what to do with germany

7/29/2019 What to Do With Germany

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What To Do With Germany!

RESTRICTED - EUROPEAN THEATER Of OPERATIONS - UNITED STATES ARMY


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know. No matter where you are, weyou A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR OF will try to get the book to

Perhaps we sound m ore eager to getthe acids to you than you are to

recieve them . I hop e not, but, if so,think along with me for a few morelines . This leaflet, sometimes tenpages, sometimes twenty or twenty

T issue of ARMY TALK S is the four, is handing to the Am ericanfirst one to be printed and published Army in Europe the straightest thinkin France . That is an important step , ing on the most important mattersfor the publication aid for you . It is that involve every m en in it. It isimportant, for one essential reason : it material intended to stir up theis bringing ARMY TALKS closer to thinking of the soldier . It is m aterial tothe men w ho are fighting this war. be argued about and disagreed about.These books are written for the men It is brain fodder for the Americanand they are doing their jobs only when way of life.they reach the men . There is no When the ARMY TALKS get to you,satisfaction to the staff who knock out see that they got to your men . Leadeach issue if the magazine fails to the discus sion if you can, but givereach the men out in front.- those men a chance to bull and grouseand think.That is where you can help on . Asyou will see by looking on the inside When the ARMY TALKS don't getto you, let us know . We don't let youback cover, we are not soothed intohappy contentment by our satisfied down if we can possibly help it . If youhave exit leis and ideas, we wantcustomers, But despite the knocks,we want to get those letters. If your them . This is strictly not a canned outfit is not receiving the prop er program . It is an Am erican programnumber of ARMY TALK S that for the most important men in thenumber is ten per company let us- world THE EDITOR.

The pu rpose of the program is to give the soldierpsychological pr eparat ion for com bat , andrealization of the imp ort of every phase of his militarytraining . Emphasis will be placed on combat orientation.The mental and physical conditioning of the enemy, and

proper ev aluation of the enemy's weapons and fightingqualities will be stressed. A b etter understanding of the

r es ponsab il tie s background of the war, and the soldier'sin the post-war world w ill also be d eveloped . . . " BY COMMAND OF GENERAL EISENHOWER.

'Extract from letter ETO, 1 August, 1944, AG 352/2 OpSS Subject :Combat Orientation Program) .


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ARMYALKSEUROPEAN TH EATER OF OPERATIONSwhat To Do W ith Germ any!

There are few soldiers, and for that matter Americans, whowould not agree with the words of the President when he saidin a broadcast five years ago:

"I hate war!"Since then w e have learned, the hard w ay, that it is not

enough simply to hate war . The time com es, in this imperfectworld of ours, when we have to fight a war. It boils down thento a very simple, yet harsh, fact : we have to kill or be killed.And Americans don 't enjoy either alternative.

One of the things that has made life difficult for us is thatcertain nations take the opposite point of view. They likewar . They revel in fighting . As individuals, many of themenjoy killing . That they should enjoy being killed is incredibleto us. Perhaps "enjoy" isn't exactly the right word, but weknow from innumerable kinds of evidence that they glory inbattle, and are trained to die for the Emperor or for the Fuehrer.

Twice in a generation the Germans have thrown the worldinto an unholy mess . Twice we've had to do something about

it . It is that "twice" which is particularly disturbing . It oug htLo disturb us

Art IOnce may be understandable . But twice . .? Maybe we (andwe have lots of . company) are just too dum b to learn fromexperience . Or are we?Not if we can understand exactly how the Germans craftilyplayed us for easy marks after World War I ; not if we see clearlywhy, and how, we let them get away with it then . Not if we

find out what errors were m ade in winding up World W ar I andin trying to induce the Germans to keep the peace thereafter .


