January 4, 1948
Review of:
AND CALL IT PEACE
by Marshall Knappen
313 pp.
Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago Press. $3.
This book is a detailed account of German re-education as planned and implemented by the American Military Government. An insider has written it: Marshall Knappen, in civilian life a historian and political scientist at Michigan State College, was not only on the staff of the original planning unit, but after Germany’s defeat continued to serve in a leading position. He tells a story of blunders, frustrated hopes and crippled achievements. And he tells it for a purpose.
When in March, 1944 a small British-American team assembled in southern England to draw up an education program for Germany, the three American members, among them Knappen started from two basic assumptions. First, they argued, Fascism in Germany and elsewhere must be traced to economic hardship rather than militarist leanings or ultra-nationalism. Secondly, if a group of people have been handicapped in the past by a poor inheritance, an improvement of environmental conditions will in time change these people themselves. In the light of such assumptions the hope seemed justified that economic reconstruction as promised by the Atlantic Charter to the vanquished might bring about a peaceable and democratic Germany. This optimistic outlook determined the program. It was a “soft program, based upon the supposition, reasonable in itself that the work of re-education would have to be undertaken by the Germans themselves. Provisions were made to re-establish schools and theological seminaries as quickly as possible, to counteract the consequences of denazification by energetic teacher training, to encourage the formation of church and community youth groups on a voluntary basis, etc. The whole breathed a spirit of indulgence toward German sensibilities.
But even before this well-intentioned program could take effect, it met two obstacles. One resulted from the inscrutable ways of the Army. Mr. Knappen exhaustively criticizes the meager understanding of military authorities, except perhaps on the top level, for educational problems—an acrimonious comment not only on occasional mistakes but on inherent narrowness. It deals with senior officers unable to grasp the importance of experts; with the infiltration of the Military Government by officers not desired elsewhere; with the belief, common among the brass, that reorientation was a matter of flogging the Germans or speedily metamorphosing them by ways of magic.
The second and more serious obstacle was the Morgenthau plan, with its demand for Germany’s deindustrialization, which upset the very foundations of the education program. No sooner did this plan emerge than Washington reconsidered its occupation policy, insisting on tougher measures.
The subsequent survey of operations in Germany shows that despite these aggravating circumstances part of the original program could be carried out in a relatively short time. Schools were functioning by the spring of 1946; youth activities were initiated; adult education was revived in the major cities. The best points of this report on actual achievements are the interviews which Mr. Knappen as head of the Religious Affairs Section had with Cardinal Faulhaber and several dignitaries of the evangelical church. It is fresh material.
He gives a good account of Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s intricate personality; and with some disappointment he admits that the pillars of German Protestantism not only advanced nationalistic viewpoints but showed themselves lenient toward the Nazis. Since, according to plan, outside interference with religious traditions was to be avoided, the churches were temporarily allowed to do their own housecleaning. Upon insistence of the Catholics the occupation authorities also conceded the re-establishment of denominational schools—a compromise which aroused much animosity among the anti-Nazi population.
However, the potential yield of these efforts was nipped in the bud by policy decisions from higher up, creating a climate even more unfavorable to reorientation than the Morgenthau intermezzo. Mr. Knappen takes great pains to attack the stern handling of denazification, which, in his opinion, thwarted any palpable solution in the educational field. He also elaborates upon the influence exerted by deteriorating living conditions in the wake of the Potsdam Agreement. And, of course, he again brings the Army on the carpet, dwelling at length upon the corruptive example set by its undiscriminating billeting procedures, its toleration of black market practices and its immature replacements.
Mr. Knappen’s avowed purpose is to awaken the American people from their indifference. Prospects are gloomy in Germany, he asserts, and if we really wish to change the German mind we ourselves will have to change our policy. Or else history may once more repeat itself.
This book is useful as an honest piece of American self-criticism. Unfortunately, it is crowded with technicalities which sometimes obscure its underlying views. It also fails to take into account certain recent developments which point in the direction of the author’s aims. Denazification measures have been modified. And should the Marshall plan come true, German economy, at least in the Western zones, would be reconstructed as a matter of course. In any case, since Mr. Byrnes’ Stuttgart speech “environmental” changes are actually under way, and they conform exactly to what Mr. Knappen considers a necessary preliminary to German re-education. The one thing needed, as he remarks at one point, is “to give the German a job at steady wages which would take his mind off parading and putsching.” Would it really? For a historian, Mr. Knappen seems rather oblivious of Germany’s past. We can only hope that a future Germany will not give lie to his rosy basic assumptions.