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GERMANY AND THE HITLERITE STATE. House of Lords
Wednesday, 10th March, 1943

The Lord Bishop of Chichester had the following notice in the paper: To call attention to the passage in Mr. Stalin's speech of 6th November, 1942, in which he said that it was not Russia's aim "to destroy Germany for it is impossible to destroy Germany" ... but that "the Hitlerite state can and should be destroyed"; and to ask whether His Majesty's Government in their war aims [at] mak[ing] the same distinction between Germany and the Hitlerite state ... the question which I am to ask His Majesty's Government today has a military significance, for, as I shall hope to show, it has much to do with the hastening of victory ... I am as clear as any man about the necessity of the complete and final defeat of the present German military machine. But my question also has much to do with the pattern of European order after the war... It is not a matter of good or bad Germans; it is a matter of creeds, creeds which pass the frontiers of nations, and of the fate by which the allies are to overcome the Hitlerite state and the Hitlerite system, wherever found, and built for the future ...

Do His Majesty's Government make the same distinction as does Premier Stalin between the Hitlerite state and the German people in their prosecution of the war and their view of our war aims? ... We must show a positive conception of the future of Europe and of the principles on which a future order will be built ... I dare not acquit the Germans as a whole of some guilt for accepting the Nazi regime, but the chief blame in Germany for letting the Nazis seize control lies on certain powerful antidemocratic forces, partly in military and partly in industrial circles, who betrayed their own country for their own selfish ends ... Nor in all honesty should we in Britain fail to recognise our own part in the general

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European and world responsibility ... I do not want to exaggerate the capacity of the opposition in face of the Nazi despots. Let us never forget they have no arms while the Nazi regime is ruthless ... No wise statesman will exaggerate this opposition ...

The 'Times' of January 2nd recorded that as a precaution against revolt, thousands of suspects were arrested in Germany between October and January and that in December hundreds of persons [...] detained in concentration camps were removed to still closer confinement ...

Hitler knows that his only hope of appeasing the opposition is to persuade them that they as well as he are threatened by destruction by the allies, that the allies make no distinction between Nazis and other Germans, and regard all Germans as black ...

We should say, on the contrary: "Remove Hitler and you will be saved ..." We must make the distinction plain and so hasten victory ... the problem of Germany never will be solved except as part of the problem of Europe ... impose restrictions on Germany which have no relation to the future of Europe, and you are only sharpening the nationalisms, formenting [!] intrigue and preparing for a further catastrophe twenty years hence ... But look at Europe as a whole ... tell the German people that they and all other nations must have such and such restrictions imposed for the sake of Europe as a whole, then the situation moral and psychological will have changed ...

The following discussion gives an impression of the trend thought in influential Br[itish] Quarters.

Lord Faringdon (Labour): I think we in this country have been too easily inclined to accept the myth spread by Hitler himself and by his German propaganda that Germany is an absolutely united country, with a fanatic will to victory ... They are not all fanatics. They are sceptics, even heretics amongst them, and in spite of all the machinery of oppression, there remains a strong opposition of which in peacetime we had repeated evidence and of which evidence continues to reach us even in wartime.

Lord Vansittart: ... I am not wishing to destroy Germany. I desire only ... to destroy Germany utterly and for ever as a military power; and I further desire

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... to make an end for ever of all German pretensions, intrigues and efforts to gain economical hegemony of Europe ... Subject to those trifling reservations, I welcome the survival of Germany with one proviso only, and that is that it shall be a totally different Germany ...

Lord Lang of Lambeth[1] (former Archbishop of Canterbury): ... I feel bound to say some words in support of the Bishop of Chichester and I have to differ from Lord Vansittart ... he is very apt to overstate the case and to deprive it of a sense of proportion which is always a mark of wisdom ... You cannot get the conversion on which so much of the future of Europe depends except through elements in the internal life of Germany. ... I know that it is true that in spite of what Lord Vansittart says a very strong and growing powerful section of opinion in Germany which is restive and resentful under the nazi regime ... the impression made by his (Lord Vansittart) general attitude is one which the German propaganda does most sedulously cultivate, and undoubtedly it is used to give the impression "You must choose between extinction and survival" ... our only hope and chance for the future is what the elements in German national life who are opposed to the Nazi system can bring to bear upon their future.

Viscount Cecil of Chelwood[2]: ... I know that Lord Vansittart has often said he does not believe there is anybody in Germany who is not substantially a supporter of the Nazi government under Hitler. I must say I think the evidence is all the other way ... there are non-Nazis and they are an important body ... I could not help feeling when listening to Lord Vansittart that there was at any rate, one man who would be thoroughly pleased with everything he said, and that man, of course, is Herr Goebbels. I believe that that kind of concentrated hatred which appeared in almost every sentence uttered by the noble Lord is just the kind of thing which at the present juncture the German leaders desire to see existing in enemy countries. It enables them to spur the German to make one more effort. I have read a suggestion that there should be a prolonged occupation ... It was tried by Napoleon, and it certainly did more to unite the Germans in hostility towards foreigners than anything else. Then there is a suggestion that we should split up Germany into a number of different states. I do not think that that is a practical proposal.

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I cannot see what you would have to do if the states afterwards came together, either formally or practically and acted as one state ... So you are driven back to the possibility of the re-education of Germany ... I do not in the least believe in the possibility of sending in a body of foreigners to teach the Germans what they ought to believe in political matters. I am sure that such a course as that, if adopted, would fail. ... the only way to re-educate Germany is to induce the Germans to re-educate themselves ... we must disarm Germany ... not a part of a general disarmament. I am in favour of a reduction of armaments all over the world after the war for other reasons, but that is an entirely independent matter ... If that is what Lord Vansittart meant by the abolition of militarism in Germany, I am in agreement with him; but he coupled with that a denunciation of the economic prosperity of Germany, and I can only conceive that he really desires to reduce Germany to a condition of slavery ... I sincerely believe that one of the things we can do is to do our utmost to assist those Germans who are really opposed not only to the Nazi Government but to that whole conception which has been - I agree - a prominent conception in Germany for many years before the Nazis came into being. Anything that we can do to help we ought to do.

The Earl of Onslow[3]: ... nobody desires to destroy Germany. ... I do not see why Germany should not take part in all the peaceful activities of the world and be on an equal footing with other nations, provided it is made possible for Germany to upset the whole world again in an aggressive war.

The Earl of Perth[4] (former Secretary General of the League of Nations): ... Munich was very popular in Germany also because peace was preserved there ... in all the early speeches of Hitler he laid the very greatest stress on his desire for peace. He has emphasized it at a time when the fable could not have had any effect on the United Nations, so that it must have been directed for his own people ... From this point I deduce that there must be in a considerable number of German minds a feeling in favour of peace and opposed to war, and we ought to work on that as far as we can ...

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