| Description | Letter to Lord Pakenham at 10, Linnell Drive, London, N.W.11
'You will remember that in our frequent discussions about Germany you always gave me to understand that in your opinion I highly overstated the point. New information which has recently come into my hands direct from Germany, and the contacts I made during an extensive visit to the States with several decent Germans, who have recently escaped from Germany, make me feel however that I have really understated it badly. The real state of affairs is well illustrated by a letter, a translation of which I am enclosing. It was written to a former German phyciscist, who has now a high position in Canada, by one of his former colleagues. You will see that I have left out the names of the persons concerned and even that of the place, but I can of course supply these to you confidentially. The reason why I have done so is that I know from past experience that our representatives in Germany are often very naive and therefore may do great damage to the people concerned.
When I was in Paris a few days ago I showed this letter to Mr. Thompson, a Canadian who is in charge of German affairs in UNESCO. He told me that this letter might have given a good picture of the situation at the time when it was written (February 1948) but that the position is now very much worse and that he was in complete despair over the whole situation. He told me as a further example that when one of the "Lander" recently instituted their own government, they dismissed 1800 of the employees of their Ministries in order to replace them by the former Nazi occupants of these positions and that 800 of themn belonged to the Ministry of Education! The only place where the situation does not seem to be quite so bad is Berlin.
You know that I believe that this situation could have been avoided if the proper people had been picked in Germany in the first place, and you also know that all my efforts to ensure this should be done by consulting people either in this coutry, or, say, in Holland, Denmark and Switzerland who had first hand experience of Germany, have been in vain. The "Herrenvolk" variety is on top again, while the decent people have been let down by the Allies. Now of course it is much too late to try and change this state of affairs, but I think it is our duty to rescue the few decent people, who are now being trampled down by the Nazis.
Apart from that I think it is expremely important to enlighten public opinion about the matter. Once before the people of this coutry ran blindly into a catastrophe which could have been foreseen. Now as then there were actually people who welcomed the Nazis as a bulwark against the Bolshevites. One would have thought that by now people would realise that both are specimens of the same variety of slightly different colour and that a Nazi can very easily switch over to become a Communist, and that the only way to prevent Communism is to encourage real democracy. It is really pitiful to see how little people have learnt.
Is there anything being done by the Government to enlighten public opinion about the state of affairs in Germany? I know that although you are personally interested in these matters you are no longer in direct charge. I would therefore by very grateful if you could hand on this letter to the official who deals with German affairs. I also think it would be a good idea if he could ask Mr. Thompson of UNESCO (J.W.R. Thompson, UNESCO, 19 Avenue Klever, Paris 16) to come and see him. '
2 copies
For translation referred to in the letter see FS/7/4/6/45 |