EB teft Warsaw with a

feeling of satisfaction: we had seen that our forces had grown, that the peoples would not -be caught un- awates by a handful of vil- lains and madmen, that a high authority fer the pro- tection of life had been cre- ated — the Peace Council. Three months have passed.

We were not mistaken-in our re- joicing: tha peace movement is growing and spreading. . Ever more often and more insistently honest Americans are raising their voices, warning their fel- low-citiaéns of tha dangerous game their rulers are * playing. But the stronger the movement for peace, the madder. the loath- some game becomes. '

The instigators of war are,;in a hurry; they are seared by the awakening of reason and con- Seience.- Korea to them was 2 rehearsal. _ Failure jhas not brought them to their senses. Men who are not in a mental

* ‘hospital, but in the legislature of

of a big country, are demanding openly and unblushingly, the bombing of Chinese towns, the employment of the atom bomb, the precipitation of a third world war.

They are prepared to drive into the shambles not only their own youth, but the flower 6: Europe. They are buying human flesh in the world markets in much the same way as their grandfathers bought wool or ore. »

The international organization which has the offspring of the courage of the Soviet people, of the valor of the guerilla fighters of Europe, of the intense effort

of the common people of Britain

.. and America—the organization to

which five years ago the peoples of the world looked with ho they have turned into a provincial theatre ‘for unfastidious specta- tors from Mississippi and Okla- homa.

We have seen men who crossed

‘= the ocean with evil intent and

.

drenched a far-off foreign land

~ with the blood of children, crying:

“Help, we haye been attacked!” One might think that it was a party of American school boys

> that came ‘on an excursion to Kor-»

‘ea and were molested by their wicked hosts. One might think that the Chinese had seized San Francisco and dropped bombs on Texas.” One might think that the

_ River Yalu flows through Michi-, gan and that defenseless Ameri-

ean girls who were reclining on

- its banks were assaulted by sa- ~-vage Chinese — be

This is not funny it is revolting.

The instigators of war are trying

‘to use a blue rag to hide their

**\ Knife, red” with the stains of ~ blood. In the preparations they

-

~” “are making for an unprecedented

bloodbath, they stop at nothing. they mine German bridges and . pressgang Columbign down-and-

~ outs, they test atom bombs in

Nevada and test the loyalty of

‘their European sheriffs in Brus-

“gels, they clothe themselves in

~-* $heep’s skins arid hasten to coerce

aud

~" prowbeaten Chileans and Dutch

to appénd their signatures to in-

_ dulgences to genocides.

‘ The president of the fascist Deutsche Reichspartei in Bruns- wick recently said: “To , testore the honor of the SS is the prime duty of the German people. No

one can condemn us any more, —

now that General MacArthur's

’ troops are annihilating villages

together with their women and children.” Yes, the American in- stigators of war have. resurrected Hitler's deeds, Who, after this, can be surprised that they want to resurrect Hitler’s army? e ;

It is not only the Germans that are concerned about the destiny.

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EHRENBERG

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of the country in whose capital we have gathered. On Germany are fastened the eyes of the peo- ples of the world. This might be explained by geography: we have before us a country situated in the heart of Europe which has been arbitrarily split into two. Beyond its borders lie two worlds, the possibility of whose peaceful coexistence the instigators of war deny; and one half of this coun- try has already been turned into a base of military operations.

This interest in the future of Germany might also be explained by history: Germany has too of- ten interfered in the destinies of other nations, her soldiers have too often crossed into foreign lands. People ask, “what will the Germans do?” or “what will be done to the Germans?” Wherever they may be living, people know that if Germany is drawn into a military coalition, the threat of war will grow. *

People also know that if Ger- many remains outside the game, the instigators of war will think twice before they pass from the threats to the first fatal shot.

I may be asked why I talk of Germany as a single entity. Af- ter all, there are two Germanies, one distinct from the other. Yes, I know very well that the people who head the German Democratic Republic do not resemble the peo- ple who have proclaimed Bonn the capital of another Germany. I know that at the very time

the Berlin parliament passed a

Peace Defense Act, the ministers

of the government locateq in

“Bonn were negotiating for the in-

clusion of Western Germany in a military coalition. z And if I nevertheless speak of

the destiny of Germany, as though |

ignoring temporary boundaries, it is because I cannot separate the destiny of a state from the des- tiny of its people. The inhabi- tants of Frankfurt-on-Main and Frankfurt-on-Oder have shared the same periods of rise and de- cline, have created the’ same

values, committed the same blun- %

ders, lived one common life.

‘This natton was not born yes-—

terday, nor did it only yesterday become conscious of its unity. As

in every country where social

contradictions still exist, Germany has its internal boundaries. It is not along the Elbe or any other

river that they lie; they are to be

found in every city, they separate the mansion of Herr Krupp from the homes in Which his workers live.