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4 ARMY TALKSNot if we realize that our toughest time will come after the Ger-m ans are m ilitarily smashed on the battlefield.W e will arrive at that mom ent when the w ar in Europe iswon . O.K . W hat do we do next? Two things:1. W e (that means all the United Nations) turn to and beat

the Japs.2. W e take measures to m ake sure that it doesn't happen

again.No . 2 simply means that we "w in the peace ." That is a

phrase which is loosely bandied about . It has been u sed andabused until it has come to sound commonplace and threadbare.But don 't shy away from it. D on 't forget it.

No Problem is M ore Im p ortantNo problem more important, or more difficult will face us aslong as the youngest ; of us is alive . We didn't win the peace lasttime . Why?

There is an answer . And itis an obvious one, for all whohave hearts that can feel and forall who have minds that are notclosed . But, first, three prefatoryremarks may be useful:

The writer of this ARMYTA LK S is one of that older

generation : one of a fairish number w ho "are going around thecourse a second time ." He is not a regular Arm y m an but,counting both wars, has had nearly six years in uniform . He isgetting tired of war.2 . So m uch for the intrusion o f the writer . Now, aboutyou . Most of you weren't born when World W ar I started ; or,probably, when it ended . In reading this ARMY TAL KS, or indiscussing this topic, you'll have to he prepared to find much ofthe "history" you thought you knew is being turned topsyturvy.

3. And now about this TALK itself : within the space per-mitted it is not possible to give proof of every statement made.Some may seem flatfooted, unsupported assertions . But don 'tlet that disturb you . The facts, starkly as they m ay be statedcan be proved to the hilt. Soft or harsh, the peace terms weren'tenforced.

Why didn't we w in the peace last time?The answer is simple:

We were careless


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23 October, 1944We were soft.We wanted to get back to 1914 normalcy.The Germans weaseled their way out.The Reasons Behind the Four Points

The answer is easy, but all the reasons behind these fourpoints are not so simple.

W e were careless. S ure w e w ere, and so w ere the B ritish.W e that is m ost of us didn't like to keep an enem y down . W edidn't really know the enem y . W e w ere soft because of our tern-peram ent, and because of our ignorance of w hat the Germ anreally is.

W e w anted to get back to norm alcy M ost of us w ant togo home now . B ut w e, or our children, w ill hav e to put onuniform s for W orld W ar III, if w e don't grasp the essentialf ac t that , in un i form or out , w e hav e to k eep at th isjob of w inning the peace . W e hav e to see that the G ov ern-m ent (and that m eans a m ajority of all of us) acts tow ardGermany in such a w ay that W orld W ar III w ill never happen.Here's . w hat a form er A m erican U nderS ecretary of S tate,S um ner W elles, has to say about this in his recent book , TheTime for Decision:

"The point of view that a great number of menin the armed forces adopted upon their return homeswelled the changing current of popular sentiment.The governm ent had done li tt le, if anything,during the war months to keep the men in the Armyand Navy informed of the great issues involved inthe League Covenant and Peace Treaty, and of thereasons for their governm ent's policy . Althoughour men by the hundreds of thousands had gone tothe war on fire with enthusiasm for the ideals whichWoodrow W ilson had held up before their eyes, theyreturned hom e in a far different frame of m ind.The idea that their sacrifices were only half paidfor by their victory had never been ham meredhom e to them . They h ad not been given thechance to realize that the contributions in blood andtreasure made toward w inning the , war could onlybe justified if the peo ple of the U nited Statesinsisted that their governm ent adopt a policy de -signed to prevent these sacrifices from being againdemanded of themselves or of their sons ."


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(This time , A RM Y T ,! Z ,K S, orientation and discussiongroups genera lly, are designed to tackle the problem , whereSum ner W elles alleges that the governm ent fell dow n lasttime .)

