Aon 2

1945 — Page 11

Why We Despise Them

oo - By ILYA EHRENBURG

(Excerpts from an Article)

WJ E no longer have to justify our hatred for the German

. invaders: the reasons for it are clear.
or pamphlets but hangmen and torch squads that taught
The hatred was born on sultry days—that first
summer when wheat rustled sadly beneath the jackboots

as to hate.

of the intruders—and was tem-
Upered by the cold of dreadful
iyears. Many a time in history
has one nation or another con-
eeived a hatred for its invad-
‘ers. At the end of the eight-
Feenth century the French
thated the Austrians and the
"Prussians who invaded their
‘country and twenty years later
ithe Spaniards and Russians
(came to hate the French. The
honly wars which weren't in-
-fused with hatred were dynas-
ltie wars, contests of profes-
Psional armies, scrambles for
'beoty: and such wars never
‘affected the heart of the
people, for man is given to
“sow and reap and not to stab
with a bayonet. Only a ereat,
righteous and passionate hat-
-ved can. induce a peaceful
people to become warriors. But
even in times that we call
“barbaric” in history, we never
" knew such inhuman and des-
| picable-aggressors as the Ger-
' man fascists and nobody can be
' surprised that even the child-
ten of our country speak of
'the Germans with hatred.

|. @ne of our soldiers enters
the house ef a German land-
owner. He sees sumptuously
furnished -hooms, engravings
on the walls}; Bohemian glass,
eases filled with gilt-backed
volumes, a writing desk — all
semblances of complex and
colorful life. A former Smol-
ensk collective farmer, now a
private of the Guards, inspects
the house and then turns to a
portrait of the owner, a worthy
looking. German, and says with
infinite contempt, “Oh, you
Fritz.” For we feel not only
hate for the Germans but pro-
found contempt. This senti-
ment was at first vague and,
unable to express it, our ‘soldier
satirists made,fun of the pris-
= oners with their heads wrapped
* in shawls or of the rheum
| dripping from Fritz’s winter
nose, as though: external squal-
or and degradation were dis-=
dinguishinge features of the
Germans which aroused our
contempt.

Now we have- seen their
prosperous country, good roads
and tidy houses; yet all this
doesn’t heighten our respect
for the Germans. Our con-
tempt for them has long ceased
to be a vague feeling. It has
become part of our conscious-
ness. We aren’t only marching
through the-land of the enemy
whom we hate, we are marching

and stern contempt.

been infected with their idiotic
race theory? Is it because -we
think our blo6od is nobler and
our manners amd even our de-
fects above criticism, solely be-
cause they are ours? Or is it
because we are drunk with
" victory and have become intol-

* erant? No! That isn’t like our
people. Naturally, there are
black sheep in every family;
there haye been and still are

through a land an which live.the _.
beings that evoke in us a cold ,

Why do we'despise’ the Ger- -
mans? Is it because we have:

It wasn t words

conceited individuals among us
too, but we laugh at them. We
don’t believe that there is
“superior” blood and “inferior”
blood. Our country is inhabited
by people speaking many dif-
ferent languages and nobody
would be so insane as to dis-
cuss whieh blood is superior,
Byelorussian ‘or Armenian. In
some countries philosophers
and senators argue that one
race is superior to another. In
our country only a couple of
drunken idiots who have got
too sodused to be coherent
could discuss such a thing. It
doesn’t worry us that Pushkin

had an Hthiopian ancestor,
that Scottish blood flowed in
Termontoy’s veins, that MLevi-

tan, one of the finest Russian
landscape painters, was a Jew,
that the name of the author
of Nincompoop was spelled in
his lifetime as Ewe words—von
Vizen.

Of all the features of Rus-
sian culture, the Russians were
proudest of its universality, of
its all-embracing human char-
acter. Even Dostoyevsky, the
most individual of Russian
writers, time and again
stressed that. the Russians
iveasure eyery manifestation
of foreion genius. There has
never been a period in our his-
tery which was tarnished with
national arrogance. We were
always glad to asknowledge
the achievements of others and
to learn from others. When we
say that we have outstripped
other countries in many things,
we do so not in a boastful vein
but because we value substance
higher than form and are
proud not of material riches
but of the difficult and worthy
path we have traversed.

However, we also recognize
form and know that an idea
must be invested in fiesh and
blood, that execution, quality,
sldll and culture are all im-
portant. Now too, we are ready
to learn from the virtues of
other nations. Isn’t there much
that is splendid and note-
worthy in America? Are our
engineers indifferent to trans-
Atlantic methods of produc-
tion? We should be happy if
our people behaved like HEng-
lishmen in tramears and to do
so they have a lot to learn
from the English. The artist
who doesn’t admit that there is
a lot that could. be learned
from the French painters is
blind._

We have amazed the world

-not-only by our courage and

strength but also by our insti-
tutions. Jt is time to say that
the -victories of the Red Army.
are the victories of the Soviet
system, for tanks beyond the
Oder cannot be separated from

plants in the Urals or the Ural_

plants from the October Revo-
lution, nor can the biographies

of Zhukov, Rokossovsky,, or
Ghernyakhovsky be separated
from the immense social ad-

vances of our new democracy.
The stronger we are, the easier
it is for us to recognize the

0

‘lot to learn- from us;

merits of others. We are not
envious, nor are we jealous.
We not only rejoice at the vic-
tories of Generals Patton and
Montgomery, we rejoice at all
the martial deeds of our allies,
big and small. We aren’t prone
to be intoxicated with victory
and if we draw attention to
the fact that it was our people
who saved Hurope and the
world from fascism, it isn’t
because we covet laurels, but
because we don’t want thorns;

mot because we are ambitious’

of honour but because the
blood that has been shed de-
imands respect.

