WANTED: AN AMERICAN POLICY
Wanted: An American Policy ONE of the most significant reports to come out of occupied Germany appeared last week in the Marshall Field dailies, the Chicago Sun and PM of New York. Their staff...
...On the contrary that agency has established its right to a permanent place in our Government as long as we have to have it...
...The poll revealed that the people in the area sampled — Heidelberg, Frankf urt-on-the-Main, Marburg, Erfurt, and Kassel—"had frequently been led to believe that conditions were better in the territory occupied by the Russians...
...The 2 principal conclusions of his first cabled report contain a world of meaning for Americans groping for a solution to the vastly complicated German problem: 1American—and British—refusal to make an ? honest distinction between the Nazis and the rest of German people is costing us dearly in goodwill and cooperation among the plain people of the conquered Reich, and just as important, is causing a deterioration in morale among American occupation troops who can see with their own eyes that there IS a difference...
...The 2 most prevalent questions being asked by our own officers and men are these: "How can the Allies morally justify the contention that all Germans are guilty of the war and the crimes of the SS [Elite Guard] when more than 100,000 prisoners were found in Nazi concentration camps...
...It is understood, furthermore, that the Russians even distinguish between good and bad members of the Nazi Party...
...And always hovering about will be the racist vultures, seeking to exploit the situation for votes...
...Certainly the time is rotten-ripe for the formulation of a militantly democratic American policy which will enable us to rebuild our battered reservoir of good-will by making a clear-cut distinction between the Nazis and the rest of the Germans and lending a helping hand to the democratic forces, however small they be, in rebuilding a democratic Germany...
...In its report to the President, the Fair Employment Practices Committee points out that in early 1942 only 2.5 to 3 per cent of our non-white population was employed in war industries...
...How can the creation of a democratic Germany be accomplished if no effort is made to revive whatever liberal forces existed in Germany, such as the Social Democratic Party...
...The FEPC, of course, cannot rid us entirely of this explosive problem, but it can be of inestimable benefit in bridging the gap...
...2The Russians are pursuing just the opposite * policy and are reaping a harvest of good-will and support as they make it clear that all Germans are not to pay the same penalties as the Nazis...
...Here, expressed with the simple directness of the men on the spot, is the position The Progressive has been trying to pound home ever since, the debate over what to do with Germany began...
...It is interesting to recall in this connection that a few months ago, when The Progressive was pleading for just such a policy as the Soviets are now pursuing, we were bombarded by Soviet sympathizers in America, who couldn't forsee that the Kremlin line would change, with charges that we were "appeasement-minded and fascist advocates of a soft peace...
...Bridging The Gap IN a country that is fighting a war for the Four Freedoms, it's not a nice thing to have to admit that our problems of racial and religious discrimination are so bad that we must hail as advancement an increase of 5 per cent in the number of non-whites hired to work in war plants...
...Granting that this feeling may be limited, Meck-lin nevertheless makes it clear that "enough data has been gathered from good sources to indicate at least 2 major contrasts between the Anglo-American and the Russian attitudes: "| "While the Western Allies operate on the as-sumption that all Germans are bad, the Russians appear to work on the theory that all Germans are good, at least potentially, until they prove bad...
...It will be necessary to have orderly and impartial machinery to process the cases that are bound to occur in this transition period...
...Fantastic as it may sound, 5,000 Germans demonstrated in Cologne in protest against Allied use of proven Nazis in public office...
...This is slight progress, to be sure, considering that the nation was supposed to have had a manpower shortage during those intervening years...
...This is a direct opposite of the harsh lectures on German war guilt that have been featured on Anglo-American broadcasts to the Germans, in our German-language newspapers, and everywhere since V-E Day...
...Their staff correspondent, John M. Mecklin, conferred with officials of the Psychological Warfare Branch of the U. S. Army, many GI's and officers, and countless Germans—anti-Nazis, non-Nazis, and Nazis...
...Good Nazis' are reported to include such persons as doctors, lawyers, and civil servants who were obliged to join the party in order to preserve their livelihoods...
...It can be even more valuable in the future...
...It does not mean, however, that the FEPC has not been doing a good job...
...If, in the meantime, we can come to some sensible point of agreement on the necessity of getting at the basic problem—shortage of jobs—the necessity for FEPC will have disappeared...
...THE report to the Marshall Field papers, which have themselves been exponents of a harsh peace of vengeance, goes even further and notes that American and British soldiers are disturbed by the policy we are pursuing...
...But that's the position we find ourselves in today and, of course, most of us are thankful...
...MECKLIN reported that a survey made by 25 interrogators for the Psychological Warfare division disclosed anti-Nazi Germans were disap-ointed not only in the American refusal to differ-ntiate between the Nazis and the rest of the Ger-nans, but in the fact that the Americans were ctually appointing "too many Nazis to public office...
...For, as its report to the President emphasizes, the immediate problem we face will be the rising competition for jobs in the reconversion period...
...It is heartening to find the Russian Government pursuing so enlightened a policy—one which is bound to yield her rich returns—and by the same token it is discouraging to find the Anglo-American occupation forces pursuing a program that is not only morally and intellectually bankrupt, but one that is bound to cost us dearly in prestige and influence and weaken the leadership of the democracies...
...Tensions will rise to a point where they may be uncontrollable...
...2. "Definite evidence has been obtained from broadcasts of the Berlin radio, from copies of newspapers published in the Soviet zone, and from reports of persons returning from eastern Germany that Russian propaganda toward the Germans is designed to make friends...
...It has been a valuable safety valve in lessening racial and religious tensions in a field where these tensions are most likely to become critical...
...In November of 1944, however, they constituted 8.3 per cent...
...Charges of discrimination will be rife...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 27
