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Moreover, even the fanatical Nazis were convinced, by the one criterion of values that Nazism had established, the value of brute strength, that America presented within superior values. They had tried faith and it had failed. The conquerors had established their VIRTY and thereby their right, by the mere fact of military occupation. Thus even Nazi fanatics were at least willing to wait and see.

Today, with two years of hindsight, we know that the opportunity was fleeting and is now past. Probably the wisest course would have been the rapid elimination of the fanatical element from public office and letting the rest work its way home. This would have allowed the vast majority of the population to identify itself with an American policy. Since decisive action to the German is an indication of moral worth, it would have greatly increased U. S. prestige.

Instead, Military Occupation Law No. 8 was formulated. This declared all Germans collectively guilty. Nazi party members were barred from public office, or responsible positions in industry. Two categories were established. Individuals who had joined the Nazi party before May 1, 1937 were relegated to the status of manual laborer without any possibility of appeal. Those that joined after the deadline were given a chance to clear themselves before tribunals, established for this purpose.

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Law No. 8 looked simple on paper. However, by declaring the whole population collectively guilty a unity of purpose was achieved where none had existed before. Law No. 8 had intended to load the scales against the defendant by declaring him guilty unless he could prove his innocence. But this very fact worked in the accused's favor. A person could call any number of witnesses to prove his innocence. To testify for one another became a matter of practical necessity for one day one might need defense witnesses oneself. To testify for the prosecution ~~became dangerous~~ and involved ostracism. The chief sufferers were the persons who had been unpopular even during the Nazi regime for they could find no friends to testify for them. And the more Machiavellian among the populace did not fail to press the irony of bringing to account the very individuals to whom the Occupation Forces had appeared as liberators.

The situation was aggravated by the indifference of the lower echelons of military Government. The Army by training and temperament is impatient of obstructions. Its God is Efficiency and de-Nazification was undermining the smooth operation of government. Efforts were consequently made to save key men. And benevolent tolerance greeted such subterfuges as discharging individuals only to rehire them for the same position, at identical salary with the ~~xxx~~ title of 'manual laborer.'

The population did not fail to note that one of the major policies of the Occupation Forces seemed to be carried out for the record only. They saw glowing accounts of a 90% successful de-Nazification, against a background of an only insignificant

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turnover of personnel in their immediate area. The apportunists, the Nazis who had been stunned by the first shock of defeat re-emerged. To them the American leniency was not a sign of magnamimity, but an indication of weakness, a token of softness, of naivty.

When M. O. finally formulated the Law for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism it was too late. This law established five degrees of Nazi activity to be determined by all-German tribunals. Penalties ranged from ten years in jail to monetary fines. But it was too late. De-Nazification had a united public opinion against it. Appointment to the tribunals became a political football, a sure way to eliminate one opponent from any future elective office. The only group WHO THE SEEMINGLY EAGER TO ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY WERE THE COMMUNISTS, AND IN THIS FASHION ACQUIRED A MEANS FOR GATHERING INFORMATION AND AN INFLUENCE TOTALLY OUT OF PROPORTION TO THEIR NUMBERS.

De-Nazification turned into a farce. It became a means of eliminating unwanted employees, a weapon of personal retribution, a potent organ of shady mechinations. The individuals who for twelve years had apposed Nazism, suffered for it and have been persecuted for it, were persecuted again. They became a symbol that individualism was not feasible, to stand against the mass inadvisable, that concepts of morality were relative.

Two of the most flagrant examples will be cited here. An individual who for twelve years had violently opposed the Nazis,

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whose shop had been closed, whose daughters had been inducted into
the forced Labor Battalions, and who in the year 1943 finally
joined the Nazi party, was refused clearance by his de-Nazification
board. This entailed the inability to do business, to drive a
car or engage in any activity, and these are almost all-inclusive,
requiring government license. When the chairman of his de-
Nazification board was asked why clearance had been withheld,
he stated that during a bombing attack the individual in question
had put out a fire in his own house, but had not attended to
the houses of his neighbors. This, alleged the chairman, had
made him very unpopular. And isn't it undemocratic to clear
an unpopular person before more deserving individuals had been
taken care of?

