America, emerging undamaged, easily reverting to peacetime production,
stored with goods for our own consumption and for export to clamoring
millions abroad, and with no delinquent war debtors to confuse our
financial affairs. Actually I do not think the war will be a blessing,
except as it unifies us and does something to cleanse us of the scum
of materialism. This view of America’s chances of coming relatively
unscathed out of the war depends entirely upon comparison of our fate
with that of other countries, maimed by bombardment, mutilated by the
loss of millions of breadwinners, fiscally bankrupt, economically
paralyzed, politically divided, and in the case of some, the prey of
anarchy. Think what the problem of leadership will be in most of the
countries of Europe. In Germany and Italy the tyrants have long ago
executed, imprisoned, exiled or otherwise effectively removed from the
political scene every possible candidate for office not in agreement
with them. In France the demoralization caused by defeat and Vichy’s
collaboration with the enemy has left few men with the initiative and
courage to become leaders of a renascent republic. If, as so frequently
happens, we become inclined to take an over-cheerful view of ourselves
and our prospects, we ought to be sobered by the thought of our
responsibilities in the postwar world. Whether we like it or not, and
our isolationists to the contrary notwithstanding, the United States
after this war is going to be compelled to assume the leadership of
the Western World, not only economically but politically. But we shall
be able effectively to influence the peace only if we have effectively
taken part in the war.
Q. _What will the peace conference be like?_
A. It might be more instructive in the first place to discuss what
the peace will be like if Hitler wins. Of course there will not be
any peace _conference_ if Hitler wins. The Quislings and Darlans will
be called to function for the states of Europe in the same way as
Hitler’s rubber-stamp Reichstag functions for Germany. We know now
what Hitler plans to impose upon the world. Let us begin with Europe.
Europe is to belong exclusively to the Germans. They as a master race
will occupy the top of a pyramid at the bottom of which are the Poles,
Czechs, Serbs, and other “subhuman Slavs” who constitute the lowest
class of slaves. Between these “untouchables” and the Germans will
come all the other peoples of Europe, arranged in order depending
partially upon their degree of racial kinship with the noble Teutons,
but more on the degree of their subservience and “collaboration.”
The Dutch and Scandinavians, for example, are considered by the
Nazis to be semi-Teutonic cousins, but they will not be ranked as
high as the French if the Vichy appeasers succeed in their policy of
“collaboration.”
Now that Italy has proved an even feebler war partner than her worst
detractors had imagined, Hitler obviously is considering the grant to
France of the position of First Vassal instead of Italy. Spain, if she
eventually enters the war, will be given a role perhaps second to that
of Italy, chiefly because Spanish influence will be helpful in the
conquest of South America. Sweden and Switzerland will of course be
_gleichgeschaltet_, or “coordinated” into the Nazi system and given a
rank corresponding to their servility. But all are slaves, including
the Axis “allies” Italy, Hungary, Spain, and they differ one from
another only in the degree of their degradation. None of them will
be permitted to bear arms capable of threatening their Nazi masters,
and none will have a word in the formulation of the major laws which
determine their lives.
Q. _In what sense will the conquered people be slaves?_
A. Politically, they will be disfranchised, without a vote, unable to
influence their own fate except by humble petition to Berlin. For the
most part they will be ruled by Nazi governors. States like Poland
will also have Nazis ruling the smallest organs of government, as
municipalities. States like France may be permitted to operate their
own provincial and municipal governments under a Nazi _Gauleiter fuer
Frankreich_.
Q. _But Germans also have no vote under the Nazi system. How does the
position of these other nationalities under the Nazis differ from that
of the Germans themselves?_
A. It differs as the night from day. Every ruling made and every
action taken by the Nazi governors of the vassal states is intended
to procure tribute for the Great German Reich, tribute which,
scientifically extracted, will prove greater over the years than any
amount of old-fashioned looting could have produced. This tribute,
which is to be paid not merely for generations to come, but as Hitler
modestly estimates, for 1,000 years, will go to elevate the standard
of living of all Germans, and to depress the standard of living of all
non-Germans. It makes no difference that most Germans have no voice
in their government; every German will be under Hitler’s New Order, a
slaveholder, and every non-German inhabitant of occupied territory is
automatically a slave of the whole German tribe.
