- Measures for the Devastation of the Heart of Europe
-
- Long before the outbreak of the Second World War, and
certainly long before the outcome of this European slaughter of brothers
was foreseeable, the victors-to-be and their hangers-on had made plans
for the disposition of Germany that contained fundamental violations of
the Law of Nations. In addition to demilitarization and de-nazification
projects there were plans for the destruction or expulsion of Germans from
territories they have had inhabited for many centuries.
-
- For example, the expulsion of three and a half million
of the Sudeten Germans was proposed in December 1938 by later Czechoslovakian
president Edvard Bene°, that is, nearly a year before the official
outbreak of the war - and he was not the first to make the proposal. During
the Pan Slavic Congress held in Prague in 1848 the decision was taken that
not only Sudeten Germans, but all ethnic Germans east of the line Triest-Stettin
should be driven out. In summer 1917 Bene° and later president Minister-President
Kramár gave the Allies a memorandum in which they demanded the dismemberment
of Germany and the incorporation of large territories of the German Empire
and Austria-Hungary in the Czechoslovakia that was to be formed After
the signing of the dictate called the "Versailles Treaty," nationalistic
Czech and pan Slavic statements and demands were politically prominent;
unfortunately there is not space here to discuss that subject in detail.
However, these demands were all more or less fanatically fixed on the
expulsion of the Sudeten Germans.
-
- These projects in violation of the Law of Nations were
by no means merely the extravagant thoughts of chauvinistic, pan Slavic
or Communist politicians: they were the official policy of national governments.
The preamble to the Atlantic Charter expressly granted Czechoslovakia the
proviso that, on the signing of the document, the expulsion of Germans
could not be hindered. In September 1942 Bene°, ironically president
of the National-Socialist Party, which after the war renamed itself the
"People's Socialist" Party, received support for his plans from
the English government. London communicated that it had no objection to
the deportation of the Sudeten Germans, a population that has been dwelling
in what is now Czechia as long as the Czechs themselves. In May 1943 Bene°
received a similar communication from Roosevelt and in June 1943 another
from a Soviet liaison man in London, Alexander Bogomolov. In fact, the
Czechs, and especially Bene°, had never intended to subject the goal
of a de-Germanized Czechoslovakia to international supervision or even
to any criteria of humane conduct.
-
- In July 1944, a notice from high authority was circulated
in the Czech resistance to the effect
-
- "We consider the possibility of the transfer of
our German population. It can not be definitively stated that three millions
of Germans in all can be transferred subject to some kind of international
regulation. [...] It is necessary that in the first days of liberation
we ourselves remove many and that as many as possible guilty Nazis fly
before us out of fear of a civil revolt against them in the first days
of the Revolution, and that as many as possible who resist as Nazis and
defend themselves be struck down by the Revolution."
-
- After the military capitulation it was no longer necessary
for the Czechs to operate conspiratorially and they professed their bloody
intentions publicly. On 31 May 1945 the Czech National-Socialist newspaper
Slovo národa stated drily:
-
- "It will not be permitted for citizens of German
descent to mingle with the Czech population."
-
- We should add to this remarkable announcement that it
has been shown that the Czech exile government under Bene° worked single-mindedly
for ethnic cleansing in what was to be a newly formed Czech Republic, and
that this has been carried out in a manner disregarding human rights and
against the Law of Nations, as will be shown below.
-
- Even in Poland they dreamed of expansionist plunder raids
and fantasized about Polish extension to Stettin and even to Berlin, and
this long before September 1, 1939. The official program of the Polish
Westmark Union contained the statement:
-
- "The natural boundary of Poland is west of the Oder."
-
- A handbill put out by the Preparation Committee for the
Grunwald festival in memory of the battle of Tannenberg in 1410 stated:
-
- "We will take back what the Germans have taken from
us on the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula!"
-
- Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, president of the Greater Polish
Agricultural Union, stated on 21 June 1939:
-
- "One must clearly understand that Poland will not
know peace until it rests itself on the Oder."
-
- On August 7, 1939, the S?owo Pomorskie of Thorn said
this about the Germans:
-
- "Therefore today we Poles say quite clearly: go
back where you came from. On pushcarts drawn by dogs you came hither. You
brought only a poor bedding. You can go back the same way."
