Kris Millegan
Thu, 21 Oct 1999 11:45:30 -0700
-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: BETRAYAL - Our Occupation of Germany Arthur D. Rahn Former Chief Editor of Intelligence Office of the Director of Information Control Office of Military Government, Germany Book & Knowledge Warsaw, Poland pps. 237 (no date) out-of-print ----- -- But even if we succeeded in establishing a dynamic youth movement, it is doubtful that in the atmosphere of reaction in our Zone, we would be able to convince German young people of the advantages of democracy. When I announced at the last meeting of our Bad Homburg youth group that we were no longer interested in meeting with young people who renounced all self-help, one 'teen-age girl with heavy glasses and long braids, a girl who in America would probably spend her afternoons after school reading movie magazines, came to me and said with a gravity more becoming a weary old woman: "You know, we have been told so much, so many lies, we, don't believe anything anymore. It's all swindle."-- ---" NOT until I sat down to write this book and reflected on my experience and organized my notes did I realize that what had seemed to me and my friends in Germany to be a chaos of corruption and incompetence had actually been a planned development following a very definite pattern. In fact, it has become increasingly clear that the pattern of events in Germany from 1944 to mid-1947 mirrored in sharp perspective what was happening at home in America. Developments in Germany, too, have paralleled our actions in the United Nations and our relations with the Soviet Union, Greece, Spain, China, Britain, Israel with the entire world."--- Om K ----- CHAPTER ELEVEN The Youth In The Atmosphere Of Despair "...the mere conquest of our enemies is not enough. We must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this horror possible." --From the Jefferson Day address written the night before he died. "WHAT did you used to learn?" asked Dr. Schaab of his class of ten year olds. "About National Socialism," chorused the eager pupils, snapping their fingers impatiently to be recognized for the answer. "What did they teach you then, what did you used to say?" (Much laughter.) "We used to say Heil Hitler." (A gale of high-pitched laughter.) "'Yes, you used to say that every morning. But we don't say that anymore. We don't even think about that anymore. We don't think about what lies in back of us but of what lies ahead." It was August, 1945. Herr Prediger, the superintendent of schools in Wiesbaden, was conducting me on a tour of his elementary, schools, proudly exhibiting the enthusiastic democratization that was being accomplished by his teachers. They were faced with tremendous handicaps the lack of classroom space because of the destruction of school buildings, overcrowded classes with 70 pupils, the lack of school supplies of all kinds, the shortage of trustworthy personnel and of democratic textbooks. But in the space of a few weeks of very hard work, Herr Prediger and his associates had screened the teachers, denazified the textbooks and drawn up new syllabi. Evening courses had been established to enable the teachers to obtain information that had been forbidden under Hitler and to thrash out ideological problems. In all the classes I visited, the determination to hasten the new world anti-Nazi Germans were envisaging for their children now that the Hitler had been overthrown was impressive. On the blackboard in Herr Weiss's class of 8 year olds, I saw: "Wir sagen nicht mehr Heil Hitler! (We don't say Heil Hitler any more)" and "Wir wollen Frieden! (We want peace)." When asked the difference between war and peace, the boys and girls eagerly recounted the horrors of war as they had experienced them the alarms, hurrying home from school to take refuge in the cellar, the shortage of food because of the disruption of transportation, the destruction of their homes. And what did peace mean? Peace meant not only the discontinuance of these terrors. It meant also the return of brothers and fathers from the army, opportunity to play and for creating things of peace. Before we left the room, Herr Prediger instructed the childeren how to sit at ease, explaining that a free people that says Guten Morgen and Guten Tag instead of Heil Hitler also sits and stands at case, not like soldiers. The boys and girls smiled in approval and hastened to imitate his example. These children loved school with its new freedom, its play, its warmth and its wonderful new ways. During these early months, the anti-Nazi spirit had enveloped many of the school systems throughout the Zone although few places could compete with Wiesbaden in the tempo of democratization. As months went by and the anti-Nazi enthusiasm was dissipated and "conservative reality" returned, however, there were less hopeful reports of nationalist teachers spreading hate propaganda, of military drill in the classrooms, of the retention of Party member teachers and a general loss of democratic conviction. By the summer of 1947, two years after VE day, newspapers were publishing accounts of Nazi-sympathizers acting as important education officials, of militarist textbooks in the schools and, in Bavaria, of the reintroduction of corporal punishment. Hundhammer, the provincial Minister of Education and a former member of a Freikorps, polled the Bavarian parents and found 60% of them favored the use of the rod in the classroom. When asked whether he considered the institution of caning as an example of democratic progress, Hundhammer replied, according to a June 12, 1947, dispatch to the New York Times: "It is the principle of democracy to recognize the will of the majority. It has nothing to do with progress." Hundhammer might have added that the reintroduction of caning had nothing to do with our original directives for the reeducation of German youth. This was a discouraging retrogression from the enthusiastic anti-Nazism I had seen in the summer of 1945 in Wiesbaden. The situation in the universities