Unrepentant

This is a grim picture of Germany indeed. Germany hates her occupiers, the Yanks, because they said they came as liberators and behaved like victors (and the Germans say, "if that is democracy, we don't want it"), the British, because they are economic competitors trying to strangle Germany's recovery, the Russians because they are Russians and "Inferior," "infesting pure German blood, so that 18 million Germans will be lost to Germany, which means, to Europe, which means to civilisation." Germany is not to blame for the war (only perhaps, for losing it, and even that was not necessarily Hitler's fault. . . . ) or for the atrocities in the extermination camps which never took place, anyway, because no German government would have permitted them. To prove this point: The Fuehrer was too humane even to use the Atom Bomb, which is a German invention and could have been used by him. The Yanks stole the bomb, after their victory, and used it; the Democrats, not Hitler, are to be blamed again.

Is there no light? One lonely elderly woman told Dr. Kahn that she felt ashamed of what Germany had done—One, mind you, of all the hundreds to whom he put this same question. Secondly, the French are better occupiers than the rest. The reason? "They've learned from us how to behave as occupiers," suggest the charming Germans. Dr. Kahn says this "preference" is largely due to the fact that the French did not admit refugees from the East, so that their economy is in a better position. One member of the audience tried to point out that the British Occupation Army was, to a distressingly large degree, in jail "for quite natural reasons." This astonishing state of affairs may account for the fact that so few of them are seen around Germany these days.

The German problem has not been, solved, and its solution will never be accepted by the Germans as long as It Is not "Made in Germany." Dr. Kahn's realism 'was distressing, but a masterly example of objective reporting which the Society hopes to maintain in the coming talks of this year.

It is hoped that Mr. James Thorn, until recently N.Z. High Commissioner in Canada, will be the next speaker to the Society,