-
- On July 20, 1939, the weekly Naród w walce proclaimed
that Danzig must "remain Polish" and demanded that Germany surrender
the East Prussian territory to Poland.
-
- During the war Poland received from London support similar
to that received by Czechoslovakia. Churchill viewed the occupation of
East Prussia by the Poles and the consequent mass expulsion of Germans
with equanimity. At the conference in Tehran he admitted to Polish imperialism:
-
- "We believe that Poland unquestionably should be
satisfied at the expense of Germany."
-
- Some 14 months later, at the conference of Yalta, Churchill
confessed that there were many people in Britain who were troubled by the
thought of deportation but stated that he personally had no qualms about
it. In his view, six or seven million Germans had already been killed,
and at least 1 or 1.5 million more would probably be killed before the
end of the war. These ideas for the future were by no means propaganda
blather, but were the actual views of the British Prime Minister. At the
4th session of the Yalta Conference, on February 7, 1945, Churchill reinforced
his anti-humanitarian conception by declaring "that he was not at
all proposing to stop destroying the Germans." A week later the genocide
of Dresden was committed by British and American bombers.
-
- It has perhaps not fallen into oblivion yet that Churchill,
who prepared for or led war against Germany during more than four decades
of his life, has been celebrated in the Federal Republic of Germany as
a "great European." In May 1956 in Aachen he was awarded the
Karl Prize, a Federal German award aiming to honor persons who "serviced
the European movement." This award to Churchill can by no means be
regarded as a single aberration. Several decades after Churchill's demise,
leading persons in the government of the Federal Republic of Germany seem
not to have learned anything from history: In 1999, German Federal Defense
Minister Rudolf Scharping acquired doubtful glory, when he, during the
NATO attack against Serbia in 1999, proposed to rename German Army (Bundeswehr)
bases named after Wehrmacht generals, such as, for example, Field Marshall
Erwin Rommel, that could possibly be changed to "Winston Churchill-Barracks."
-
- Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
-
- To return to the question, what one should do with Germany:
Just after the conference in Casablanca from January 14 to 25, 1943, US
President Roosevelt caused a sensation when he said:
-
- "Peace can come to the world only by the total elimination
of German and Japanese war power. [...] The elimination of German, Japanese,
and Italian war power means the unconditional surrender by Germany, Italy,
and Japan. That means a reasonable assurance of future world peace."
-
- This shortsighted expression naturally contributed to
the prolongation of the war, since it destroyed the possibility of a peace
treaty. With this declaration of "total war for total peace"
all bridges left standing were broken. The German government was made to
understand that all diplomatic possibilities for peace would be for naught.
Germany stood with her back to the wall. Was there any other possibility
than to fight to the bitter end with the motto, "Victory or Death,"
and to use all possible military means to achieve victory?
-
- Factually, a German victory was by no means impossible.
The advanced state of German technology, especially military technology,
is shown by the fact that on 15 October 1942 the Army Main Command assigned
to a cover group behind which operated German atomic research the task
to find a way to use atomic fission and chain reactions to power rockets.
-
- Germany had a number of "wonder" weapons in
the works during the war. For example, near the end of military operations
the Germans made their giant A4 rocket ready for production. It was 14
meters high, weighed nearly 11 metric tons and had a strike range of 370
kilometers. It flew 100 kilometers above the surface of the earth and reached
a speed of 5,400 km/h. It had an advanced rocket motor fueled by alcohol
and liquid hydrazine and it could be guided by radar or other means. Because
it traveled five times faster than the speed of sound, it could not be
heard and thus could not be located.
-
- Another rocket that was nearly ready toward war's end
was the winged A9. It weighed nearly 13 metric tons, had a strike range
of 5,000 kilometers and could attain an amazing speed of 9,400 km/h. According
to Colonel D. L. Putt, member of the US staff in the occupied territories
responsible for examination of the state of German atomic weapons research,
the Germans would have possessed the war-deciding weapon only a few weeks
later with their V2 rockets equipped with atom bombs. In view of the immense
number of inventions and patents, which the Allies searched for and confiscated
in Germany immediately after the cease-fire, the Assistant Commanding General
of US Air Force intelligence confessed to the Society of Aeronautical Engineers,
that the Germans prepared a rocket surprise for the entire world in general
and for Britain in particular, which most likely would have changed the
course of the war, if the invasion would have been delayed for merely half
a year.
