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Show Nazi Influence Remains To Vex Allied Control Indoctrination of Youth and Lethargy of Mass of People Obstacle to Efforts to Reconstitute Beaten Nation. By BAUKHAGE Ntti:. tnnlvtl itntl C.nnimfnfnlnr WNU Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. (This is ihe first nl turn articles by Mr. Iluukhuge revealing how the re' lulls of Ilimmlers "planned terror" ire mahinit it hard lor Americans to niii Germany.) The hearings of the Kilgore subcommittee sub-committee on war mobilization concluded con-cluded in the last weeks of con-Cress con-Cress and are to be resumed next September. Testimony before the committee has revealed certain "secret "se-cret documents" showing plans on the part of various German industrialists indus-trialists to subsidize a Nazi underground under-ground party. The purpose of the hearings, Senator Sena-tor Kilgore's associates tell me, is to prepare the United States against a future recrudescence of German militarism. If such underground organizations exist and continue to exist it will be necessary to hunt them out of their hiding places if we can. This is going to be especially difficult since some of those hiding places undoubtedly will be on foreign territory terri-tory and it may not be easy to reach across the frontiers of nations not too unfriendly to the Nazi - Fascist Idea. Meanwhile there is an immedi-te immedi-te problem to be faced and that is the practical task of "running Germany," Ger-many," something which it is generally gen-erally admitted Is going to be hard-tr hard-tr than we thought. There are many baffling factors of a purely physical aspect which enter into the scheme but I do not mtend to deal with them here. I want to talk about the psychological problem which is recognized by trained observers on the scene but perhaps not as fully understood as It might be. It may be recalled that some months ago there appeared in these columns an exposition of the organi-tation organi-tation and the indoctrination of the German people and the integration Df all elements in Germany into a single unit, created for the purpose Df waging total war. This dealt with the positive steps taken in the training train-ing of the youth and conversion or compulsion exerted over such of the Dlder generation as were sufficiently pliable. In this and a succeeding article ar-ticle I propose to deal with what might be called a program of negation nega-tion since its purpose was to destroy the quality of resistance to Naziism on the part of those too old or too stubborn to accept, actively or passively, pas-sively, the Nazi regime. It is what I have alluded to as the program of "planned terror." Nazification Extended To All Classes First, it must be remembered that Bince the Nazis were in full power tor about 12 years and the real indoctrination in-doctrination of the Germany youth began at about the age of 12, there might be presumed to remain a group of middle-aged Germans who escaped the full blight of Nazi indoctrination. in-doctrination. Normally they would be the ones most likely to offer collaboration col-laboration with the American or other officials and most amenable to an acceptance of democratic methods and beliefs. Of course, there are some such. On the other hand, although this group who by age or inclination inclina-tion were less favorable to Nazification, Nazifi-cation, the majority have not escaped the effects 'of Nazi rule. These men were brought up in a more or less normal 20th century atmospnere, regimented to some extent, ex-tent, it is true and with the long tradition of German militarism behind be-hind them, but at root a kindly, busirsslike, churchgoing folk whose evils were environmental and not necessarily hereditary as they proved when they left home and settled set-tled on our shores. They are the ones in Germany whom we blame for failing to arise and overthrow the Hitler regime, for accepting it and its inhumanities. We find them now, according to most of the persons who have visited visit-ed Germany, befuddled, submissive, yet resentful, but honestly rejecting reject-ing all personal, individual responsibility responsi-bility for war guilt of Germany and th atrocities of the Nazis. For the ' most part they have proved about as valuable in assisting in the governing of their country as a large piece of slightly rancid dough. r ST n t ' ' 7 f ' I i A ' To meet this and other conditions existing in the Allied zone of occupation, occu-pation, the psychological warfare division of supreme headquarters has a special program worked out. (And don't be frightened at the $64 title of that organization a lot of our boys are alive today because of its assault on the enemy as you will learn some day.) Aim to Reorient German Mind A part of the aim of the American Ameri-can program is to help maintain order, or-der, and its long-range objective is described as "reorienting the German Ger-man mind, after 12 years of Naziism." Nazi-ism." General McClure, head of the psychological psy-chological warfare division, explains ex-plains the immediate objectives of the information bureau of his division divi-sion as ."(1) to maintain and deepen deep-en the mood of passive acquiescence acqui-escence and acceptance of orders to the German people, and so to facilitate facili-tate the completion of the occupation occupa-tion of Germany; (2) to undertake special campaigns required by military mili-tary government, and (3) to take the first steps toward arousing a sense of collective responsibility for Germany's Ger-many's crimes and to provide the facts which expose the fatal consequences conse-quences of Nazi and militarist leadership lead-ership and German acquiescence in them." General McClure realizes that step number three is a long one and a high one. At present the American Ameri-can occupation officials are in a somewhat paradoxical position. They are expected to maintain strict military discipline and in the same breath in which they order, "Stand at attention," they have to say, "Now think for yourself!" And furthermore the Nazis have done all that is humanly possible or I should say, inhumanly possible to see that there is nothing left of initiative initi-ative or individual responsibility in Germany. Having created this state of chaos, they hope to gain an interim in-terim in which to strengthen their underground. It is not organized resistance which the American occupation is meeting. Out of 10,000,000 or more Germans in the American zone, so far less than 4,000 have been jailed for acts inimical to the American military regime, but hundreds and hundreds have been fired from the civil administration because they cannot produce a clean anti-Hitler-record or they have definite connections with the Nazi party or its activities. What many people fail to realize in this connection is how thorough the Nazification of Germany has been. I had occasion to point out in previous columns that the German Ger-man people were the Nazis' first conquest, that it took longer than the military conquest of any of the nations occupied by the German armies and that the preparation for this domestic campaign was long and thorough. Recently we have had a chance to learn more about what a concentration concentra-tion camp really was. I refer not only to the grisly horrors revealed by the dead and the living-dead found in the captured camps. What is far more deeply revealing is the testimony of some of the former inmates in-mates who were released earlier with their brains still intact. From them we learn the powerful psychological psy-chological influences of the treatment treat-ment of prisoners by the gestapo. This psychological effect reached those outside, too. Further, by repeating re-peating publicly the camp brutalities bru-talities in a milder form and likewise like-wise by means of the tyrannical restrictions re-strictions on the whole people, all Germany was turned into one great concentration camp. This was deliberately delib-erately planned. From my own personal experi ences in Nazi Germany I can testify that this last statement is not an exaggeration. I have felt the "terror" atmosphere which the gestapo ges-tapo created even for a foreigner, reasonably sure of safe and unmolested un-molested departure from the accursed ac-cursed country. Leaving Germany in wartime, herded into the station under the piercing eyes of the SS troopers, with the invisible presence of the gestapo all about one, had a paralyzing effect on a person even though he had a passport in his pocket and the sovereign power oi the United States behind him. |