THE TWILIGHT OF CIVILIZATION
Hanighen, Frank C.
The Twilight Of Civilization By FRANK C. HANIGHEN OUR armored forces seem to be knocking over the Nazi panzer divisions so brilliantly that an early military breakdown of Germany may be imminent....
...The British should realize that under the smokescreen of a Four Power world (they themselves sneer at the inclusion of China) some officials in the Administration in Washington talk comfortably of a Two Power World, and with scorn of Britain as a "secondary power...
...1 have just received a letter from an English friend...
...They certainly had good grounds for saying that France could never again afford to constitute the "British Army" on the continent, nor be the catspaw of Whitehall blunderings...
...The noble Lord himself got off the following in a letter to the London Daily Mail on Aug...
...Supporters of de Gaulle and eager to free France of German force, they nevertheless assailed the indiscriminate Allied bombing of their country, with the pulverization of such treasures as that of Rouen...
...But, the way things are going, Britain may be lucky to survive as a Scandinavia...
...Britain should perceive that such a policy carries a dread possibility for herself...
...Vera Brittain, the English writer, has well pointed out how the British themselves started the air bombing of civilian populations and quotes the British Seversky, J. M. Spaight, who boasts that the RAF started bombing German cities before the Germans began their Blitz on London...
...The London New Statesman and Nation recently mourned the destruction by RAF bombers of that gem, the Cathedral of Rouen, with its marvelous "stone lace-work"—certainly irreplaceable by any UNRRA endeavors...
...Will Himmler turn traitor to Hitler...
...Will Himmler Turn Traitor...
...Today, between the pressing jaws of the two colossi, Russia and America (both obviously out on an imperialistic jag) Britain is shrinking to the category of a "small power...
...But their willingness to "play ball" with the Communists had an ominous sound...
...Pro-Soviet Order Accepted But the obliteration isn't unilateral, by any means...
...Yet, the only lesson which those who profess to speak for Britain seem to draw from the war is "Germania delenda est...
...Accounts from Sweden and Switzerland reflect the dismay of other European countries at this great loss...
...This, in itself, represents a spiritual degeneration comparable to the loss of libraries and art...
...All I could say was that I was born in a city which did not exist before the Civil War and nothing which could remotely be termed a "national monument" (like Rouen Cathedral) was ever heard of there...
...From my experience with Frenchmen before the war, I can testify that as many of them went overboard for the great "Soviet Russia" myth, with just as many silly manifestations as did similar groups of Americans and British...
...They cannot be bothered worrying about the destruction of Monte Cassino and Rouen...
...Meanwhile, amid the smoke and confusion within Germany, there looms the sinister figure of Heinrich Himmler, head of Hitler's Gestapo and now perhaps the most powerful personage in the Reich...
...I tried to reply to their polite questions as to why Americans care so little about this aspect of the war...
...I have never been quite satisfied with the English title of the great work of the German historian, Oswald Spengler—The Decline of the West...
...Himmler bears a marked similarity to the Fouche who did the dirty spy work for Napoleon...
...14 apropos of the possible razing of Warsaw : "I have said for years that the Germans will try to destroy Europe before surrendering...
...All is mind, matter is nothing," they drone...
...Recently I attended a party composed of French political emigres...
...I can't remember that Germany called for the destruction of Britain, nor even for imposing a Punic peace on Britain...
...I hear that some robots have accidentally landed 100 miles north of London...
...One of the most disquieting signs of this saturnalia of smashing comes from Britain...
...Their beauty carries over into the new age the culture of the old...
...Britain, whatever its selfish reasons, used to stand for the rights of small nations...
...It may be premature, of course, to speak of the disappearance of Britain as a real power...
...Only the practically defunct Liberal Party, through the statements of one of its leaders, Lord Perth, suggests a fair peace for Germany as a practical proposition...
...The V is for "Vengeance," be it noted...
...Whatever the extent of reconstruction, the Book City can hardly again, even if there is the will to do so, be brought back to its former level...
...May the war end soon, indeed...
...There seems to be a sort of Mary Baker Eddy cult among the intellectuals here...
...I would, on the contrary, tell the German nation that its cities have everything to fear if it so treats the cities of other peoples...
...Here Greek and Roman texts were printed, not only for Germany but for many other countries...
...Roosevelt has assured the German people that they have nothing to fear...
...It seems to lack a certain grim and ominous decrescendo which marks the syllables of the German title, Der Untergang des Abendlandes...
...Himmler has been talking of the necessity of bringing about "national communism" for Germany and his headsmen seem bent on wiping out all vestiges of the middle-class...
...Amid the dreary expanses of Victorian buildings, Wren churches and other old edifices stand as more than objects for the inspection of Cook's tourists...
...Anyone who prizes the survival of civilization, in the real sense of the word, could not but rejoice when armistice whistles blow...
...I dare say, according to that philosophy, they would have been indifferent if all the Greek and Roman texts, art, and architecture had been destroyed with the Roman Empire by the "wave of the future" of that day...
...Fouche betrayed his chief...
...If he does, it will hardly be for a "bright new world" for Germany...
...I noted with interest that one of them, an old anti-clerical radical, was as critical of such cultural destruction as the rest...
...The Labor Party is now bawling even more loudly than its "betters" for a Carthaginian treatment of Germany...
...Here, also, music publishers on special equipment printed not only Beethoven, but Franck, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Debussy...
...If we do not take the necessary deterrent action, the fate of Warsaw may be that of Paris, Athens, Prague, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Oslo...
...Oxford would then lie within the radius of a bigger and more devastating robot attack—Oxford with its riches of architecture and books...
...I have just read an account in Publishers' Weekly of the total destruction by Allied bombers of Leipzig's famous "Book City...
...But while my French friends were alive to this danger, I was a bit disturbed by their professed acceptance of a new pro-Soviet order in France...
...Totalitarianism, whatever its raiment— red or brown—is equally lethal...
...This was the center of the publishing trade in Germany and even the Gleichschaltung of the Nazis did not succeed in impairing its cultural value...
...For a good corrective to current effusions about France, see Henry Beston's shrewd writings in recent numbers of The Progressive...
...Meanwhile, what lusty Teutons are left seem to be straining themselves to launch a super-robot, the V-2, on Britain...
...The Cry For Vengeance Not only this new incarnation of what used to be an aristocracy, but the Labor Party as well has joined in the dance of death...
...While the robot bombs make their dreadfuj noise over London, the voices of the Vansittarts rise even higher...
...His description of the damage wrought by the terrifying robot bombs to London's beautiful public monuments is a chilling narrative...
...A termination of hostilities in the very near future, while of course welcome to all, would bring particular satisfaction to those who can comprehend that the war is destroying more than panzers...
Vol. 8 • September 1944 • No. 37