-
- With respect to the rapid development of the German jet
plane Me262 the British secret service concluded that, had Germany not
been defeated by July 1945, the Germans would have air superiority over
Germany and over the armies.
-
- The overwhelming motivation of the Germans to fight for
final victory was driven not least by the constantly repeated threats of
the Allies to inflict certain measures on Germany and the German people
when they had achieved victory. On February 23, 1944, in a debate in the
House of Commons, British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden confirmed that
Germany could not claim to be treated according to the Atlantic Charter,
i.e. that it could not prevent the victorious powers from making territorial
'corrections' on Germany's expense. Thus, according to Eden, Germany could
not claim rights based on any part of the Charter which would not be applicable
for Germany
-
- On April 22, 1944, Churchill confirmed the questionable
intention that no treaty and no commitment would bind the Allies once Germany
had surrendered. Churchill insisted that the Atlantic Charter would not
be a legal basis for the treatment of Germany and that territorial changes
and corrections of borders could not be excluded. No arguments would be
accepted, so Churchill. According to him, unconditional surrender meant
that the victors had their hands free to act as they pleased.
-
- It demonstrates a grotesque and incomprehensible arrogance
that the Allies, especially the USA und Britain, pretended to have undertaken
the war against Germany expressly in the cause of justice and human rights.
The cause of One World showed itself clearly then. On June 14, 1942, Roosevelt
prayed (!) on the radio.
-
- "God of the free, we pledge our hearts and lives
today to the cause of all free mankind.
-
- Grant us victory over the tyrants who would enslave all
free men and nations. Grant us faith and understanding to cherish all those
who fight for freedom as if they were our brothers. Grant us brotherhood
in hope and union, not only for the space of this bitter war, but for the
days to come which shall and must unite all the children of the earth.
-
- Our earth is but a small star in the great universe.
Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled
by hunger and fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color,
or theory. Grant us that courage and foreseeing to begin this task today
that our children and our children's children may be proud of the name
of man.
-
- The spirit of man has awakened and the soul of man has
gone forth. Grant us the wisdom and the vision to comprehend the greatness
of man's spirit, that suffers and endures so hugely for a goal beyond his
own brief span. Grant us honor for our dead who died in the faith, honor
for our living who work and strive for the faith, redemption and security
for all captive lands and peoples. Grant us patience with the deluded and
pity for the betrayed. And grant us the skill and valor that shall cleanse
the world of oppression and the old base doctrine that the strong must
eat the weak because they are strong.
-
- Yet most of all grant us brotherhood, not only for this
day but for all our years - a brotherhood, not only of words but of acts
and deeds. We are all of us children of earth - grant us that simple knowledge.
If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed. If they hunger we
hunger. If their freedom is taken away our freedom is not secure. Grant
us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace - that he shall know
justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and
an equal chance to do his best, not only in our own lands, but throughout
the world. And in that faith let us march toward to the clean world our
hands can make. Amen."
-
- This cleanness to be striven for, explained Mr. "Goodfellow"
Roosevelt after the conference at Tehran, should be distinguished by the
elimination of tyranny, slavery, oppression and intolerance. In the same
sense as the globalists of the decade of the 1990's, he invoked a vision
of a "world family of democratic states."
-
- In paragraph 2 of the Atlantic Charter, signed 12 August
1941, it is stated that the signers did not seek territorial changes "that
do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned."
-
- From November 28 to December 1, 1943, the "Big Three"
met at a summit conference in the embassy of the USSR in Teheran to agree
on the policies to be applied to the German Empire after a victory. The
keyword was the dismemberment of Germany, in which the three Allies agreed
with. Especially during the second session on December 1, Churchill promulgated
the idea of carving up Germany and pleaded for the smashing of Prussia
as the "root of all evil," as well as for the separation of Bavaria
and other provinces from Germany. Sniffing his opportunity, Stalin made
known the demands of the Soviet Union:
-
- "The Russians have no ice-free ports in the Baltic.
That is why the Russians would need the ice-free ports of Königsberg
and Memel and the corresponding part of the territory of Eastern Prussia."