has been consistently discouraging. Long the strongholds of German Kultur, where the offspring of the upper classes were inculcated in nationalism and militarism, in a belief in the superiority of the German civilization and in the "advantages" of authoritarianism, the universities required a thorough overhauling. Unfortunately, whatever slight changes we might have attempted to institute in 1945 have been successfully opposed and sabotaged by many of the German politicians and professors. In these fortresses of conservatism, the old order is succesfully maintaining itself. Entrance requirements have not been democratized in order that ability rather than class should be the determining factor in the selection of students. The atmosphere at the universities is hardly different, if at all, from what it was under Hitler. The description of one of these schools included in a letter written in March, 1946 to the Suddeutsche Zeitung, a Munich newspaper, can be applied to all of the universities in our Zone. The student wrote: "Our university at present gives the impression of a reserve officers' barracks military boots, clicking heels, military jackets... affected stiff posture and a general lieutenant's (Americans would say 'brass') atmosphere." Even the non-working class student body is suspicious and resentful of the outmoded curricula which emphasize pre-war needs and fail to prepare them for the problems of reconstruction and democratization. "Where is there any future? This tormenting thought accompanies study and strengthens the drive to despair and nihilism," wrote Professor Werner Krauss of Marburg University in an article in the Frankfurter Zeitung in March, 1946. "The students," he warned, "are the obvious immediate victims of an educational policy which is supposed to be of help to them. But the second victim may be the nation." "Whether in the university or not, German youth in our Zone is a rubbleheap," a youth leader in Frankfurt assured me. Their old ideals are in disrepute, their futures are uncertain, they have little vocational training except for war. The enthusiasm which existed among some of the young people at VE day has been dissipated. The youth have lost their eagerness to assist in the rebuilding of their country. Only unskilled labor jobs ar[e] available to them. There are few apprenticeships open. In the employment offices, the German officials treat them with typical bureaucratic. arrogance. In the spring of 1946, a year after the end of the war, about one-third of the young people in the province of Hesse were unemployed. That, they tell each other shrugging their shoulders, is what "democracy" has brought them. . Intellectually, when not retaining their old Nazi philosophy, German young people are sceptical and sometimes cynical and nihilistic. In a discussion group some of us organized in Bad Homburg in the winter of 1945-46, we discovered that most of the 25 or 30 young people (primarily middleclass in ba ckground) mistrusted any new ideas and doubted any new information we presented to them. They feared they might be tricked again, and we were able to make little real progress in changing their attitudes or in developing a new approach to life among them. We found a hopeful sign, however, in their recognition of the -necessity of their participation in reconstruction. I hen we asked them what they could do to ease the winter hardships, they replied 'they could organize the collection of wood on a social basis, they could assist the expellees from the East, they could help take care of younger children, they could work at repairing damaged houses, etc. The suggestions for possible activity came one after another. But when we asked, "Well, what will you do?" there was a long silence. "We'd all hesitate about -gathering wood because we'd know that some would do almost all the work and others would do nothing,'' said on-, at last, and the others nodded immediate agreement. "We need someone to lead us... if you would take over, maybe we'd do it... everyone is too concerned with his own problems to bother about anybody else..." There was silence again. Finally, I said: "You are convinced then, that there are many tasks for you in these hard times but equally certain that you will take no action, is that right?" They answered almost unanimously, quietly, with relief, "yes." Our attempts at establishing dynamic youth movements to provide young people in our Zone with useful activity, with democratic goals, strong direction and new enthusiasms to impell them out of their lethargy and despair have been very discouraging. Few youth groups ever attained the size or developed the energy of the Schwabische Volksjugend (Swabian People's Youth) in Stuttgart, which mobilized up to 5,000 young people in all kinds of community activities. Because many MG officers interpreted the original directive against any political activity in youth organizations to include even the most general political education, most of the groups licensed by them have been innocuous and weak. Opposing the establishment of a unified youth movement embracing all anti-fascist elements, we have fostered the development of a kaleidoscope of youth groups, no one of which is particularly distinguished for its success in democratizing its members. American-directed youth organizations, on the other band, failed because our prime concern had been the prevention of security difficulties rather than the accomplishment of democratization. Our troops were never interested in the work and there was a constant shortage of German-speaking personnel, of trained youth leaders, equipment and of central direction and organization. In an almost desperate attempt to teach German children democracy, we put most of our emphasis on baseball, hoping for a carryover from baseball to politics. Despite our noble efforts (reinforced with coca cola and chewing gum), German children still. prefer soccer and cannot be considered democratized. But even if we succeeded in establishing a dynamic youth movement, it