Be STRESSING the part we
played in the defeat of fas-
cism, we want to ensure peace
for our children, to prevent the
recrudescence of racial or
national dementia. Our atti-
tude to other nations is one of
respect and esteem: we know
they have their shortcomings,
just as we have. Others have a
let us
also learn from them. There’s
a place in the sun for every-
body. If we despise the Ger-

mans, it isn’t because they are”

aliens. We despise the Ger-
mans for their deeds, for their
thoughts and sentiments, for
the ulcers with which they
have disfigured Germany in the
eyes of mankind.

In 1917 Rusia ushered in a
new era. And alone came a
maniac man embittered by
failure, a man with a disreput-
able past who was bereft of
even an elementary store of
knowledge and proclaimed that
German blood was superior to
all other. And his words found
a willing response in a popula-
fion of 80,000,000 and in the
Europe of the 1930’s; after the

Eneyclopedists, after scientific
socialism, after the triumph of
the October Revolution —
superstition, jgnorance and

cheap pride raised their heads.
Amd on grounds that German
hlood is superior to all other,
the Germans drenched Europe
in blood. Can one help despis-
ing them for that? How can
ene not despise them when one
looks at the inane face of Hit-
ler posing with a tragic ex-
pression, a yulgar clerk who is
suffering from colic (he even

“fy him, for coffeein Germ

has his hand on his stomach
and his eyes stare out of his
head) ? Can one help despising
the Germans knowing that
they fought and are fighting
without ideals, without any
noble striving for happiness,
like robbers and professional
assassins?

We despise the Germans for
their cruelty, the cruelty of a
weasel which strangles the de-
fenseless. We despise them for
their “murder wagons,’ their
“cas bathhouses,” \their blood-
thirstiness which is associated
with sexual perversity; for

‘those photographs of hanged

people in the albums of Ger-
man young ladies, for model
gallows in German schools.
The cruelty of the primitive
man may arouse our indigna-
tion, horror. and anger. The
eruelty of the German travel-
ing salesman who neatly splits
open a child’s skull evokes be-
sides fierce hatred, contempt
and loathing. Who would con-
sent to wear Himmiler’s shirt
er ‘touch a German woman
who had embraced a Gestapo
agent?
@

E DESPISE the Germans
for their cult of externals,

for their passion for appear-
ances, for’ their make-believe.
A- German would? buy books
for the sake of their bindings.
Choosing between. a meat
mincer and meat, a German
would buy the minecer and
deny himself the meat. During
the war, a German would buy
a coffee mill and fasten it to
his wall and that would satis-
any
wasn’t to be had: Fo a German

‘eulture means technology and

nothing else. He admires per-
fected howsehold . appliances
but..mevers asks himself what
happiness means. He is spir-
itually gross, is imeapable of
finer feelings and. makes no
effort to -inculcate in his chil-
dren the rudiments of moral-
ity. What imterests him is
some improved flyeatcher or:
machine for shredding carrots.
Everything about them is

-meant- for outward show. A

German has ai swritinge table,
inkstand and pen and knows
all the rules of-German spel-
ling but he sits at his table

and has nothing to write be-
eause there is nothing in his
head. Technique to him isn’t
a means but an end; furniture
isn’t the appointments of home
but a thing in itself; and he
himself is an item of furniture

more insignificant perhaps
¢han the chest of drawers or 2

_ sofa.

We despise the Germans for
being morally and physically
shameless. They photograph
one another performing their
natural’ functions. This is
humor of the pigsty; even 2
dog would be ashamed of 4
“Soke” of that kind. In the
home of a German “philoso-
pher” I saw hanging on the
wall a motto “Man’s home is
the world. Woman’s world is

the home.” The Germans edu-.

cated their daughters te be
future econeubines. To a Ger-
man, woman is something mid-
way between a housekeeper
and a mattress. German moral-—
ists enjoined German “women:
“Your duty is to give pleasure
to the victors.” Women took
the lesson to heart and now
when things haven’t turned out
auite to the German schedule
and the victors aren’t the ones
anticipated, the German wo-
men ogle and sigh at our men
who are unable to conceal their
contempt. The husbands of
these German women have
made a tour of all the brothels
in Europe, have infected them-
selves and infected others, be-
haved. like, beasts everywhere
and brought back home ob-
scene postcards. One may stop
to look atia baboon; that is zo-
ology. Baboons don’t wear
trousers and don’t boast about
their race superiority. But at
the sight of German men and
women you feel your stomach
rise: ee
Mae er 2

H DESPISE the Germans
beeause they lack element-
ary human dignity. They are
ineapable of revolting against
tyranny. They are imeapable of
feeling indignation. They are -
incapable of remorse. Goebbels
threatened that if worst comes
to worst he will ohsot himself.
Fritz also vows, “I'll die rather
than surrender.” But a rumor

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