-
- In 1945 the Soviets put the districts of Königsberg
and Gumbinnen (13,200 km2) under Soviet administrative control and established
the district of Kaliningrad there. In 1946 the territories of Memelland
were incorporated in the newly organized Soviet republic of Lithuania.
-
- In the course of a drinking party during this conference,
Stalin proposed the following toast, which was received by Roosevelt with
hearty laughter:
-
- "The strength of the German armed forces lies in
50,000 senior officers and scientists. I raise my glass with the wish that
they should be shot, as soon as we snatch them, all 50,000."
-
- Also the Americans were not averse to mass shootings.
In Washington in August 1944 General Eisenhower told the British ambassador
that all the officers of the Main Command of the German Armed Forces, as
well as all the leadership of the NSDAP including town officials, and all
members of the secret police, should be liquidated. Just not to be misunderstood
here: in this regard we are talking about some defenseless 100,000 human
beings.
-
- As the war progressed to the increasing disadvantage
of Germany the intentions of the Allies with respect to the future treatment
of the "German problem" became more and more audacious and specific.
They reached a high point at the conference at Yalta. This summit conference
of the "Big Three" took place in the former Tsar's palace Livadia
near Yalta in the Crimea from 4 to 11 February 1945. Here the Allies discussed
intensively the future to be imposed on the German Empire after an unconditional
surrender. All three conference participants were agreed that there should
be no other way to end the war. It was only on lesser details that they
were not entirely clear. For example, should they leave a German administration
in office to whom the occupation zones would be assigned, or should they
divide the rump of Germany into two states, north and south, with Vienna
the capital of the latter? Finally they decided on another plan. Churchill
stated that:
-
- "in his opinion, there was no need to inform the
Germans of the future policy to be conducted in respect of their country.
The Germans should be told they would have to await further Allied demands
after they surrendered. These further demands would be made on the Germans
by mutual agreement between the Allies."
-
- This intention indicates nothing else, but a blank check
with respect to the future treatment of the Germans. In this regard, Churchill
declared further.
-
- "that an unconditional surrender precluded any armistice
agreement. Unconditional surrender were the terms on which military operations
were to be terminated. Those who signed the terms of an unconditional surrender
submitted to the will of the victors."
-
- As the soldiers of the Red Army advanced into eastern
Germany in the course of 1944/45, they were "prepared" for the
occupation of Germany, above all from an official political side. In numerous
frontline newspapers the rules which were to govern the behavior of the
soldiers of the Red Army were promulgated. Both propagandists and writers
contributed to the effort, such as Alexei Tolstoi, Mikhail Alexandrovich
Sholokhov (The School of Hate), Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov (Kill him!)
and Surkov (I hate!). Most influential of all, however, were the propaganda
briefs of Ilya Ehrenburg. His book Voina (= The War), published 1943 by
the State Publications Office for Fine Literature (!), Moscow, contains
such expressions as:
-
- "Germans are not human. [...] If in the course of
one day you have not killed at least one German, for you it was a lost
day. When you have killed one German, kill another - for us there is nothing
more jolly than German bodies."
-
- The Soviet soldiers were roused to crimes against the
German population and German soldiers not only from the political and propagandistic
side, however. Also from the military side the message was unambiguous:
In his daily orders for the march into East Prussia, Marshall Tcherniakovski
stated:
-
- "There is no mercy - for anyone. [...] It is unnecessary
to demand from soldiers of the Red Army to show mercy. They blaze with
hate and desire for revenge."
-
- Other expressions call explicitly for raping German women
and girls. German lawyer Heinz Nawratil refers to Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,
who in his novel Archipelago Gulag written in the period 1964 through 1968,
mentions that
-
- "[...] German girls could be raped and then shot,
and it would almost always be treated as an incident of war."
-
- Nawratil also refers to Lev Kopelev, the writer, civil
rights worker and friend of Heinrich Böll, who described the words
of a Communist agitator as follows:
-
- "What should be done to ensure the soldier keeps
up his spirit for fighting. First, he must hate the enemy like the plague,
must want to annihilate him root and branch [...] second [...] when he
gets to Germany everything belongs to him - the bits and pieces, the women,
all! Do whatever you wish."