T he G erm ans w easeled their w ay out .Now we com e to the story of how they defeated the peace

treaty, by means which we are just now seeing in the full lightof day.for Some Errors W e W ere to Blam e1. Tw o w eeks before the A rm istice, General Pershing told

President W ilson that he didn't w ant an A rm istice . T he linethat Generals Pershing and B liss w anted to tak e w as "to con-tinue the w ar until the destruction of the German A rm y w ouldappear plainly as a purely m ilitary ev ent ." T op A m ericanm ilitary authorities w anted to push A llied arm ies forward intothe R eich, right into Berlin.

Wilson objected . W hy? Here are the w ords of his reason.in a telegram of instruction to his representative, Col . House:

Because it is certain that too much success orsecurity on the part of the Allies will m ake agenuine peace settlement exceedingly difficult, ifnot impossible ."

Error One : On a m ilitary subject, statesm en f ailed to takethe adv ice of the m ilitary authorities.

2. The terms on which Germany w as granted peace, signedat Versailles 28 June 1919, w ere the result of much harriedpondering and were arrived at only after prolonged and difficultconferences between the negotiators of the four leading victor-ious nations. The terms w ere determined after m ore than sixmonths' discussion and consideration . They were not adequateand they w eren't lived up to!

The B ig Four con-ducted the negotiation ; :Woodrow Wilson for theUn ited S tates, LloydGeorge for Great Br'tain; Clemenceau forFrance, andrlandofor :Italy . There w ereacute . differences oopinion on almost everysubject: freedom . of the


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78 October, 1944seas against blockade ; longterm occupation of Germ any;separation of slices of territory from the Reich ; the extent ofGerman disarmament ; punishment of war criminals ; guaranteesof France against future German aggression ; reparations, andthe practical value of a League of N ations.

The Possibilities of a LeagueWilson was so impressed with the possibilities of a League

of Nations that he showed little sympathy with many points ofview brought up by the others, because the pat answer readywas that suchandsuch questions could be left to the Leagueto considerlater . This attitude was too problematic for manyof the other nations, especially France . Clemenceau recognizedthat, for the time being, Germany was too weak to fight, but hewas looking forward to a period ten, fifteen or twenty yearslater when Germ any m ight be strong enough to start anotherWorld War . He, quite naturally, w anted abov e all to m akeFrance secure from another aggression.

Error Two : W e, the v ictors, quarrelled am ongst ourselves,then and later, which w as just what the Germ ans hoped f or.During the Paris peace term s discussions, there was nofull understandingeven by the Frenchof the real nature of

the German S tate and the German people . We probably showedthe least effective know l-edge, because w e had had

r less oppo rtunity f or in-t im ate contact w ith theenemy.Som e of the things notfully grasped w ere:German democracy wasshallow . History teaches usthat dem ocratic principlescannot be imposed on a na-tion . Th ey can 't even begranted . T hey hav e to be

won the hard way . That's how we got our freedom, our Consti-tution and the Bill of Rights.

The majority of Germans like to be regimented . They revelin the goosestep . They prefer to be told what to do.They believe war is natural and glorious . We don't.They believe they are a Herrenvolk a m aster race that

m ust rule and ex ploit lesser breeds We think ours is "God'scountry ." and think pretty w ell of ourselves, but w e don't w antto enslave o ther nations .


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8 ARM Y TALKS

They lay down a onesided education, in which from kinder-garten to univ ersity the youth are cram m ed w ith a false and per-verted version of history W e at least seek the truth . W e don'tban and burn book s.A German professor, Karl A . Kuhn, boils it all down to

twentytwo words, in his book, The True Causes of the Wa r:"Must Kultur rear its domes over mountains of

corpses, oceans of tears and the death rattle of theconquered? Yes, it must!"

A few courageous democrats, writers and ministers revoltedagainst this doc trine . All hono r to them , but they a re in aminority (just as today we find only a few sturdy exceptionssuch as Thom as Mann, Einstein and Cardinal Falhauber) . Themajority, through the past eighty years, has either been silent,or chimed in with Pastor Naumann, an economist, who said:

"Everything must be made subservient to thenext war."

