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GERMANY'S FUTURE

IN THE LIGHT OF WORLD OPINION

Speech delivered by

HANS VOGEL

President of the German Social Democratic Party

C o n t e n t s:

Pronouncements of British and American Statesmen

War and Peace Aims of the Soviet Union

[ War and Peace Aims of Poland.]

An American Peace Plan?

Suggestions incompatible with the spirit of the Atlantic Charter

The Problem of Eastern Frontiersv

Ensuring Peace by International Cooperation

Not the Prevention of Revolution, but the Strengthening of German Democracy

The True Function of an Allied Post-War Policy.

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GERMANY'S FUTURE IN THE LIGHT OF WORLD OPINION

At a crowded meeting of the London Group of the German Social Democratic Party held on 18th June, HANS VOGEL, President of the Party, gave a talk on the theme suggested by the above title.

HANS VOGEL started from the assumption that the only document to give guidance to the nations in forming an idea of the post-war world, Germany included, was the Atlantic Charter, framed by President Roosevelt and Mr. Winston Churchill in August, 1941.

All the Allied Governments, Russia included, have agreed on the broad principles of the charter, but Poland has done so only with certain reservations. Even the Atlantic Charter cannot, however, be regarded as a definitive peace plan, since it is based on the enunciation of certain principles, and the terms of the charter have left many questions unsettled.

There are even differences of opinion as to whether Germany should come under its provisions. Those of us who realise what a tremendous impetus was given to National Socialism after the last war by the non-fulfilment of certain important parts of President Wilson's Fourteen Points may only hope that the Atlantic Charter will not suffer the same fate.

Pronouncements of British and American Statesmen.

Besides the Atlantic charter, several noteworthy pronouncements have been made by the statesmen of the Allied Governments, while other governments and special committees have put forth more detailed plans. Perhaps the most remarkable of all these statements is Churchill's wireless talk on 21st March, 1943, when he stated that it was necessary for the United Nations, under the leadership of Great Britain, the United States and Russia to work out plans together for the future of the world.

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The international organisation to be set up for the purpose would take the form of a league with wide powers, with a tribunal for settling disputes and a properly armed force for ensuring that its decisions are carried out, and for preventing any fresh aggression or the possibility of new wars. For military reasons, said Churchill, it was not possible to ensure the sovereignty of the several states. He thought the problem of the small countries might be solved by some kind of organisational amalgamation, but he made no attempt to deal with the details of the grouping of the countries, to outline the precise mechanism of their collaboration, or even to define frontiers.

HANS VOGEL referred to Mr. Anthony Eden's speech in the name of the British government in December, 1942, and in which he stressed the tragic irony of the martyred democrats and the civil population being obliged to remain in uniform for a considerable time so that the militaristic nations could be guided back to the ways of democracy. Force can only be ended by force, said Mr. Eden, and freedom ensured only if we are prepared to give it up when the occasion demands - in other words "to fight for our freedom".

Mr. Morrison (the Home Secretary) applied the term "armed civilisation" to the transition stage. There may be times, he said, when a democrat must cease to be a democrat in order to remain one, and when he must even not shun the means of totalitarianism in order to defeat totalitarian ideas. Every sacrifice made was worth while, in order that the principle might emerge, unscathed, from the sacrifice, and it was moral principles only that would emerge unscathed from the sacrifices of the individual and the state.

Great importance is attached to the statement made to the American Congress on 6th January, 1941, by President Roosevelt, wherein he enunciated the now famous four freedoms, viz., freedom of speech, freedom to think and hold one's own opinions, freedom from want, and freedom from fear throughout the world. The same principles were stressed by Mr. Sumner Welles on 31st May, 1943.

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War and Peace Aims of the Soviet Union.

There have been very few public utterances on this subject. In a statement he made on 6th November, 1941, Premier Stalin said that Russia had no intention of confiscating or conquering foreign territory.

The aim of the Russian government was to help the Slav nations and the enslaved countries to fight for their freedom from Hitler's tyranny.

In his Order of the Day to the Red Army at the 1942 May festival, Stalin said: "We want to free our Soviet land and our brothers the Ukrainians, the Moldavians, the White Russians, the Lithuanians, the Esthonians and the Karelians", and by so saying he made territorial claims. The Baltic countries, Bessarabia and Karelia are regarded by the Russians as integral parts of the Soviet Union. Everyone is now familiar with Stalin's statement: "The Hitlers will come and go, but the German nation will always remain." This is very fine-sounding, but does not go beyond generalities. What is important are the conditions and ideas under which a nation lives.