-
- The lasting friendship of F. D. Roosevelt and Henry Morgenthau,
Jr., left in 1930, right on Nov. 6, 1943.
-
- Both the soldiers of the German army and the German civilian
population suffered from such behavior on the part of the soldiers of the
Red Army. The outrages were not isolated incidents, but were mass crimes
known to the highest authority, and collectively would later qualify as
one of the greatest mass crimes of modern times.
-
- The hate tirades and incitements of Ilya Ehrenburg and
his fellow propagandists by no means represented a exceptional or singular
propaganda measure of the Soviet Union. War reporter Lieutenant Günther
Heysing made a collection of quotations taken from Soviet publications
and statements taken in interrogation of Red Army soldiers. This is from
the soldiers' newspaper Boyevaia Trevoga of 20 October 1944:
-
- "Shudder Germany! Shudder cursed Germany! We will
crisscross you with fire and sword and in your heart we will stab the last
German who ever trod Russian soil."
-
- In a call to the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of
the Soviet attack on East Prussia, we read:
-
- "The Red Army is on the offensive to fulfill the
orders of the great Stalin and to deal the German beast its deathstroke
in its hole. [...] with burning hatred in our hearts we enter the land
of the hated foe. We come as judges and revengers. The foe must be destroyed
without mercy."
-
- On October 25, 1944, the war council and political administration
of the 3rd White Russian Front issued the following summons:
-
- "Forward victors! May the German land, which spawned
the fascist refuse, tremble under our booming tread! May the bloodspeckled
hated foe who has inflicted so much pain and sorrow on us, tremble and
drown in the streams of his black blood!"
-
- In a speech given October 1944 on the subject, "What
does the Communist Party require from a member of the Communist Youth Union
Front Unit?" it was stated:
-
- "Young fighters! You know what frightful suffering
and what pain the Germans have caused your people, your family, your girlfriends.
Avenge them without mercy. For the life of every Soviet take the lives
of ten Germans. [...] Remember that any day in which you have killed no
Germans is a lost day."
-
- A prisoner from the 758th G.R. / 88th G.D. (758th Guards
Regiment/88th Guards Division) stated:
-
- "Before the entry onto German soil we were taught
by the officers that we need not respect the property of the German civilian
population and could treat the population as game to hunt. Women could
be raped."
-
- A prisoner from the 529th Autonomous Anti-Armor Artillery
testified:
-
- "In Poland theft of potatoes was strictly punished.
In East Prussia anyone could take any food. However, the removal of clothing
and other property was strictly forbidden even in East Prussia, since these
things were intended to be taken back to the USSR."
-
- A deserter from the 163th G.R. / 135th G.D. reported:
-
- "Two weeks ago the column commander told us that
soldiers could plunder and pillage freely on entering German soil."
-
- A deserter from the 331st G.R. / 1104th G.D. confirmed
this:
-
- "Earlier it was forbidden to take booty, but now
on German land it is no longer punishable. Everyone can take as much as
he can carry."
-
- A deserter from the 494th G.R. / 174th G.D. confessed:
-
- "The company commander and column commander said
that in German territory they could plunder without punishment and lay
hands on German women."
-
- Nobody paid any attention to Art. 28 of the Hague Convention
on Land Warfare, in which it is expressly stated, that is was forbidden
to release cities or settlements to be plundered, even if they were taken
in assault.
-
- Calls for persecution of Germans were the order of the
day and not only in the Soviet Union. Both in England and the USA many
propaganda writings appeared calling for the persecution of Germans and
Germany. In England Sir Robert Vansittart was one of the most influential
inciters of Germanophobic acts. As First Diplomatic Councilor of the British
Foreign Ministry he was known in diplomatic circles as the "German-hater."
In his books Black Record (1941) and Lessons of my Life (1943) he put forth
the idea that the German people were the eternal disturbers of world peace,
the "killer bird" among the civilized nations. For this reason,
it was necessary to destroy this barbaric, aggressive criminal people with
a killer instinct. Vansittart's influence was enormous. He was a key figure
in the British war clique that advocated draconic measures against Germany.
