delivery to the Germans of half the heavy equipment for 12 divisions, plus half the jet aircraft for 18 combat wings, plus free passage and instruction in the United States for former German officers wanting refresher training...
...Schmidt-O'Reilly: And I just ast myself who these people are and what they done...
...Small boy is shot down like a puppy...
...The truth is that an army is not a democratic institution...
...Nowadays we find out what is happening to us when something leaks...
...The "Soldier's Bill," for instance, which actually established the new German Army, required only a simple majority, so the Social Democrats were free to vote against it...
...it hasn't debated rearmament in five years...
...as at home, the great farm programs have done a lot for the big farmer, almost nothing for the little one...
...Every company is to choose its representative by secret ballot to speak for his comrades...
...It has been officially announced in Washington, London, and Paris that no such action is contemplated...
...Superior officers are to exercise the authority of their rank only when they are on duty...
...Then we'll know...
...The age-old hostility to Germany —the Germany which so recently set Europe on fire and burned half of it down—is reviving all over Europe...
...I'm sure you fellows understand, don't you, fellows...
...Now, Private Schmidt-O'Reilly, do I understand you to take the position that the execution of these Enemies of the Fifth Reich would be a crime, an offense against human dignity, or a demonstrable disservice to the military purpose...
...IV And what do the Germans think of this second New Germany in ten years...
...A couple of hundred Peorians, women, children, and old men are lined up on the edge of a mass grave which they have dug...
...Sergeant: Well, Private Schmidt-O'Reilly, if you put it that way, I am able to inform you that Peoria is a hotbed of communism and these are the ringleaders, who, in addition to placing every possible ideological obstacle in the glorious path of National Socialism— Firing squad (hisses): Hsssss...
...The Soviet government had to learn this the hard way after the October Revolution...
...But when they said it, it may have been true...
...a year ago Edward Corsi, after his resignation from the State Department, discovered in Europe that at least 100,000 refugees had returned to the East in the four or five years past, and the rate has certainly risen since...
...We don't wanna get in no trouble, do we, fellows...
...I guess we'll just have to bivouac here until, well, let's see, December, and then we won't be able to press forward until spring, and the lieutenant told me to take Des Moines by July 15 or I'd be shot...
...In 1950 General Eisenhower of NATO said: "If the Allies were to rearm the Germans, they would be repudiating a whole series of agreements...
...But the German privates obeyed the orders of the field marshals to commit crimes against humanity, so they, too, had to be hanged (or otherwise rebuked) under international law...
...This is the Germany that was destroyed in World War II...
...its gold reserve the highest, its currency the firmest...
...I presume you have read the constitutional amendments to the Soldier's Bill of 1956...
...it has less of a following now...
...So the principle was established at Nuremberg that no German soldier should ever again obey orders, on penalty of being hanged by the Americans after the Americans won the war...
...We don't wanna get in no trouble with nobody...
...they are neutralists, but you don't find them attending neutralist meetings to hear such one-time anti-Nazi heroes as Pastor Niemoller plead for peace...
...The German Student Union, representing 140,000 university students, fights for deferment of students...
...Maybe you don't educate people...
...Firing squad: Sure...
...this little fantasy has now reached the stage of Defense Minister Blank's assertion of the new German army's right to use "weapons of all kinds which are at the disposal of Germany's allies or of a potential enemy...
...Seems to me like the only safe way all around is to bring up the Intelligence Service and interrogate them, get their family backgrounds, all their activities up to last night, and so on...
...like everything else in Germany, since the American demilitarization and denazification (followed instantly by the American militarization and nazi-fication), the amendments are window-dressing for the Social Democratic vote at home and the professors of international law abroad...
...But the minute the wind changed they went to pieces...
...The Congress of University Rectors wants installations and projects...
...so the Social Democrats made a deal with their detested opponents of the Right...
Vol. 20 • May 1956 • No. 5