War and Peace Aims of Poland.

President Sikorski is all for a "totalitarian peace" and a Central European Federation from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, embracing 130 million people. This confederation of states must be given access to the Baltic through Polish Pomerellen, Danzig and East Prussia.

In a speech delivered on 18th May, 1943 and reprinted in the 4th June number of "Free Europe", Mr. Marian Seyda, the Polish minister, declared that the problem of the German menace to Poland must have precedence over all others. Poland has the reputation of hating Germany, and she has no reason to apologize for doing so. The military and economic disarmament of Germany must be ensured by the occupation of Germany over a long period, the territory between the Rhine and the Oder being subject to occupation by an international

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force, and those stretches of territory west of the Rhine and east of the Oder placed under the control of the countries bounding Germany. Poland, he said, was earnestly desirous of continuing her close collaboration with the United Nations after the war; and similar collaboration should be permitted to Germany after a long period has elapsed, but only when the neighbours of Germany who have previously been impeded in their industrial development have attained to the same level of industrial development as Germany.

A few Polish politicians go farther still in their plans. They demand the cession to Poland of the German territory as far as Stettin and Breslau, and Polish or allied sovereignty over the Baltic, as well as other concessions.

An American Peace Plan?

HANS VOGEL then dealt in fuller detail with the plan outlined in the April issue of the monthly "American Mercury" (reviewed in No. 50 of the "Sozialistische Mitteilungen") referred to by the writer of the article as the American Government Plan, representing the views of the various American State Departments.

The writer adds, however, that the plan would only be practicable of the United States, Great Britain and Russia agreed upon it.

One of the outstanding points of this plan is that it calls for an effectual decentralisation of the political and economic unity of Germany - the writer refers explicitly to a splitting-up of Germany - and for a temporary limitation of German industry and production to what may be necessary for the support of the country. When Germany was invaded militarily, the government of Germany was to be taken over by a military government appointed by the commander-in-chief of the general army of occupation. Freedom of speech and of the press would be gradually restored, but subjected to strict control during the period of occupation. The German armed forces ought to be discharged from military service as quickly as possible, but not all men could be released at once. Soldiers not discharged could be grouped

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temporarily into labour battalions, and utilized for the reconstruction of damaged areas both in Germany and in other European countries.

In support of this suggestion, the writer points out that experience has shown that soldiers that are discharged from the forces are ripe for revolution. For this reason, any help which the Allies may give in regard to Germany should be limited to aid which has the object of preventing chaos and revolution. The plan also provides for a sort of international commission of education for Germany in which responsible German members might also be co-opted.

The broad outlines of this plan are similar to the recently published programme of the 36 British Members of Parliament. (See Survey in No. 50 of the "SM".)

Suggestions incompatible with the spirit of the Atlantic Charter

As regards the several suggestions that have been put forward, it is pertinent to inquire - and the British and American press and public are constantly asking the same question - how many details of these plans and proposals can be made to fit into the framework of the Atlantic Charter. This inquiry has particular significance in connection with (say) the separation of East Prussia from the Reich, the separation of the Rhenish Provinces from Prussia, or the incorporation of the Free City of Danzig into Polish territory.

In none of these plans is anything said as to whether the change is to take place with the free consent of the peoples concerned, in accordance with the principles of the Atlantic Charter, or whether the change is simply to be decreed from outside. This matter is, however, of paramount importance for the shaping of the peace, if such peace is to be stable and permanent. You have only to threaten a nation's unity from outside to bind the peoples of that nation infallibly and inevitably together. Again, if proposals of this kind for "total peace" were to be realised, it would mean that the peoples of the Allied Nations would have to bear an immense burden over a long period.

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What possible reason could there be, asked Hans Vogel, in splitting up Germany in the interests of an assured peace if Germany were totally disarmed, all the military done away with, the manufacture of war materials prohibited, and if the youth of Germany were educated up to democratic ideas; and, finally, if, under proper control, these measures were insisted on, Germany would be unable in future to embark on aggression of any kind? If the Allies imposed upon Germany a system whereby she were split up into smaller units, this would again lead to the kind of nationalism which would be exploited by reactionaries in such a way that Germany might again be brought under the leadership of the imperialists.