-
- Likewise in America a series of racist and anti-human
publications appeared, such as What about Germany? (1942) by L. P. Lochner,
How to treat the Germans, (1943) by Emil Ludwig, and Germany: To be or
not to be? (1943) by G. H. Seger and S. V. Marck. When the Americans began
the occupation of Germany in 1944/45, a booklet with the presumptuous title
What to do with Germany? by Louis Nizer, a New York attorney and chairman
of an aid society for Jewish immigrants, was distributed among the American
troops for free. In this book, Nizer recommended, among other things, that
every German officer of the rank of Colonel and above should be brought
before a court, that the German school system should be put in Allied hands
and that heavy industry should be taken from Germany. This pamphlet did
not represent an unimportant propaganda piece of an insignificant German
hater: According to the blurb on its wrapper later US President Harry S.
Truman was deeply affected by it recommended that "every American"
should read it.
-
- President Roosevelt distributed the booklet to members
of his Cabinet, while General Eisenhower sent out 100,000 copies and made
the officers on his staff write comments on the book. Despite the fact
that Nizer's book teemed with tirades against Germany and everything German,
the deadly little hate-piece was taken as bare truth by many important
figures in politics and science, in the military and in the media. The
principal theme in this and in other propaganda pieces was that Germany
had played a unique negative role in world history which was expressed
in her philosophy, her politics and the character of her people. Nazism
was just a contemporary expression of the inevitable German desire to plunder
and enslave other peoples. All Germans, not just National Socialists, were
branded as evil incarnate.
-
- So it should be no surprise that in a 1944 pocket calendar
for the US Army in Germany we find such tidbits as the following:
-
- "Since 1933, when Hitler came to power, German youth
has been carefully and thoroughly educated for world conquest, killing,
and treachery."
-
- "We fought against the Germans and the Japs because
our own freedom was threatened and because the interests of our own country
were tied up with those of the British and the Russians and the Chinese
and the French and all other fighters for freedom."
-
- "It is a matter of History that there is nothing
new about German aggression or desire for conquest. [...] It was only recently,
owing to modern inventions and the shrinking of the distances on the surface
of the globe, that the German was able to contemplate realizing his dream
of enslaving the world."
-
- Even Churchill scintillated from time to time with newly
minted historical interpretations and abstruse judgments on the Germans.
On November 9, 1940, for example, he declared in a speech at Mansion House
that Austria was one of the countries for which Britain had drawn the sword,
and for whom British victory meant freedom. On September 21, 1943, he explained
that the Germans combined in the most deadly manner the qualities of the
warrior and the slave:
-
- "They do not value freedom themselves and the spectacle
of it in others is hateful to them. Whenever they become strong they seek
their prey and they will follow with an iron discipline anyone who will
lead them to it. The core of Germany is Prussia. There is the source of
the recurring pestilence."
-
- Naturally, given this manner of historical consciousness,
the good people - that is, the Allies, and especially the Americans - need
to take care that the possibility of influencing world history is taken
away from Germans for all time - it must be neutralized.
-
- The "Big Three" on Nov. 29, 1943, in Tehran
-
- This neutralization - to be understood literally - could
be effected in different ways. One way was the biological extinction of
the German people, proposed, for example, by Theodore Nathan Kaufman, president
of the American Federation of Peace. He belonged to the circle of Roosevelt's
closest advisors and had direct influence on the decisions of the US President.
In 1940, ten months before the US officially entered the Second World War,
Kaufman published a book with the title Germany Must Perish. This little
book dripping with hatred contains what has come to be known as the Kaufman
plan, the scheme by which this Presidential advisor recommended the extermination
of 70 million people of the German nation, including women and children,
and the distribution of the German Empire among its neighbors. Specifically,
the book stated:
-
- "Today's war is not a war against Adolf Hitler.
-
- Nor is it a war against the Nazis. [...]
-
- It is a struggle between the German nation and humanity.
[...]
-
- This time Germany has forced a TOTAL WAR upon the world.
-
- As a result, she must be prepared to pay a TOTAL PENALTY.
-
- And there is one, and only one, such Total Penalty:
-
- Germany must perish forever!
-
- In fact - not in fancy! [...]
-
- The population of Germany, excluding conquered and annexed
territories, is about 70,000,000, about equally divided between male and
female. To achieve the purpose of German extinction it would be necessary
to only sterilize some 48,000,000. [...]
-
- Concerning the males subject to sterilization the army
groups, as organized units, would be the easiest and quickest to deal with.