Q. _How is this to be accomplished? Isn’t it difficult to extract
tribute? Didn’t the Allies have trouble getting reparations from
Germany?_
A. The Allies were innocent children compared with the Nazis in the
art of obtaining advantage from one’s beaten adversary. No one knows
whether Hitler’s system will work for 1,000 years, or for ten or two
years, but it certainly is a grandiose design without any parallel in
the history of human conquest. First is the movement of populations.
Hitler has moved upward of two million Poles from Western Poland,
dumped them indiscriminately in Central Poland, and replaced them
with Germans, some from the Baltic states, some from the Tyrol, some
from the Reich. The Poles as a rule were visited by the Gestapo after
midnight, given half an hour’s notice to leave their homes forever,
allowed to take but a single suitcase with food for three days and
the clothes on their backs. They were forbidden to take any of their
own articles of value, not even a silver spoon from the kitchen or a
rake from the barn. The German families moving in were fewer than the
evacuated Poles, so that the Germans became wealthier per capita than
the Poles had been. The Poles died for the most part, or else are still
in process of dying from starvation and exposure; it was part of the
German calculation that they should die. Similar methods were used to
evacuate the French from Lorraine.
Other desirable parts of Europe contiguous to the Great German Reich
will be evacuated of their native populations and settled by the
Germans. This constitutes looting on a grand scale. Sir Norman Angell,
profound thinker on war, once held in his Nobel prize-winning thesis
“The Great Illusion,” that modern conquest cannot pay in this Christian
day and age, because the acquisition of mere political control over an
enemy’s territory, the advancing of the flag over foreign lands, does
not pay even for the cost of the war. The usual incidental looting by
the soldiery amounts of course to nothing from the point of view of
the nation’s economics. Sir Norman could not be blamed for failing
to foresee the grand-scale looting practiced by the Nazis. There is
an evident economic advantage to the nation if a million of its farm
families are moved into rich, fully equipped farms robbed from the
conquered and expelled enemy. But this sort of looting is only the
beginning of Nazi total plunder. In France the major part of the
productive apparatus in industry, trade, and the professions is being
systematically taken over by the Nazis. This is only a step toward
the huge permanent system of eternal tribute, which is based upon the
exploitation of the labor power of Europe.
No conqueror since the Romans has ever been able profitably to exploit
the labor power of his conquests, but the Nazis propose to do so and
are doing so and boast they will continue to do so for centuries. The
Nazis intend to concentrate all industry in Germany, and to convert
the rest of Europe into an agricultural colony growing food and raw
materials for the master state, the Great German Reich. The entire
population of non-German Europe is to be turned and is already being
turned as fast as possible into a vast army of coolies of the soil,
toiling to supply the Third Reich. The coolies will likewise be
required to buy all their industrial products from Germany. The price
the Germans pay for the coolies’ agricultural products and the price
the coolies pay for the German goods will be fixed by the Germans. Nice
calculation will arrive at the precise prices which will bring the
Herrenvolk the maximum advantage. The Germans with their traditional
scientific acumen will certainly find it to their advantage to pay
their coolies such prices for agricultural products as will enable the
coolies to buy liberally of German manufactured goods.
Thus with a little reasonableness and spirit of accommodation on
the side of the coolies, who ought to be happy to give up the
responsibility of liberty, and glad to dispense with the obligations
connected with free speech, press, assembly, and thought, Hitler
Europe might settle down into one great unhappy family, orderly as a
penitentiary, quiet as a grave. It is important also to note that by
turning their conquered populations into farm hands the Nazis make
it much easier to keep their victims permanently disarmed, since
only industry on a large scale can turn out tanks, machine guns, and
warplanes necessary for insurrection against a totalitarian tyranny.
