PROBLEM CHILD OF THE PEACE

...This "democratic revolution" should be orderly and without violent acts or revolutionary changes, "a politically acceptable revolution" with leaders approved by the victorious powers...

...But what will be the "new spirit" which is to pervade the former Nazi organizations when the Nazi fuehrers are replaced by American "top-sergeants," or of labor battalions which will be considered as a new slave army by unromantic Germans...

...This plan corresponds to the thesis of a "controlled democratic revolution," under the benevolent guidance of a foreign controlled administration...

...of course, be designed for most nations on earth by "selective methods" which omit all facts which do not sustain the thesis...

...The occupational authorities must "re-educate the Germans" for "democracy," or complete the democratic revolution which had failed in 1848...

...Will this happen again ? The postwar plans and policies suggested in books on "what to do with Germany" may be important because they stimulate our thinking about the postwar world, or because they reveal what kind of postwar world is wanted by the author or by influential pressure groups...

...The second fact is that those countries whose bourgeois democracy was more developed have never been in favor of bourgeois democratic movements abroad...

...After a removal of the old leaders and their replacement by new ones, these organizations are to be used as the means of "education for democracy," or "to form labor battalions . . . under a new name and with a new spirit...

...As a matter of historical record, three basic facts should be t noted: 1. No;country in the world has experienced a successful democratic bourgeois revolution since the great French Revolution...

...3. Completion of the "bourgeois revolution" has today no longer the same meaning as 100 years ago or in 1848...

...Their main argument is that the German people have been unable to complete the democratic bourgeois revolution in the past or to eradicate the feudal elements of the "absolute state...

...Thus the authors are against the dissolution or destruction of the Nazi youth or labor organizations...

...We are not convinced that such an experiment in "education for democracy" would really produce a democratic spirit and a democratic system or would further the cause of democracy, even if the old instruments of the total state power are given new and democratic names...

...But we shall also experience the collapse of a social order on a continent that is highly industrialized, that will have lost its old international foundation for its industries, that is populated by a greatly increased working class which will be largely unemployed, with middle classes which have lost their centuries-old social basis, with upper classes which have lost most of their former wealth, which are disrupted and corrupted by their participation in the "experiment" of totalitarian rule...

...The later development of industrial capitalism fused with old feudal elements of the absolute state...

...Gerhart Seger and Siegfried Marck have written their book in opposition to Vansittart and his "Carthaginian peace...

...They belong to a group of former German Social Democrats who are for postwar occupation (or military control) of Germany, if possible under the guidance of American "top-sergeants...

...From this viewpoint most peoples on earth need "education for democracy" because they have never experienced a democratic revolution...

...This historical record is not a German peculiarity which can be eradicated by either Carthaginian peace or re-education...

...It is true that the historical record of Germany shows the failure of the bourgeois democratic revolution in 1848...

...The superior military power which the victorious powers will possess at the end of the war will be a great incentive to attempt to create a "new order" with military means, almost in imitation of Nazi plans, by dividing the world into inferior and superior nations...

...We are also not convinced that militarism and totalitarianism are a typical German disease, due to the peculiar character of the Germans or of their singular traditions...

...Reviewed by Guenter Reimann WHAT is to be done with Germany if or when the German generals unconditionally surrender...

...Former great wars were followed by revolutions and civil war which often upset the speculations or dreams of wartime postwar planners...

...This refers in particular to Russia...

...The growth of parliamentarian institutions under the Kaiser and also under the Weimar Republic did not "complete the bourgeois democratic revolution" which had failed in 1848...

...2. Those countries which had "completed" bourgeois democratic revolutions were with few exceptions not in favor of the completion of similar bourgeois democratic revolutions in other countries and even opposed them by backing reactionary semi-feudal dictatorships rather than progressive democratic forces...

...At the end of this war we shall have victorious and defeated countries...

...Instead, the Germans were especially apt to become "vulgar romanticists...

...Thus the British Lord Vansittart has become the outstanding propagandist for a "Carthaginian peace" ae-ainst the German people, by demanding complete dismemberment and "deindustrialization" of Germany...

...They do not reveal the complexities and struggles which will mould the character of the postwar world...

...It may mean state capitalism and totalitarian rule rather than real democracy...

...Such historical records can...

...Bourgeois democratic revolutions have failed not only in Germany but also in many other countries...

...He has carefully selected all "historical facts" which may be quoted from the historical record of Europe during the last 2,000 years in order to prove that the Germans always were disturbers of peace, militarists, and belligerents and must therefore not be treated as equals—even after the war, after the collapse of fascism, and of totalitarian rule...