A. They always demand absolute, uncompromising superiority. Look back on Hitler’s reign. He had several chances to stop this side of war, after having gained for his people not mere equality with his greatest rival, France, and not mere equality with the political and military forces of all his neighbors put together, but with real superiority in arms and in political power over all Europe. Look at the chances he had to stop short of war and build in peace, and perhaps go down as a greater man than he will appear after this bloody debacle is over. He could have stopped after he got the Sudetenland, and had finally united nearly all of his 80,000,000 Germans. He could have stopped after he took Austria; after he occupied the Rhineland; after he got the Saar back into Germany. The taking of the Sudetenland would have been a place to stop at the pinnacle. Suppose he had done that, and had used his power and talent to transfer his war machine into a peace machine, and had used his mighty prestige to bring Europe into a new economic order. Germany had attained practical “equality” with France by 1936 when Hitler’s troops entered the Rhineland, and they had “equality” with all the rest of Europe put together—as Hitler has now so disastrously proved—by 1938 when they got the Sudetenland. So the point is that the Germans never wanted equality, will never be satisfied with equality, but will always demand to be what they believe themselves to be, namely, the master race.
Q. Aren’t you confusing the Germans with Hitler and the Nazis?
A. No, the Germans have done that themselves. By their so-called plebiscites which document their uniformly spineless behavior since Hitler came to power, they have identified themselves with him and permitted him uncontradicted to define himself as Deutschland.
There is just a chance that a combination of generosity and firmness may impress a minority of Germans which may grow and eventually bring the whole nation into our hoped-for World Federation. If, on the contrary, the Germans secretly arm, and prepare another ambush for civilization, our only hope is to find it out in time. We should have no hope at all if our sobbing societies succeeded in inducing the Peace Conference to give the Germans equality in arms. Let us remember that if we were all to disarm, including Germany, it would be just as disadvantageous for us as if we remained armed and allowed Germany to keep equal arms. For at any stage of armament or disarmament the Germans are superior to almost any combination of their opponents. Germany is not just another nation. It is a nation, not exceptionally numerous, but so highly talented in the mechanics, chemistry, and physics of warfare and so professionally skilled in the staff work of war, and so obediently brave in the practice of battle, that its military power is greater than that of any other single nation on earth, with no exceptions.
Q. What are we going to do with all the former nations of Europe, especially the fifteen or so which were conquered? Are we going to reconstitute them all as they were?
A. We shall try to reconstitute all those which are capable of maintaining a national life, but how can one foresee the fate of such unfortunate little states as Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania? The Soviet government, through its ambassador to London, Mr. Maisky, now declares that it approves the Atlantic Charter’s Eight Points, including the right of self-determination of all nations. This has been hailed as a great step forward; but I should prefer to wait to see the Red Army evacuate voluntarily any territory it may hold at the end of this war.
The attitude of the Soviet government toward the rights of small nations is brilliantly illustrated by Stalin’s treatment of the Baltic States. First, he asked Britain and France for them to be handed him on a platter, as roast chicken. Having been refused, he waited until the war began, then forcibly occupied the three little states, which were among the more attractive and in many ways more admirable little countries in Europe. We have almost completely overlooked the grisly fate of the middle-class population of the Baltic states—virtually exterminated by Stalin’s gunmen in one of those side shows of horror which only the great war could obscure. The Baltic population is suffering an epic of agony. After Stalin’s G.P.U. had killed or exiled all the professional and business people and all those suspected of being Nazi sympathizers, and then after war had swept the three countries, the Germans and the Gestapo moved in and killed all the Communist and other labor leaders and anti-Nazis. Now that Stalin has been driven out of the Baltic states, and they are occupied by the Nazis, the Soviet policy is ceremoniously announced to be in favor of restoration of full national independence to all states.
That must ring bitterly in the ears of the pitiful remnant of the population of Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Is there enough of them left to make it possible to resuscitate their nations? The experience of these countries shows how difficult it will be in our postwar settlement to give national independence to small states and at the same time allow them the possibility of national security. Many a small state will have to choose between the one or the other. If it stands alone, it may be devoured by a larger neighbor. If it enters a larger unit, it will have to sacrifice some of its sovereignty. All this points to the necessity of making the larger unit big enough to comprise all nations.
Whatever we do, the Soviet Union will present us with almost as many problems as Germany. How can Britain and the United States confidently outline specific war aims as long as we do not know what the position of the Soviet Union will be at the end of this war? And if the Soviet Union survives in her present form and temper, and has not defected from the war, how is she to fit into our world peace organization? There are in it only two durable points of reference: the United States and Great Britain, and one great hope of success for the organization of peace, the firm friendship of the two countries, braced by their control of the seas. Our only chance of realizing such a peace is by cherishing between ourselves a mutual trust which will override our selfish ambitions, for there are many points and places on the globe where our material interests conflict. We cannot maintain this relationship until we Americans begin to carry our full share of the burden of the war and the British in turn make us feel we are welcome to the comradeship as well as the responsibilities of the war and the peace.
Q. Do the British want such a Pax Anglo-Americana which would divide their victory with us?