Q. _But Hitler has not destroyed or removed the factories from France
and not even from Poland, since we constantly read that he is obtaining
considerable war supplies from the industrial plants in the occupied
regions._
A. That is because the war is not over yet and Hitler has not had
time to move these factories into Germany. He needs their products
immediately for the war against England and Russia. After his
conquest of Poland he kept many Polish factories, notably locomotive
and freight-car plants, running in Poland with German supervisors,
but after the fall of France, during that period when he was sure
England would capitulate also, he ordered these factories transferred
to Germany. Then after the British failed to surrender and as soon
as it became plain that the war would last some time longer, Hitler
countermanded the transfer of the Polish factories, and many of them
are running today on Polish soil.
Q. _Where is Hitler going to get the man power to run such a huge
industrial machine, comprising the manufactories formerly owned in all
the rest of Europe?_
A. That is a question which closely concerns us all in America. Hitler
will get the man power in part from his own partially demobilized
armies, but in part also from the conquered coolies, millions of
whom are not agricultural workers at all, but skilled mechanics and
technicians. German authorities admit, or boast, that today 2,000,000
prisoners of war and “others” are working in German factories, mines,
and on farms. It is against the products of this essentially slave
labor that American industrial products would have to compete if Hitler
after conquering Britain offered merely to compete with the United
States in foreign trade.
Q. _Would we not then be at a great disadvantage? How could we compete
at all?_
A. We could not compete successfully. Under the Nazi system, precisely
as under its twin brother, the Soviet system, all foreign trade is
carried on by a foreign trade monopoly. It has a hundred different
names in Germany but in reality every foreign trade transaction is a
government transaction. Competition among Germans is thus eliminated
and any foreigner attempting to compete with the Nazi Colossus has
as much chance to succeed as a one-well oil producer trying to trade
against the Standard Oil Company. No American manufacturer, no matter
how big, including our automobile manufacturers, could buck the Nazi
machine, because in addition to its slave labor prices, and its
government foreign trade monopoly, it would have the advantage of
terrific political-military pressure on all the states in the world
not yet an integral part of the Nazi Empire. What South American state
do you think would have the nerve to stand up to a Germany which had
just finished off the whole of Europe and the British Empire? Which one
of them would refuse to give Nazi goods favored tariff treatment over
American goods notwithstanding any existing treaties?
Q. _If these are Hitler’s plans for Europe, what does he intend to do
with Africa, Asia, and America if he wins?_
A. He intends to swallow piece by piece the entire world, but since he
cannot do so by immediate, world-wide conquest, he would like to be
allowed periods of negotiated peace during which he could allow his
forces to recuperate while by soothing reassurances he lulls that part
of the world not yet under his dominion, into a state of helplessness.
If he could, after the conquest of Russia, make a negotiated peace with
Britain and tacitly, with the United States, he would expect, after a
breathing spell, to be stronger relative to the combined strength of
Britain and America than he is now. When his superiority in strength
had reached a certain point, he would attack again.
Q. _How could Hitler expect to be stronger since we are now building
our two-ocean Navy and our great Air Force and Army? Even if Hitler
were now or soon to obtain negotiated peace, wouldn’t we continue
to forge ahead and grow stronger? Wouldn’t we in the face of a
Hitler-dominated world which would result from a negotiated peace be
compelled to turn the United States into an armed camp, and wouldn’t we
increase our armaments until we were invulnerable?_
A. That is not at all certain. If we continue in our present state of
complacency, we might take a negotiated peace to be a sign that we
could disarm. The House of Representatives passed the bill extending
the service of selectees beyond one year by a vote of 203 to 202.
One vote preserved the existence of our embryo army. It was not a
mere technical question of how long an army man ought to serve. The
question was whether we were to have an army at all. In the midst of
the war, when every qualified expert declared the United States faced
mortal perils, the House of Representatives could find a majority of
but one-tenth of one per cent in favor of maintaining or attempting to
construct an effective army. I know the majority would have been larger
if the administration leaders had known the vote could come so close,
but the fact remains that in this crisis of our national life, with the
enemy rampant and untamed, the House took this complacent view of our
defense necessities.