W hether or not N aum ann endo rsed this principle, hecertainly recognized what was going on, and saw that each ofGerm any's aggressive wars must inevitably lead to new wars.

T he Blood -R ed T hread of G erm anyIn the previous World War, in this war, and between warsthis them e ha s run l ike a bloodred thread through all

classes of Germans . There is no purpose to be served in takingup space here to relate what Hitler, and the Germans underHitler, have said . Their views are too recent and too wellknownto need repetition

Another point we wereslow to grasp last time, andmay no t yet fully realize,is the influence which thePrussians ( m ostly theJunk er class) and throughof- them the General S taffthe Germ an A rm y , hav ehad in causing w ar afterwar. On this point thereis a good A merican w itness.Sum ner W elles, who speaksfrom a lifetime on the inside of the w elter of international rela-tions. In his recent book, . Welles writes:

"It is their (the Prussians') . teaching and theirconcept which made G ermany during the last 100


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98 October, 1944years the bane of Europe, and today tin curse ofthe entire civilized world . It is their unholy inspira-tion that brought into being the Germ an GeneralStaff . And tha t instrum ent is responsible for thehavoc which Germany has been able to wreak uponmankind during the present century . .

"It will be sa id that this insistence that theGerman General Staff has been the driving force inGerman policy is a dangerous oversimplification.I am not disposed to minimize the importance ofother factors in Germ an history . They a ll havetheir place . But I am convinced that each of themhas played its part only in so far as it was permittedto do so by the real master of the Ge rman rac e,nam ely, Ge rman m ilitarism, personified in, andchannelled through, the German General Staff ."

This is confirmed by m any other w riters, British, Frenchand even German . It has been con firmed by the record ofHitler's career.

The Danger of W orld W ar IIIBut, ironically, in the solution o f this problem . Hitler may

be on our side in World War II : If he keeps on firing, imprison -ing and murdering generals as he did after the generals' Putsch(plot) that broke into print July 20th of this year.

There is still a further lesson thatwe were very vague about in 1919 : wethought there existed in Germ anysufficiently sturdy seeds of democracyto enable the German s to developselfgoverning principles and a re-publican form of government . Butthey weren't there, those seeds ; or atleast they were few or sterile.O n this subject the G erm ansfooled us fora w hile, in fact for sev-eral years . The W eimar Constitutionlooked n ice o n pap er, but it hadfooled us for a while, in fact forsevneither reality nor soul . The Germansthrew out the K aiser, about thirtyhours before the A rm istice tookeffect . A revolution of the w orkerswas announced . An exsaddlemaker


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10 A R M Y T A LK Snamed Ebert becam e president of the synthetic republic . Pri-vately, Ebert said that he 'hated revolution like sin ."

And what was the German General Staff doing about thissupposed People's Revolution? General Groener, Chief of theGeneral Staff, gave the game away and showed the revolutionto be a naked fake, when h e testified in a G erm an courtin 1925 : "From the very beginning, Ebert and I fought

(against) the revolution together ."But of course in 1919 we couldn't be expected to realize thisskullduggery, although a careful study o f Germ an historyshould have put our leaders wise.

Error 3 . W e hadn't studied German history and psychology;or, if so, w e'd studied under the w rong teachers.

Here you have threeof the serious errorswe made . The G er-m ans cried, workedand bluffed their wayout of the V ersaillesTreaty, during the nexttwe nty years , and

added to our and the world's troubles . Here, in skeleton outlineonly, are some of the things they put over on the rather com-placent outside world :

G erm an Defiance of V ersailles T r eaty1. The first defiance of the Versailles Treaty cam e June21, 1919one week before the treaty was signed . The Germ an

fleet, as soon as it entered Scapa Flow, Scotland, to surrenderwas scuttled by the officers of the German H igh Com mandThis lost to the Allies eleven battleships, five cruisers and fortyeight destroyers.