But are there not two Frances oa the one that signs military

pacts, and the one that demands peace? I therefore, take the lib- erty of speaking not of the des- tiny of Frankfurt-on-Main or Frankfurt-on-Oder, but of the destiny of Germany.

We have heard the controver-

_ sies of. diplomats, the wranglings

of international jurists, the argu- ments of politicians. I am neither a diplomat nor a jurist nor a politician. I want to speak of the German question as a man who has lived through all that other people of my age have lived through. TI shall. speak bluntly, casting aside delicacy, which is sometimes more offensive than the truth.

The problem of Germany's fu- ture is, a complex ang painful one; it is like a tangled skein of hair clinging to a still suppurating

wound. Here we have the fate

of German adolescents who grew up amid sirens and ruins, amid torn-up maps of “Greater Ger- many” and meagre food rations, amid alien soldiers and home-bred_ marauders, amid talk of canned food and atom bombs. Here, too,

PRPRPRPTC A CTT MC ITC IC LL

we have the fate of those Ger- mans of all ages ang all walks of life who drained to the dregs the cup of shame proffered them

by the Third Reich, and who,- recognizing the depth of their fall, rose up and began honestly .

to work and to think and to strive for brotherhood and) chari- tableness.

In the tangled skein of which I speak, we have the fate of other peoples, those who knew the bit-

‘terness’ of. Nazi invasion — the

fate of the Poles, the French and

‘the Czechs, the fate of the mil- lions of Men and women of the —

Soviet Union, the fate of the peo- ple who have built or are build- ing new homes on the ashes of the old, the fate 9f widows, or pnans and mothers parched by tears, the fate of the people who knew the horrors of the death camps and Gestapo dungeons, and

‘of their comrades and near ones, the fate of the soldfers, who have © “not forgotten and never will for. crime. get what they have been through. _

In thie tangle of hair on te

unhealed wound, we have the fate

“army. But who are the

of the men of many nations who during the war cast in their lot with the heroic resistance to fas- cism. The war between the Nazi aggressors and the peoples of Eur- ope was not a knightly tourna- ment, nor a conflict between two dynasties or two concerns. Diplo- mats, jurists and politicians may weigh the legality or expediency of resurrecting Hitlers army; but the peoples :have @ conscience, and that conscience cries: “Never!” :

The American commander-in- chief, who recently came to Ger- many looking for a consignment ‘of human flesh, hastened to mor- ally rehabilitate Hitler’s army.. Tf we recognize this moral rehabili- tation as correct, then we must condemn the heroism, the self- sacrifice, the sacred indignation of the guerilla fighters of Byelo- russia, Poland, France. To them, as to all honest men of Europe, the war against the Nazi aggres- sors was not only a patriotic duty; it was a war in defence of hu- manity’s ideals.

The men’ who are setting Kor- ea's cities aflame with jellied pe- troleum, the men who are slaying > old folk andebabies in this un- happy country, may, of course, rehabilitate the men who burned down thousands of Soviet villages, who marched through Lidice and

_ Oradour, who worked the crema-.

tories of Oswiecim. But never will the honest people of the world call infanticides soldiers.

‘When General Eisenhower came . to Germany he said, “Let us bury the past.” These words sound noble enough if you don’t stop to think about them, But if you do stop to think about them, they sound criminal.

No one has ever accused the Russians of bearing grudges. Vindictivaness is not in our nar ture. My people have extended, the hand of fellowship t@ the Germans who have turned to 3 — peaceful and honest life. But ours are not maiden memories—we 40 not forget. .

To forget what the fascists did to Europe would be betraying 2 t only the graves we cherish; it ~ would be betraying our children Memory is a high faculty—it dis- _ tinguishes the life of man from | the ‘life of a moth, To forget the crimes perpetuated by Hitjer’s army would be betraying not only the French and the Poles; would be betraying Europe and the whole world. rig

‘{ do not think it would help the German people to forget; on: the contrary, it would be dange™ ous and tragic for them to do BOF To rehabilitate Hitler's’ arm™Y would mean for Germany retrac” ing the terrible path from Jan-

/uary 1933 to May 1945. To forget

the past would be’ going. pack: at first, to the military parade and then to the military cemeter ies; it would mean first seizing the towns of others, and then seer ing the ruins of their own towns. ‘Tt is not the Wehrmacht 8° erals the:--German people , to rehabilitate, but their ow? name; not the SS men, but : man’s honest and peaceable work: ing folk; not the storm-trooP ai visions, but’ German towns, tf schools, their libraries and mus eums. sgt Se The American new entt would have the none-too-s0P cated American reader ene that the resurrected Germa army will not resemble Bl men ! it are expected to build this "iq army?, They are men ke Hitler's soldiers from crime

good

i ae: sor The Americans’ closest advise’ is General Hans Speidel. He i

(Continued on next pe.

| PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 15, 1951 — pace

»