Now what would be the attitude of Congress if a peace should be
negotiated? Would not our isolationists say this was a God-given
opportunity to reduce our tremendous expenditures, whittle the
Army down to police size, confine our Air Force to a few thousand
planes, and stop building our two-ocean Navy? Certainly they would,
and all the immense propaganda resources of the Nazis would be
employed to encourage throughout the United States such a move toward
“common-sense pacifism.” Now, the argument would run, the war is over,
Hitler is satisfied, let us go back to normalcy. Whether we actually
succumbed entirely to this temptation or not, there would be a strong
isolationist campaign in favor of our disarmament, and this would
surely slow up our defense effort. Meanwhile Hitler would be bringing
his New Order slave states with their industries and agriculture into
the service of the Reich, increasing his Navy, rebuilding his Air
Force, re-equipping his Army and in general growing stronger relative
to us. He would never want a negotiated peace unless he believed this
would be its result.
Q. _Have you any idea what kind of negotiated peace Hitler would
consider acceptable? Would such a peace be as desirable for us as
Wheeler and Lindbergh say? I notice Lindbergh recently urged that the
only alternative to a negotiated peace was “either a Hitler victory
or a prostrate Europe or a prostrate Europe and possibly a prostrate
America as well.”_
A. Fortunately Axis sources have given us a rather complete blueprint
of what they would consider acceptable terms of a negotiated peace.
Reduced to a few words, their terms are: Surrender by Britain and
America of control of the seas by reduction of the British and American
navies to parity with the Axis and demilitarization of British and
American naval bases outside home waters; German dominion over all
Europe, most of Africa, and parts of Asia; Japanese control of the rest
of Asia; and the United States to open the doors of Latin America to
Axis enterprise.
Q. _Do you mean that those are serious terms suggested for a so-called
negotiated peace? What is the source of these terms?_
A. It is the version put out by the Japanese Foreign Office through its
organ the _Japan Times Advertiser_, April 29, 1941, as a trial balloon.
It remains the most comprehensive statement of Axis terms yet issued.
Since the British government ignored it, and the British and American
press derided it, Germany dropped the idea for the moment, but you
may be sure it has not been dropped for good. Seven weeks after its
publication Hitler sent his armies into Russia. When he has attained
his goal there, it seems highly probable he will again offer peace and
when he does, the general outline of his terms will probably follow
this statement. One has only to remember that since the issuance of
this provisional peace text Russia has been stricken from the list of
“the nations called upon to settle world peace” and has been added as a
victim.
Q. _But didn’t the meeting of Churchill and Roosevelt exclude the
possibility of a negotiated peace, since they declared in their
eight-point program that “final destruction of the Nazi tyranny” was
the precondition to peace?_
A. They did, but Hitler, though he may have little hope of actually
achieving a negotiated peace, may offer it in order to appeal over the
heads of Churchill and Roosevelt to those elements of the British and
American populations he considers vulnerable to his propaganda. There
are few such elements left in England, but many here. Hitler knows
by now that he has only to furnish the ammunition and Lindbergh and
Wheeler will do the firing for him.
Q. _Have you the text of these Hitler terms?_
A. Yes, and it would be most instructive to compare it with the
eight-point Atlantic Charter.
JOINT DECLARATION
The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister,
Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty’s Government in the United
Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain
common principles in the national policies of their respective
countries on which they base their hopes for a better future of the
world.
First: Their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;
Second: They desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord
with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned;
Third: They desire to respect the right of all peoples to choose the
form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see
sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been
forcibly deprived of them;
Fourth: They will endeavor, with due respect for their existing
obligations, to further the enjoyment by all states, great or small,
victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to
the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic
prosperity;
Fifth: They desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between
all nations in the economic field, with the object of securing
for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social
security;
Sixth: After the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to
see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of
dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford
assurance that all the men in the lands may live out their lives in
freedom from fear and want;
Seventh: Such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas
and oceans without hindrance;
Eighth: They believe that all of the nations of the world, for
realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment
of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if
land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which
threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they
believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of
general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential.