A Civil Servant, who in 1933 had been demoted by the Nazis
for what was called "political unreliability" supplied information
about his immediate superior to the De-Nazification Tribunal as,
under the law, was indeed his duty. Subsequently he was arrested.
With a perfectly straight face the following reason was given.
The superior was a democratic official. Anybody denouncing a
democratic official is by definition 'undemocratic.' And who
is undemocratic but a Nazi?

The cycle had indeed come full turn. The opportunists who
had played it safe for twelve years were on the right side again.
Efficiency was triumphant. Morality was something for starry-eyed
idealists to be found in textbooks, to be invoked frequently, but
never to be practiced. American prestige was severely diminished.
It is a truism of politics that an announced policy that is not
being enforced, or even subverted, is more dangerous than no

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policy at all. The anti-Nazis were bitter, the Nazis triumphant.
De-Nazification had become Re-Nazification.

With de-Nazification a failure, democratization was foredoomed. Nevertheless, it was implemented. It is Army tradition to consider an order issued as good as carried out. While this may be admirable in combat operations, it creates a state of mind which accepts a paper plan as an existing reality. Democratization of Germany was planned like a military operation. A series of target-dates were set, each marked by a free election on a successively higher level. Within eight months all levels of civil administration were popularly elected and constitutions framed. The slogan was that 'the best way to learn democracy is to practice it.'

The first election was held only nine months after V-E day. It is DIFFICULT TO SEE BY what line of reasoning it was expected that a people which had been fifteen years of democracy, and then voted Hitler into office, that had been exposed to authoritarian propaganda for twelve years, which had fought a total war for Nazism for six years, that for three months after the armistice had had no newspapers or mail service, the communications of which were even then totally disrupted, would vote that such a people would intelligently. The predictable occurred. The people went to the polls as they were ordered to. They voted for whatever political party they had voted before 1933. And M. G. announced that the best indication of progress on the road to democracy could be found in an election day turnout of 87%.
Now the people understood.
Democracy was a matter of percentages.

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[y]

The same thing happened to democratization as had already occurred with de-Nazification. It was for the record only. The democratic institutions were subverted to as much of a likeness of former institutions as Military Government laws permitted. Proportional representation and the list system of voting compound the evil. Representatives in German Parliaments today owe their primary allegiance to their party. They vote as a bloc. Their purpose would be just as well served if one man sat in parliament with a number of votes equal to his party strength.

Today Germany is a seething cauldron. The Germans have learned that outward appearances are of primary importance and that as long as a facade is maintained, almost anything goes. Consequently the word 'democracy' is one of the most frequently invoked, in Germany today. It shields in key positions professional soldiers who, because debarred by law from joining the Nazi party, now pose as anti-Nazi. Democracy has become what is pleasant, a flexible abstraction, adaptable to the needs of the moment, not an idea to be understood, but an expediency to be exploited. Democracy means that one should forget the past and stick together against the conqueror. Democracy is the covering up of twelve years of martial glory, the necessity of the hour, the forms of which are strange, but whose representatives are quite familiar.

Democracy covers a multitude of sins. It is used by a cabinet minister to justify his voting for Hitler in the German

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Parliament of 1933. Why, he avers, to give Hitler dictatorial powers, was a vote for democracy. The more powerful Hitler had, the quicker would be his ruin. If the calculation did not work out, it was the American fault, who had supported Hitler financially.

The threat of the Bavarian Prime Minister on the floor of Parliament to have a particularly DURATE opposition member arrested is merely another indication of the superficial hold that real democracy has in Germany.

Today, three years after V-E day, the U. S. is in many ways in a worse position than at the end of the war. The anti-Nazis are bitter and disillusioned. The great mass of the population see in our vacillating policy, OUR ever greater turning over of responsibility a confession of failure. Since no major policy of the U. S. has ever been pushed to completion, the feeling is prevalent that America lacks moral stature. In the testing for the limits of authority which is one of the outstanding traits of the German character, no boundaries of American TOLERATION have ever been reached. Every German probing has found a weakness in the American shell. The attempt by M. G. to present as pleasant a picture as possible to Congress has resulted in frequent attempts to suppress unfavorable news. The fact that the German agriculture ministries in a year of acute food shortage underestimated their yield by 75% was played down. Instead of a severe reprimand, the responsible ministers received assurances of continued M. G. confidence.