2. In the Versailles Treaty, Germany promised to hand overthe warguilty for trial by the Allied and Associated powers.The outrages were headed up by the K aiser, and those listed raninto the thousands. Did we try them? Don't be credulous, nowthat you have gone this far.

First, the Kaiser . Lloyd George won an election in Decem -ber, 1918, with the slogan "Hang the Kaiser ." But the K aiserwasn't hanged . He wasn 't even tried . H e beat the gun bygetting to Holland a few hours ahead of the Arm istice . Th eDutch called him a "political" refugee, and wouldn't give himup . (A couple of adventurous American officers tried to kidnaphim, but failed .) So that wa s that, and the exK aiser choppedwood at Doorn for twenty years and more until he died in his bed .


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118 October, 19443. Then the Germ ans weaseled their promise to hand over

the other war criminals for Allied trial . They persuaded us topermit trial by a German court, on the ground that it woulddishonor these fine fellows to be tried by foreigners . The trialwas duly held in Leipzig . At first there were 1,500 on the warcriminal list . Then the list shrunk to 892 . Of this lot, Britaindemanded the trial of 97 ; Belgium of 334 ; France also of 334;Italy of 29 ; Poland of 57, and Rumania of 41 . The United Statesagreed to forge t all about it.

But when the trial started, the list to be put in the dock byGermany mysteriously shrunk againto fourteen . Wearily, theAllies prepared evidence against seven . But G ermany couldn't"find" three of these, so four ultimately faced the judges . Theygot minor sentences, but whether or not these sentences wereserved history does not record clearly.

T here is the L esson for T his T im e4. The m embers of the Big Four in Paris, you will recall

from a previous page, agreed that Germany ought to lose someterritory . Germ any d id, but neve r left off whining to get itback . Shortly before the end of World War I, when it was clearthat the G erman General Staff and the K aiser, had lost thatgamble, a prominent German was asked by a Swiss:

"What will you do if you lose the war?"The German knew the answer, and knew above all some-

thing about AngloSaxon psychology, and replied:"We will organize sympathy!"Som e territories, like the Saar and the Rh ineland (which

had been demilitarized) they got back later, because other na-tions became apathetic and "went soft ." The balance in Europe,and much more to boot, Hitler got back later . Allied arme dforces were to have remained in the Rhineland for fifteen years.They pulled out their final token occupation forces in elevenyears .

5. You have heard a lot about reparations . Germ anystarted off owing a huge amount, more than econom ists couldfigure out how to transfer from the Reich to those who hoped


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ARMY TALKSto ge t it . This figure w as progressively scaled dow n in theDawes, Young and other plans, until with the Hoover mora-torium reparations finally disappeared.

This fantastic financial hocus-pocus did not occur under Hitler.It was all ended be fore H itlercame to power . The sleightof-hand financiers were the leadersof republican Germany . T heym anaged to borrow (largelyfrom the United States) fromsix to ten t im es as m uch, incash, as they paid out in repara-

tions, in cash . Total figures will not be given here, because theycause headaches even to financiers and economists who usuallydote on such things . But three items of curious and importantinterest may be mentioned, before leaving this involved subject.

German Inflation Organized by ReichGerm any pleaded poverty and inability to pay, giving her

inflation as one reason . But this inflation, which wiped out allGerm an internal debt, was deliberately organized by Reichbankers, industrialists and Junkers . The figures of the Germanmark becam e a grim jokefor those who didn't have m arks.Here's what happened . The preW orld W ar I mark was worthfour to the dollar . In October, 1923, it was 4,200,000,000 to thedollar! Champagne, in .the Hotel Adlon bar, was five cents abottle, if you had d ollars! Then the m ark w as stabilized atonetrillionth of its former value.The second item has to do with the amount of the repara-tions charged against Germany in 1919, as compared with thesum that Germ any exacted from France in 1871 . A fter theFrancoPrussian war the reparations figure was set, roughly, attwice what the war cost Germ any. If the Allies had follow2dthis precedent the 1919 figuredemanded from Germany wouldhave been eight times the sumwe tried to get!