To ensure peace in Germany, it is necessary that there should be a regional regrouping rather than a system whereby the country be split up into a number of small states. It was just this idea that was propagated in the Weimar Republic, the thirteen economic regions of the country in existence at that time being suggested as an example of the national provinces to be created. Such a grouping would connote practically the end of the separate German states and, hence, the end of Prussia as a unit of government. Each of these state provinces would be able to fulfil the particular, social, cultural and other needs of their peoples. There are many at present who identify Prussia with Nazism, but this does not accord with the facts of history. That the Nazis came to power in Germany is not the fault of German or Prussian reaction alone, but merely the result of reaction, even outside Germany. This fact was admitted with remarkable candour by the conservative "Yorkshire Post" in its issue of 11th March, 1943. Referring particularly to the dangerous Prussian type of reaction however, it must be noted that Hitler did not get his real footing in Prussia, but in Bavaria.

It was Guertner, the Bavarian Minister of Justice, who amnestied Hitler, and when the German government called for the deportation of Hitler - who was not a German citizen - from Bavaria, the Bavarian government refused to expel him.

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It was Bavarian officials who provided false passports for the Nazis political murderers who had been prosecuted by the State Attorney and the Prussian Police and Department of Justice.

The Brunswick government decided that Hitler be made a citizen of Brunswick (be naturalised), and Frick - a native of the Palatinate - committed his political crimes in Thuringia. The Nazis assumed legal power in a number of German states, but not in Prussia, where the democratic government was outed by the combined reactionaries.

The Problem of Eastern Frontiers

HANS VOGEL then briefly discussed the ethnological and political structure and the national composition of the peoples of the Free City of Danzig, East Prussia and Upper Silesia.

At the census of 1925 2,270,283 inhabitants were counted in the province of East Prussia including the district of West Prussia, but excluding the Memel region, separated from the Reich in 1920, and the Soldau district ceded to Poland. Out of this total only 20,500 that is rather less than 1 per cent claimed Polish as their native language.

In the year 1929 there were 407,517 inhabitants in Danzig. In the census of nationality taken in 1923, only 12,027 of the then 366,730 inhabitants claimed Polish, Casubian and Masurian as their native language. This figure is just below 3,3 per cent. The same percentage of votes was obtained by the Poles at the election of the Danzig "Volkstag" in 1930.

Upper Silesia suffered after the last war as the result of the decision of the Interallied Commission which was preceded by a plebiscite.

Four-fifths of the industrial region of Upper Silesia and about 260,000 German inhabitants were incorporated in Polish territory, and 220,000 Polish inhabitants remained in the regions which were incorporated into German territory. In all the elections for the German Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag which were afterwards

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held, the members elected were exclusively of German nationality in the part of Silesia that had been left under German sovereignty, and this despite the right of proportional voting. In the 'Provinzial Landtag' (Provincial Assembly) of Upper Silesia, the Polish parties never obtained more than three seats out of a total of 55.

Certain of the plans discussed provide that all these regions be separated from Germany and incorporated in Poland. The plans also provide that the German population living in these regions, including the 3 to 4 million Germans living in Poland itself, should be transferred to what is left of Germany - to a Germany that is to say, which the same plans insist should be extensively de-industrialised. Millions of people are to be removed from their homes and jobs at a time when every endeavour ought to be made to get agriculture and industry going again so as to feed and provide for starved and stricken Europe, and at a time when the transport system of Europe, already disorganised or broken down, will have to bear the maximum burden. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war will have to be got back to their countries. Again, millions of people who have been forced to leave their countries by Hitler - witness the six or seven million foreign workers in Germany - or who fled from the Gestapo or the German armies, will want to return to their homes, but they will not know in which of the less populated areas they can settle.

Ensuring Peace by International Cooperation

Many are unaware of the fact that Europe constitutes an economic unit. Is a nationally exclusive, jealous economic policy to prevail after the war - a policy which will inevitably lead to industrial strife and, finally to military aggression involving the whole world in its destructive orbit?