They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures
which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of
armaments.
_Franklin D. Roosevelt._
_Winston S. Churchill._
To this the President added in his message to Congress: “It is also
unnecessary for me to point out that the declaration of principles
includes of necessity the world need for freedom of religion and
freedom of information. No society of the world organized under the
announced principles could survive without these freedoms which are
a part of the whole freedom for which we strive.” And Mr. Churchill
made this significant comment in his broadcast: “There are, however,
two distinct and marked differences in this joint declaration from
the attitude adopted by the Allies during the latter part of the last
war, and no one should overlook them. The United States and Great
Britain do not now assume that there will never be any more war again.
On the contrary, we intend to take ample precautions to prevent its
renewal in any period we can foresee by effectively disarming the
guilty nations while remaining suitably protected ourselves. The second
difference is this: That instead of trying to ruin German trade by
all kinds of additional trade barriers and hindrances as was the mood
of 1917, we have definitely adopted the view that it is not in the
interests of the world and of our two countries that any large nation
should be unprosperous, or shut off from means of making a decent
living for itself and its people by industry and enterprise. These
are far-reaching changes of principle upon which all countries should
ponder.”
* * * * *
The Axis statement begins with the declaration that the day of small or
weak nations is over, and no nation which cannot stand on its own feet
may be permitted to exist.
“1. The strongest powers must have the greatest opportunities of
developing the world and disposing of such questions as spheres of
influence, resources, and type of government. This is the law of nature
and attempts to maintain the status quo of dominant powers who cannot
continue to function through their strength but only through alliances
must break down.”
The reference here of course is to such colonial powers as France,
Holland, Belgium, etc.
“2. The nations called upon to settle world peace would be Germany,
with Italy as a junior partner, Japan, the British Empire, and the
United States. Such a peace should include: a. Parity of naval strength
of Britain and the United States on one hand, and the Axis powers on
the other hand, with a naval holiday after this is established.”
This is the key to the intention of the whole peace. Since the British
and American navies are about double the strength of the Axis powers,
so long as the British hold out we together could continue effectively
to control the seas. If we were to consent to a naval agreement
reducing our and the British strength to the strength of the Axis, and
at the same time demilitarize our naval bases as demanded in other
paragraphs, effective sea power would pass to the Axis.
“b. Demilitarization of such strongholds as Gibraltar, the Eastern
Mediterranean, Malta, Aden, Red Sea, Singapore, and Hong Kong, as well
as all United States bases in the Pacific and any projects in the
Aleutian Islands reaching out toward Japan.”
This paragraph would complete the conquest of sea power by the Axis
and would render defenseless all the British Empire’s Far Eastern
possessions and our Philippines and Alaska.
“c. Complete withdrawal of the British Navy from the Mediterranean and
joint Anglo-Axis administration of the Suez Canal.”
Withdrawal of the British Navy would give mastery of the Mediterranean
to the Axis, which would automatically control the Suez Canal. To offer
“joint Anglo-Axis administration of the Suez Canal” is a sop which only
underlines the grotesque nature of a Hitler-negotiated peace.
“d. All North Africa from the Straits of Gibraltar to Somaliland to be
placed at the disposition of the Axis, though France may be permitted
to retain colonies under certain conditions of co-administration.
Certain British and African colonies to be placed under German and
Italian control. South Africa would be required to have complete
independence and abolish trade preference tariffs.”
The last sentence means that South Africa should leave the British
Empire. The fleeting, condescending mention of the French who _may_
be permitted to share colonies is the only reference made to them. It
ought to be noted carefully by the men of Vichy who pretend at any rate
to believe that Hitler would not rob them if they abased themselves
sufficiently. For the United States, the significant thing here is that
Germany would control the naval, air, and military bases of Africa
including Dakar opposite Brazil.