The third item comparesreparations that Germany w asasked to pay with the amountthat Germany exacted andexactsfrom occupied countriesin th is w ar . Pickings hav eprobably got a b it leaner as theoccupation continued, but for


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138 October, 1944

a period Germany collectedmostly in goods every fortyonedays, a sum equal to the original am ount she w as asked to payafter the f irst w ar as to tal reparations each year for W orld W arI dam ages!

6 . Germany, under the W eimar Republic and under theNazis, signed treaty after treaty, but broke them all . Germ anypretended to want peace , but the Germ an General Staff, theindustrialists, the socalled democraticSocialists and the Nazisall wanted, and intended the same thing : a war of revenge.They rearm ed, from the very first days after the Armistice wassigned . They w ere restricted to 100,000 standing army , butbefore Hitler came to pow er they had actually at least 250,000,plus the illegal "Black Reichs-w ehr," and labor battalions.They were forbidden airplanesand tanks, so they built themsecretly . They w ere forbiddensubm arines so they had thembuil t and tested in an othercountry.

They fooled the ArmamentsCon trol Com mission at everyturn . In 1925 General Malcolm,the British mem ber of the com-mission, reported (in a 504pagedocument) that Germany was not by any m eans disarm ed, infact w as rearm ing, but the B ritish and B elgian gov ernm entsburied the report, and, w eary of the w hole thing, turned aw ay .

Germ an Propaganda Split the A lliesGerm an propagan da spread like a p estilence over the

world, and soothed, irritated but always splitthe erstwhileAllies . We didn't want to recognize that H itler's shrill shriek-ings were the truth . He was believed whenever he shouted that"this was his last demand," because that it what we wanted tobelieve . The world turned a deaf ear because it so badly wantedpeace . The British, in 1935, cast 11,000,000 votes in a peace ballot,which urged the Governm ent to back up the League of Nations,and in the same breath demanded that all nations of the Leaguereduce their armam ents . W e we ren't any more con sistent,less if possible, and starved our forces, army, navy and air.Unfortunately, collective security was already collapsing . Itwas the pitiable period of appeasement.

The culminating tragifarce came with the M unich settle-


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14 A R M Y T A L K S

ment : Hitler's "final" demand : A British premier was cheeredwhen he returned w ith Hitler's signature on a scrap of paperindicating "Peace in O urTime ." Six mo nths later theworld began to come out of itstrance when H itler marchedinto Prague . A m onth later ,in April, 1939, the British in-troduced conscription . In Sep-tember, 1940, the United Statesintroduced Selective Service.

So that's how it went, andhow G ermany's diabolical de-termination to rule the worldfinally woke us up . That's how

Germany overran every nation in Europe except six . Th is isWorld W ar II, but it represents the fifth aggressive war in 75years for which Germany under the German General Staff isresponsible . Don't forget what they did before 1914 : Denmark(a war of aggression) in 1864 ; Austria (a w ar of aggression) in1866 ; France (a war of aggression) in 1870.

H o w A r e W e G oing t o T r eat G er m an y ?After all these experiences we have had excellent oppor-

tunity to learn how to treat the Germ ans this tim e . In oneway it is fortunate that W orld W ar II has com e so soon afterWorld War I because there are hundreds of millions still activewho have been able to observe the results of German qualitiesin both wars . W e have our records and our mem ories. W ehave m illions of dead and maimed . W e, in the U nited S tates,have a w ar debt ten times what it was a few yea rs ago . W ehave our multiplied taxes . We have our ration books and ourcoupons . We have had our peaceful lives interrupted.