is doubtful that in the atmosphere of reaction in our Zone, we would be able to convince German young people of the advantages of democracy. When I announced at the last meeting of our Bad Homburg youth group that we were no longer interested in meeting with young people who renounced all self-help, one 'teen-age girl with heavy glasses and long braids, a girl who in America would probably spend her afternoons after school reading movie magazines, came to me and said with a gravity more becoming a weary old woman: "You know, we have been told so much, so many lies, we, don't believe anything anymore. It's all swindle." And "it is all swindle," too, for these young people. We talked about denazification and they saw the bigshots getting off with petty fines and the little people kicked out of their jobs. Anti-Nazism but the Nazis interned in detention camps were fed better than the rest of the population, better even than the Kzler. The new democracy but the old capitulators to Hitler are in power again. Freedom of the press the most important German officials attempt to hamstring the papers and force them to publish what they want. Antimilitarism didn't a judge in Bremen sentence a young fellow to two years in jail because he deserted from the Wehrmacht during the war? Don't the ex-sergeants now wearing police uniforms still push the civilians around and shout Prussian commands? "International peace" that's the biggest swindle of all! You tell us we've got to be friendly with other nations, yet you allow the licensed press to attack many of the allied nations. And don't your own publications publish warmongering stories and snide attacks against the different united nations. Isn't the Stars and Stripes full of hate and war talk? "What is this democracy you have to offer us? Your movies are sometimes funny and sometimes exciting, but we are tired of seeing the same thing all the time love, money, beautiful girls, silly plots. We prefer our own German movies, they're more real and less superficial. "How many fortright books have you had published exposing the evils of National Socialism, the international intrigues under Hitler and the guilt of the industrialists and the Junkers? We see books like War Madness (Stuttgart, 1946) assuring us that the last war was a victory of might but not of right, and Only Fourteen Days (Stuttgart, 1946), in which the author attempts to prove that Gestapo agents were really quite pleasant gentlemen after all. "The whole political atmosphere you have established is unconducive to the development of democracy, with political leaders calling for greater "independance" from the occupation authorities; public officials practicing passive resistance against MG; clergymen and politicians demanding war against the Soviet Union. "All we know is that we haven't enough to eat, we haven't a chance in the world to rebuild our homes, to clothe ourselves, to find decent jobs and what's more, we're probably going to have another war that will destroy everything that's left.. We've always been efficient and industrious. We work hard. But somehow with you here, we don't get anything done at all." Deutschland Erwecke! In December, 1946, a year and a half after I had visited the Wiesbaden schools and seen the cheerful children so enthusiastic about their teachers, their new freedom, their play and the easy new ways, I received a letter from a member of the Hessian Frauenausschuss (Women's Council), in which she described how these very boys and girls were going to school in that terrible winter almost naked and suffering from anemia. In one class of 48 children, only seven had any underclothing. One little boy had to wear a girl's dress to class. Most of the children possessed only the clothing on their bodies. There were girls of thirteen and fourteen who weighed only 60 to 70 pounds. Of 19,500 pupils in the Wiesbaden schools, 7,050 were without proper footwear; 3,550 owned no coats; 2,000 no stockings; 1,175 had absolutely no shoes; and 7,500 came to school without breakfast. These were the little five and six years olds I had watched outside the PX in Frankfurt crying, "candy, candy, soldier." When GIs would give them something from their ration, they would immediately cease their whining, stuff the candy and gum into their stockings and wait for the next good prospect. Their parents had trained them how to beg. The candy would be added to the meal at home or be sold on the blackmarket. At the railroad stations their brothers, ten years old or more, wearing old, dirty Hitler youth caps, congregated, waiting to carry luggage for the Americans for cigarettes or just standing around and joking, looking, about them warily, fearful of missing an opportunity of some kind to steal or to beg. Some of them were parentless, their parents dead or lost. Many had no homes, bombed-out or runaways. Thousands and thousands of boys and girls like them were wandering through Germany, begging and stealing and blackmarketing. "Go out, Hans, and see whether you can get some food or money, your father is sick and I have the baby to take care of." And Hans and hundreds of 'teen-agers like him would go into the country to beg food and money from the farmers. Discouraged by their lack of su[c]cess, they would turn to the cities and engage in the blackmarket, robbing, too, when they found the chance. But since there was too much danger in operating alone, they soon joined with other boys and formed gangs. A former soldier, often a romantic paratrooper or an SS man, or a Hitler Youth leader would assume command. It was easy for these "heroes" to stir up their young following. First they would attack the Polish and Jewish DPs. Then "the occupation powers are oppressing Germany, ruining our industry, uprooting our people and we have been meek, unbecoming true Germans... some of our Germans are even betraying their nation..." These gangs provide the nuclei for the new Freikorps. They are the new Storm Troopers to be used to "protect" the industrialists against the Communists