Taking 20,000 surgeons as an arbitrary number and on the assumption that
each will perform a minimum of 25 operations daily, it would take no more
than one month, at the maximum, to complete their sterilization. Naturally
the more doctors available, and many more than the 20,000 we mention would
be available considering all the nations to be drawn upon, the less time
would be required. The balance of the male civilian population of Germany
could be treated within three months. Inasmuch as the sterilization of
women needs somewhat more time, it may be computed that the entire female
population of Germany could be sterilized within a period of three years
or less. Complete sterilization of both sexes, and not only one, is to
be considered necessary in view of the present German doctrine that so
much as one drop of true German blood constitutes a German.
-
- Of course, after complete sterilization, there will cease
to be a birth rate in Germany. At the normal death rate of 2% per annum,
German life will diminish at the rate of 1,500,000 yearly. Accordingly
in the span of two generations that which cost millions of lives and centuries
of useless effort, namely, the elimination of Germanism and its carriers,
will have been an accomplished fact."
-
- Ernest Albert Hooton, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard
University, wrote in similar terms. In a newspaper article in the New York
based Peabody Magazine, dated January 4, 1943, entitled Breed war strain
out of Germans, he proposed a political program to be applied to Germany.
In addition to various genetic manipulations, which would "destroy
German nationalism and aggressive ideology," he recommended:
-
- "For a period of 20 years or more utilize the bulk
of the present German army as rehabilitation labor units in devastated
areas of the Allied Nations and elsewhere."
-
- In a Canadian article the program was described by the
formula "No Germany, therefore no more German wars." The crime
novelist Rex Stout produced an article entitled "We will hate - or
we will lose," which appeared in the New York Times. Journalist William
S. Shirer praised the idea of collective guilt and his conclusion was contained
in the title:
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- "They are all guilty - punish them."
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- As the above examples show, there had been much thought
given to the idea of extinguishing or scientifically neutralizing the German
nation among the British and Americans. Long before the cessation of hostilities
there was general agreement that it was necessary to terminate German scientific
research. Methods for terminating German science included the appropriation
of German patents, the abduction and legal exploitation of German scientists
and the prohibition or, at least, the total supervision of German laboratories
and scientific institutions. The Allies put these maleficent methods both
selfishly and pitilessly into practice.
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- The principal deviser of these exotic and diverse schemes
for the destruction or expropriation of Germany was, however, the Secretary
of the Treasury of the United States of America, Henry Morgenthau, Jr.,
"one of the leading American Jews." He was the one who convinced
Roosevelt to be "tough" with the Germans. The Handbook for Military
Government in Germany, issued by the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary
Forces (SHAEF) in August 1944, which was to be the political guide for
occupation forces in Germany, incurred his disapproval because of its "slack
places." For example, Morgenthau thought the daily ration of 2000
calories for German workers was too high. The U.S. president was pleased
with that kind of "suggestions for improvement." Roosevelt concurred
that the Germans should be dealt with roughly:
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- "We have got to be tough with Germany and I mean
the German people, not just the Nazis. You either have to castrate the
German people or you have got to treat them in such a manner so they can't
just go on reproducing people who want to continue the way they have in
the past."
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- After this general agreement between Roosevelt and Morgenthau,
the latter, at a press conference, criticized the authors of the Handbook
publicly for being too soft towards the Germans and, therefore, "the
Handbook was hastily withdrawn."
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- Morgenthau, whom Roosevelt backed without reservation,
was given nearly a free hand with respect to determining policy on Germany.
He wanted to settle the German question once and for all and his method
for doing so was to impose a final solution on the Germans, a plan which
has come to be called the Morgenthau Plan. By the terms of this plan, Germany
should be reduced to a de-industrialized, low population agrarian country.