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It is not surprising to find therefore, that Dr. Semmler's successor in the Bizonal Economic Council almost immediately repeated the identical charges, if in somewhat more polite form, that had led to Dr. Semmler's dismissal.

Democracy in German eyes has been tried and found wanting. Hitler's allegation that power was the ultimate end of political activity, and the only criterion of values seems to them confirmed. Germans think that they became a power in power-politics; all American concessions are interpreted in this fashion. With the self-righteousness of people who feel they have been correct all along, German Governmental officials present their cases. Every move, every speech, is magnified into a portion of the great contest of proving the German's inherent and superior value.

This, too, explains the fact that German officials, carefully refrain from attacking the U.S.S.R. If moral values are in-different, if power is the ultimate standard, then one must be sure, by all means, to be on the winning side the next time. And Russia, hated though she is, offers in her firmness of purpose, her ruthlessness, her toughness, a greater assurance of strength than the vacillations of the U. S. M.G. To be sure, every advantage obtainable from America will be accepted, not grate-fully, but as a matter-of-fact. Yet, in the final analysis, when the chips are down, the Germans in power today, are the last people to count on.

This, then, is the extent of our moral failure in Germany. It is a moral failure, for we started with infinite advantages

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over the other occupation powers. We were, in the eyes of many sincere Germans, the hope of Europe. It is a moral failure, for we have utterly missed in firing the imagination of Germany, or even in impressing them with the vitality of American principles of government. If we keep stressing balance-of-payments, we are merely deferring the issue to the day when another power can outbid us economically.

Yet, we will never succeed in Germany as long as intellectuals, Political Advisors to M. G., who should know better, deliver themselves of such glib statements as: "Democracy is failing in Germany, for it is difficult for an army, built on autocratic lines to teach democracy." This begs the issue. It implies that the U. S. Army is curbing neutral German inclinations towards more democracy. The contrary is true. It is too little supervision, too little assumption of responsibility that is to blame for the present impasse. On almost all echelons of Government, there are at most two American officers, frequently dependent on their German interpreter, who have the task of supervision. Is it really alleged that these officers with minimal powers hamstring Germany, striving towards democracy?

No, the failure is more basic. It is a problem of lack of convictions among the personnel implementing U. S. policy. If the head of one of the branches of the Political Affairs division of M. G. can tell an incoming group of new M. G. officers to go easy on the Germans for, after all, don't we have poll taxes and anti-lynching laws in this country? Little can be expected in the democratization of Germany. America represents

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[y]

something more than poll taxes, and one does not cure a patient of one disease by injecting him with another one.

The slogan that democracy is learned by practice might be better phrased that democracy can't be learned except by understanding and education. A certain firmness of purpose might do more to establish democracy in Germany than any amount of rhetoric. On the one occasion that M. G. STOOD FIRM, at the threat of a strike in Greater Hesse, German officials were slavish in their attempt to shift responsibility. It may be laudable to want to establish American institutions, but democratic principles must precede. Morphine addicts are not broken of their habit except gradually.

The U. S. mistake then has been to attempt solving a problem formally, the only solution of which lay in the realization that human beings do not respond too well to standardization, that varying psychologies need different remedies. The mistake is in overlooking intangibles that in the long run could benefit us more than any special orders from Army Headquarters.

I can't help thinking of a young German with whom, at the end of the war, I had argued all night about the relative merits of dictatorship vs. totalitarianism, and whom I took the next day to a concentration camp we had just captured. When he saw the rows of tar-paper huts, the creatures on narrow boards who had to be pushed to tell the dead from the living, he turned to

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me and said: "All right, I was wrong. But don't you see how
empty the world is without belief. I must believe in order to
live."

rather than
This, as much as any economic statistics, symbolizes.
the problem of Germany.

Are we so weak, so little sure of ourselves, that we could
lose 300,000 men in a war, but cannot make people believe,
in democracy--which is, after all, believing in themselves?