W ill we put up with this thing, again and aga in and again?Just because the Germans want to take over civilization, andrun it their way? If we don 't intend to put up w ith it, thenwe have to decide how to handle this Germ an problem ; andwhen w e dec ide, stick to it, without getting soft or "sporting"about it. "W ays and m eans" brains have been w orking outthe various factors of the solution . W ithou t discussing therights or wrongs, the ease or the difficulties, whether w e willdo it, whether we should, let's see what has been suggested:

1 . W e intend to occupy G erm any . T his is m ore than asuggestion . I t is a statem ent of f act . T he U nited S tates,G reat B ritain and the S ov iet U nion hav e announced thisofficially . The respectiv e areas of occupation have not been


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158 October, 1944officially announced, but an informed opinion, resulting fromthe Teheran C onference, will be found on studying the mapon this page.

Disarmament, Control, Punishment2. W e intend to disarm Germ any . This m eans econom icdisarm am ent as w ell as m ilitary . It also m eans breaking theJunk ers' control, and that of the G erm an General S taf f.

3. W e intend to control Germ any . It fo llow s that this willbe done, for a period, w hen w e reach Point 1 . The period of


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16 ARMY TALKScontrol is widely debated . Some say ten years . Others say fortyyears .

4. W e intend to punish guilty Germ ans . T his is official,as a result of the statem ent issued by R oosev elt, Churchill andStalin, Novem ber 1, 1943, after the M oscow Conference.5. On the subject of reparations . Ideas on this point hav e

not y et cry stallized into m ethods and figures . S talin andleaders of occupied areas have urged that the German reservoirof labor be used in rehabilitation of the destruction their arm ieshave w reaked . B itten by statistics last tim e, w e shy of f thistime .

6. Territorial adjustm ents It is taken for granted that alllooted land w ill be returned to ow ners . Ex actly which owners,as of w hat date, has not been determ ined . S om e f avor div idingGerm any into sm all parts . Sum ner W elles urges partition intothree parts : Southern Germany ; com prising B avaria, W urttem -berg, B aden, HesseDarm stadt, Rhineland, Saar ; Central Ger-m any , including Upper Hesse, T huringia, W estphalia, Hanover,Oldenburg and Ham burg ; N orthEast Germ any, w ith Prussia(exclusive of East Prussia w hich m ay go to Poland), M eck len-burg and Saxony .

7. R eeducation of Germans.L ord V ansittart, for forty years inthe B ritish Foreign Of f ice, says inL essons of M y L ife:

"This Germ an generation isadm ittedly incurable . . A new andretaught generation w ill have toreplace the incurables . W e m u stperf orce leave open the date ofsafety . Our successors alone candecide ."The great argument on this subject revolves around thequestion of "W ho shall undertake the reeducation?" shall itbe done from outside, or left to Germans under our d irection?

8. T he problem of the Germ an people . T hey w ill be fed.B ut their responsibility as a people, the shallow ness of theirdem ocratic experience, and their proneness tow ard obey ingaggressive and ruthless leaders is increasingly recognized.

9. Our continuing responsibility It is being stressed ,although by no m eans yet accepted in the United S tates, thatthe "sam e intense planning and torrents of energy" w hich w inw ars m ust be devoted to "w inning the peace ." A s a distin-


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178 October, 1944guished American international lawyer, Louis Nizer, puts it, inhis book What to Do W ith Germany?:

"Those w ho w rite the peace m ust be giftedwith the righteousness which comes from a . justifiedanger aga inst the im m ediate past, and a ca lmdetermination about the long future ."

And an antiNazi journalist, Leopold Schwarzschild, in nisbrilliant book World in Trance, concludes with this warning:

"Nev er again mu st w e believe that the un-pleasantness, sacrifices and responsibilities that allthis implies are too heavy and too great to be borne.They are heavy and they are serious . It is a burdento police the worldat least in its most dangerousquarters . It is neither easy nor inexpensive ."