It is understandable, of course, that due to the policy of aggression and conquest pursued by the Hitler regime, and to the unhuman cruelties perpetrated on the enslaved peoples, the ground in many countries will be

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ripe for the type of nationalism which, immediately after Hitler's overthrow, may manifest in a "furor anti-teutonicus". All who honestly desire a true and permanent peace ought not to forget, through bitter experience of the past, that the economic prosperity of every single country depends on the economic prosperity of all other countries. The economic welfare of every single country increases with the economic development of all the others, and the economic union now no necessary embraces all countries and works out to the benefit of each. A Europe split up into a dozen or so politically and economically self-contained and separate states will remain the actual danger spot of the world in the future. This tendency must be counteracted by the provision of large-scale industries under the control of an extra-national jurisdiction. It must be possible to constitute a democratic European confederation to serve the many common interests of the European peoples. By adopting such a solution, it would very quickly be found that Germany could not be excluded from European or international dispositions of the kind if these were really to prove workable. It must at least be the function of the socialists of all countries to prevent a heavy industry of super-dimensions - no matter by whom controlled - from developing as the driving force of any war party. Might not this danger be obviated by organizing, on an international basis, the coal and iron-ore regions situated on the various frontiers of Europe?

In no case, however, must we be led into the fallacy that peace and security could be permanently guaranteed by relegating Germany to the status of an Agrarian State, and by reducing the standard of existence of 70 millions of people to the level of the nations that are the most backward economically.

HANS VOGEL assured his listeners that he thoroughly understood and appreciated the extremely difficult position of Poland, and that he did not doubt for a moment that German-Polish relations represent one of the biggest problems of the new order in Europe. The German Social Democrats, he declared, were prepared to do everything in their power to right the wrongs done to the Polish people and to promote friendship between the Germans and the Poles.

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Do the Poles, and the Polish socialists in particular, think it quite impossible that one day they and their country might be strongly interested in truly amicable relations between Poland and Germany?

Even in the Kaiser's days, the German Social Democrats always vigorously contested any anti-Polish measures, and they are proud today to be able to say this.

Not the Prevention of Revolution, but the Strengthening of German Democracy

HANS VOGEL criticised the plan published in the "American Mercury" by saying that it led one to suspect that it was outlined more by way of showering how a German revolution might be prevented, than for the paramount purpose of ensuring a permanent peace by eradicating Germany's Imperialism as expressed in the brutal policy of National Socialism. He was glad to note that there had been strong opposition to this plan even in official circles in the United States.

In his talk on 6th June, 1943, Vice-President Wallace opposed the suggestion of sending American school-teachers to the German schools. What Americans really ought to do should be to give the liberal elements in Germany the chance of eradicating Nazi school-books and Nazi methods.

Without detracting from the good faith and intentions of the various planners, they seem to have overlooked a number of important factors. For instance, the proposals to entrust the civil government of Germany to the occupying forces will be possible only if supported by a large portion of the German nation working in collaboration. The bayonets of the victors will not alone be sufficient.

The True Function of an Allied Post-War Policy.

This policy ought surely to be to help to achieve in the German people a preponderant majority who would themselves be vitally interested in liquidating German militarism; and, pari passu with the development of good relations in other parts of the world, to develop in Ger-

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many a system of true democracy and peaceful European and international cooperation.

One of the best guarantees for a peaceful and democratic Germany of this kind are the German workers and their organizations. In 1918 it was them who undertook full responsibility for the building-up of a new and democratic Germany. Their attempts to do this eventually failed because, in their difficult task, they did not obtain the necessary understanding and support from their ex-enemies.

We do not know at present under just what conditions and circumstances the transition from Hitler's dictatorship to a new democratic order will be achieved in Germany. But we do know that history has proved on many occasions that it is a dangerous mistake to believe that peace and tranquillity can be ensured in a country by drastically preventing a revolution.

Germany's fate after the war is being discussed on all sides, but no definite result has emerged from the discussions. Nor is it clear yet what fresh radical political and economic ideologies will emerge in the oppressed countries of Europe.

For aught we know, there may be violent outbreaks in various parts of Europe when Hitler's domination is ended, and nobody can tell today whether after years of alien yoke and misery the peoples will turn for real leadership to the various exiled governments or to the leaders of the underground movements. A wise policy of all right-minded people in all lands will be necessary to heal as quickly as possible the terrible wounds of this war and to make a reality of the Four Freedoms. German political exiles must take constantly as their watchword: "Be prepared always and for everything."

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