and the trade unions; they are the new recruits for the amnestied and exonerated Nazi and militarist leaders in the coming "crusade" against the "heathens of the East." Characteristically, it has been the Church that has provided the despairing and resentful youth with ideological leadership. In February, 1946, the head of the Evangelical Church, Bishop Teophil Wurm of Stuttgart, whose son was being held in an internment camp as an early member of the Nazi Party and an officer in the SS, published an open letter "To the Christians in England" in which he roared: "The military conquest and occupation of our country was accompanied by all those deeds of brute force against the civil population that bad been committed before in allied countries and about which the allied nations had justly complained... we... warn of a great danger... Once before it was tried maintaining peace by keeping the vanquished burdened with tremendous reparations and by cutting off economically important areas. These measures, however, led to the awakening of a spirit of resistance among the German people... If diplomats try (this solution) again... they will not succeed in banishing the evil spirit of vengeance and retribution from this world." Among the Catholic prelates, Archbishop Groeber of Freiburg, the former patron of the SS, was one of the first to recognize the possibility of using the disgruntled young men to force concessions out of the occupation powers and to intimidate the anti-Nazis. In a pastoral letter in March, 1946, he thundered in typical Hitler fashion: "We must unfortunately state that through the treatment of the German people generally, a poisonous seed is being sown, which to our great sorrow is already beginning to sprout and spread... With hard hammer blows neither the German steel nor the German soul will become soft and yielding." At about the same time, Cardinal Faulhaber visited the SS internment camp at Dachau and announced that he was deeply touched by the piety of the inmates Church sanction for the worst of the war criminals! The political spokesmen for the Church, people like Maria Sevenich, have followed obediently in inspiring the new campaign of opposition. On October 21, 1946, the Polish military mission delivered a note to the Allied Control Council (Four Power) protesting the "pan-germanic and militaristic campaign of a certain section of the (Western Zones) German press." Among the statements quoted as examples in the Polish note was one by Maria Sevenich that had appeared in a British Zone newspaper. Maria had said: "We must organize the Black Reichswehr once again in order to solve the problem in the East by force." * [* The guerrilla Freikorps, the underground officers' units organized after World War I to fight the occupation forces, wage war against the Poles and to crush democracy at home, were united into a socalled Black Reichswehr, an underground army which prepared for World War II. Maria Sevenich's Black Reichswehr was presumably to prepare for World War III, initiating operations with guerrilla activities against the Poles, uniting all the underground gangs into one array. The British took no action against Maria despite the Polish protest. In November, Maria went on a hunger strike in protest against the poor food rations in the British Zone; she was to be a kind of reverse Joan of Arc.] The response to these numerous and repeated appeals has been impressive. In February, 1946, there was a plot to break into Nuremberg to free the Nazi war criminals. In April, a vast Hitler Youth conspiracy, including some of the highest Hitler Youth leaders and spreading throughout the American and British Zones was exposed. In July, we discovered a well-organized Storm Trooper plot called the "German Liberty and Peace Movement," involving Storm Trooper Generals and old Nazis holding the highest Hitler awards. In February, 1947, we squelched a more extensive conspiracy led by such Nazi fanatics as SS Major General Ellersick, SS Brigadier General Mueller, SS Brigadier General Karl Broeking, various other high ranking SS and Wehrmacht officers, Hitler Youth leaders and Party officials. (These men had presumably been freed in General Clay's Christmas [1946] amnesty.) In addition to these underground plots, there have been numerous individual terrorist attacks against the anti-fascists in our Zone, attacks comparable to those committed by the Freikorps after the first World War. In the fall of 1946, three denazification courts in and near Stuttgart were bombed; in February, 1947 it was a court in Nuremberg; a month later there was an attempted burning of the Schleuchtern court; and in March a public prosecutor in a denazification court near Stuttgart was murdered and the office of the commissioner for Nazis persecuted in Nuremberg was attacked. Throughout the Zone, monuments to the victims of fascism and to destroyed synagogues have been desecrated. It should not have been surprising in May 1947 that when Hjalmar Schacht was asked how he would go about obtaining -a commutation in the sentence imposed upon him by a denazification court, he should have replied: "Warten Sie und Sie werden es erleben." (Wait and you will experience it.)" In the spring of 1947 the underground movement in the Western Zones was just beginning. The conspiration we had crushed involved only a few thousands. The acts of sabotage and terror were scattered and organized only on a local basis. On the other hand, it took two years for the underground to establish itself in France after the 1940 debacle. Right after the -war, many individual Nazis admitted that they would seek to regain power by organizing the despair of the Germans. Driven by hunger and demoralized by an apparently hopeless future, will not the youth become more and more willing to join -with these "saviours of German honor," seeking adventure and .Ad glory" in new armies of terror and revenge? pps. 192-203 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! 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