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Henry Morgenthau, The German Character
Five chapters from Morgenthau’s book, Germany is our Problem, here published with an introductory note by Ellopos. Emphasis, in bold or italic letters, by Ellopos. Complete book in print.
52 Pages
Page 52
Democracy is one of those priceless things that cannot be given to anyone. It must be taken; it must be worked for; it must be earned. The real way to help democratic Germans to play a worth-while part in the development of freedom in their country is not to saddle them with the impossible job of governing a beaten, bitter nation. The real way is to give them the opportunity to be heard without the responsibility for the hardships that must come.
All this does not mean that the new government of Germany must be one of Nazis or Nazi sympathizers or militarists. But it should be recognized that there can be no possible German government which we could admire. We do not have to embrace our enemies; on the other hand, we do not have to impose the status of Quisling and Laval upon our friends, the German democrats in exile. Germany herself offers a precedent which might be adapted to provide a government under which the country could be kept from repeating its excesses. In fact, the proposed regime might make it easier for the people to learn the real meaning of democracy. During the 1920's, there were several occasions when the complicated state of the parties made it impossible to form a Cabinet of party leaders. Sometimes new elections had to be called. Sometimes negotiations between the parties were unduly protracted.
In order to can-}? on the normal functions of government, therefore, the Germans resorted to the device of what was described as a ministry of civil servants—they called it a Beamtenkabinett. The members were supposed to be mostly officials in executive departments of the government. The chancellor was not a member of the Reichstag. If a deputy or party leader was included, he served theoretically as an individual, not as a representative of his political group. Some of these "civil servant governments" held office for quite some time. They had to make policy decisions and administrative decisions like any other Cabinet. Furthermore, they seem to have been at least up to the standard of the average German regime of the Weimar Republic. Such a precedent might provide a reasonably sound German government for the immediate future. Once the civil service is purged of its most rabid Nazi fanatics, its war criminals and its violent supporters of militarist creeds, it would offer perhaps the most satisfactory instrument for carrying out the terms of peace. It will not be dependent upon the shifting party support of a maze of intriguing leaders. It will not expect to be popular. It will have the experience of administration. If we do not make the mistake of trusting it, it will serve to carry out the directions of Allied control commissions quite satisfactorily.
Sentimentalists to whom the memory of German music and beer festivals is stronger than the memory of Lidice and Maidaneck will shake their heads at this program. They have a great faith in the essential goodness of people. But unfortunately it is a faith like that which launched the Children's Crusade of the Middle Ages. For the sake of humanity and for the sake of the very ideals which these sentimentalists wish Germany to develop, we cannot afford to attempt to defeat the armed might of the infidel with only the weapons of innocence and ignorance, hope and charity, sweetness and light.
The End
Cf. H. Arendt: totalitarianism reduces men to impersonal natural forces * German philosophers in support of Nazism * Beethoven and Mauthausen * The Superior Race of Germans * Kalergi, European Spirit must Precede Europe's Political Unification * La Construction de l'Europe selon Jean Monnet * Plan Fouchet * Mitterrand and Kohl urge European Political Union * Il Manifesto di Ventotene