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How-o prepare this Army TalkTwentysix years ago, the nations of the world asked them-

selves : "What to do with Germany?" Today w e are having toask it again . But the asking is the easier part . The questionmust be answered by you and me and every other G .I . who hasbeen sweating it out over here for more than two years.

We can beat the Germans . We are giving them one of theworst beatings in history . It cannot be too thorough . But don tlet us think for a m inute that a thorough thrashing w ill solvethe problem of Germany . It is the first step, and it m ust bedone as ruthlessly and as com pletely as possible . B ut afterthat, what?

This issue of ARMY TALKS, written by a soldier who servedin the last war as well as in this, brings back the attitudes andthe errors Of a quarter of a century ago . History is often madeby men who have 'learned very little from history.

Nobody is in a stronger position, nobody has more at stakein this war than those men who have fought in it . If we fail tostop and reflect and try to answer the repeated "W hat do youthink? " of this ARM Y TALKS, we may be guilty of fightingwithout knowing why.

Every man in the American Army owes it to himself and tohis family to have some answers . They w on't all agree, but theyshould all make sense . Let's exam ine the errors of Versailles.Let's reconsider the history written between 1918 and 1939 andlet's attempt to puzz le out the toughest problem w ith w hichmen saddle the worldwar.

You may not believe in a League of Nations . You may smileat the idea of an international police force, but they are greatthoughts, they are ideas w hich cannot be dismissed w ithoutconsideration . They are at least efforts to solve the problem .W hether Germ any is to be occupied for ten years; whetherGermany can be reeducated to a less warlike attitude ; whetherthere is a Nazi and a German these are some of the questionswe must answer . What do you think?

Printed by Newnes & Pearson Printing Co ., Ltd ., Exmoor Street . N . Kensington, London . W .10 .


19/20

SORRYoops -Army Talks of 27 September 1944 (You 're Really inthe Army Now) says on page x 3 not to take sulfatablets unless you have a full, canteen of water (or wine).Here's an important change :Sulfa tablets should always be taken with fluid, prefer,ably a pint of water . If water isn ' t immediately avail,able, don ' t wait for it . Chew up the pills and swallowthem, but be sure to drink as soon afterwards aspossible.Yes, it' s safe to take sulfa dry, because in almost everycase, you can get some water or wine within a fewhours from the time the pills were taken. If you can' tget it yourself, the Medics are always on the job andwill get it for you.In World War L, practically every wound becameinfected . With the use of sulfa, an infected woundin this war is rare . As a result, those little white pillsalone have saved many thousands of lives . So don' tbe afraid to use them . You can worry about gettingthe water afterwards, if you don't have it with you .


20/20

MoralebuildersThe war is out of France, across Belgium and into Germany.All of the boasts and promises of Goering and Goebbels havebeen to no avail . The military operations move according toplan to our plan and our men are winning . What theyhave learned about what they are fighting for has helpedthem smash across the last frontier, and at the same timekeep even with the score.

That is the job that Orientation has : to give the men the score.The topic of this issue will be briefed in Warweek and puton the air by American Forces Network . For the men in Ger-many and the men moving up, it is of the first importance.If you can possibly do it, hold a discussion . If not, spreadten copies through the company and let everyone have theopportunity to read them.ARM Y TALKS ON THE "AlR

Tune m on your American Forces Network station for adramatized presentation of the week's ARMY TALKS . Tie it upwith your talk, use it as a self-starter for the discussion.Time : 1030 Saturday 28 October 1944 . .Choose any convenient spot where you have a radio and aroom for your platoon to listen in and follow up discussing thesubject

ARMY TALKS IN THE NEWSThe subject matter of this week's ARMY TALKS will appear inan illustrated GI digest in the Warweek supplement of Starsand Stripes on Thursday 19 October 1944.Purpose : to enable the soldier to enter the discussion withprior knowledge of the subject . Warweek, official Orientationorgan for the ETO, is striving to make the American soldieris this theater the best informed soldier of the world

.. .importance ismorale

what to do with germany

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