South Yorkshire Times, July 22nd, 1944
Careless Talk
Careless talk, which has been the theme for many an official sermon, is not the monopoly of the people at large. Parliament often enough sets a pace which the most indiscreet public house gossip would be hard pressed to match.
The course taken by Tuesday’s debate in the House provided more credit for the country than for those members who clumsily embarked on a discussion of Allied terms of surrender for Germany. Despite the indignant denials of Mr. Aneurin Bevan, when a member characterised the debate as suggestive of “wavering,” there was more than a grain of truth in the implication. In this country these vapourings are recognised for what they are worth, and are indulgently accepted as part of the price to be paid for the precious privilege of free speech.
In Germany the argument may be read very differently. When our politicians begin to talk about shortening the war by assuring the Germans that we do not intend to be too hard on them, the Nazis who understand no other creed but that might is right, give them no credit for any humanitarian motive. They merely make a private note of what to them is nothing more or less than an indication that certain sections of opinion in Great Britain are anxious to see the war shortened by other means than the complete and final subjugation of German military might. To them this must appear a weakness (however slight) which only encourages them to hang on more grimly than ever, and to exact the last ounce of suspected war weariness from each bloody defensive action.
The effect on Russia of such consideration for the feelings of the German people is incalculable. On the whole, however, a nation which has suffered as Russia has done at the hands of the German army is not likely to waste much sympathy on, providing the German people with an easier way out of the war. Premier Stalin, with typical brevity, has already made it clear that the Red Army means to finish off the Nazi beast in its own lair. That suffices to explain the Russian attitude and it ought to be good enough for us too.
In America, where the British outlook is better understood, there may still be room for some misgiving of any impression of a desire to evade the full implications of military victory to be created, particularly with the Japanese yet to be dealt with.
Unconditional surrender remains the best ultimatum to hand to a defeated Germany. We are fighting this war because we only half-finished the last one.
Hitler revived dreams of conquest by sedulously fostering the myth that the German army was never defeated in 1918. That is an illusion which must be completely dashed this time. The Prussian bully must be thrashed in a way which will leave him in no doubt as to the cost and consequence of further predatory behaviour. Even though the need for a constructive policy to Europe is freely admitted, an essential preliminary to the development of such a policy is the unequivocable military defeat of Germany. Instead of bandying words and splitting hairs on diplomatic terminology, we should do well to remember how the German people gloated when their air force mowed down fleeing civilians on the roads of France, when their armies ravaged the quiet villages of western Russia, when their Gestapo herded Jews and other objects of German hate into gas chambers, and murdered British prisoners of war in hideous secrecy.
We should remember Rotterdam, Coventry, Lidice, the hordes of hostages pitilessly butchered, the political hypocrisy matched by treachery in the field; in short the complete rottenness and bad faith of modern Germany which surely calls for nothing from the United Nations before the swift and clean quietus of defeat, after which there will be time (when accounts have been settled with the Japan) to decide in detail what is to be done with these arch-disturbers of world peace.