Morgenthau's plans were described as "measures for the prevention
of a third world war caused by Germany." The Morgenthau Plan's measures
included the demilitarization of Germany, restitution and reparations,
education and propaganda, political decentralization, supervision of the
economy by the army, control of the German economic development, an agrarian
program, the punishment of war criminals, and the breaking-up of the new
Germany. On September 30, 1944, the Völkische Beobachter listed the
intended measures in detail:
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- "The entire steel industry, the chemical works and
the plants for the production of synthetic benzine should be taken from
the Germans and transferred to other countries. [...] The education of
children should be put under the control of the United Nations, and the
schools should remain closed until sufficient Jewish teachers could be
found. Also, new schoolbooks should be written forthwith, whose contents
should be agreed upon by Washington, London and Moscow. By the Morgenthau
Plan, university studies would be forbidden to German youth, the buildings
of German technical schools would be closed and their libraries and research
facilities would be divided among America, England and the Soviet Union."
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- According to Morgenthau's scheme, Germany should be not
only totally disarmed, but its entire industrial base should be dismantled
or destroyed. The mines and coal works should be flooded. With respect
to reparations, Morgenthau had detailed plans: they should be accomplished
less through payments and transfer of goods than through surrender of German
mineral and other physical resources, in particular by the restitution
of property, which the Germans had plundered from the occupied territories,
cession of German territory and German private property rights in industries
to the countries she had invaded, by transfer and redistribution of industrial
facilities and equipment, by forced labor of German workers in foreign
countries, and by confiscation of all German landed property of any kind
outside of Germany.
-
- US President Roosevelt shared Morgenthau's conception
of the German collective guilt for war and his belief that Germany should
be handled in the harshest manner following the war. So it should be no
surprise that during the second conference held in Quebec in September
1944, Morgenthau's plans for the devastation of the heart of Europe were
recognized by Roosevelt and Churchill as the official program to be imposed
on post-war Germany, or that Morgenthau could write self-satisfiedly on
page xii of his book Germany is our Problem that the fundamental principles
of this program represent the official viewpoint of the United States.
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- In the American Senate the idea was clearly expressed
that a disarmed, de-industrialized Germany would free the neighboring countries
of Europe from the economic domination of Germany. The fact that all Europe
benefited from Germany's industrial strength and that the industrial collapse
of Germany would consequently have negative repercussions on the rest of
Europe was considered negligible by the American Department of Treasury.
A memo dated September 7, 1944, contained the statement that the economy
of Europe was not dependent on Germany, "because the United States,
Great Britain, France and Belgium could easily provide what Germany supplied
before the war."
-
- In the title of his book Eisenhower described his war
as a crusade, which is to say, a religious-fanatic war of annihilation.
-
- As the Americans completed their military crusade on
German land in spring 1945, Washington communicated to its highest military
commanders in Europe special political directives applying to the occupation.
The harsh regulations set out in directive JCS 1067, which dates to the
middle of 1947, were derived from the Morgenthau Plan. However, the Americans
renounced the complete destruction of German industry - it should be kept
running at a minimum level, to avoid epidemics and rebellion - and refrained
from flooding the mines, but they went forward with industrial deconstruction
and intellectual expropriation, and also demilitarization, de-nazification
and the decentralization of Germany as the framework of their policy. The
regulations of directive JCS 1067 were thus essentially the same as those
in the Morgenthau Plan, which was written to deal with Germany as the bringer
of war.
-
- The draft of directive JCS 1067 from the American Chief
of Staff to the supreme commander of the US occupation forces in Germany,
was approved at the end of April 1945 by the Informal Policy Committee
on Germany of the American Congress, and approved in May by President Truman.
With respect to the purpose of the military government in Germany the official
declaration of this document was:
-
- "a. It should be brought home to the Germans that
Germany's ruthless warfare and the fanatical Nazi resistance have destroyed
the German economy and made chaos and suffering inevitable and that the
Germans cannot escape responsibility for what they have brought upon themselves.
-
- b. Germany will not be occupied for the purpose of liberation
but as a defeated enemy nation. Your aim is not oppression but to occupy
Germany for the purpose of realizing certain important Allied objectives.
In the conduct of your occupation and administration you should be just
but firm and aloof. You will strongly discourage fraternization with the
German officials and population.
-
- c. The principal Allied objective is to prevent Germany
from ever again becoming a threat to the peace of the world. Essential
steps in the accomplishment of this objective are the elimination of Nazism
and militarism in all their forms, the immediate apprehension of war criminals
for punishment, the industrial disarmament and demilitarization of Germany,
with continuing control over Germany's capacity to make war, and the preparation
for an eventual reconstruction of German political life on a democratic
basis.
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