JF Ptak Science Books Post 2360
Algernon D. Black, the leader of the Society for Ethical Culture, wrote a pretty good appeal to America in his radio broadcast of May 3, 1945 on WQXR (NYC). His topic on his "Ethical Issues in the News" series was The Nazi Surrender. WWII in Europe was nearly over, Hitler had been dead for four days, nearly every major German city was in ruins, and surrender was in the air-- and on the ground, and in the rivers, German troops surrendering in the tens of thousands in the west, and more so in the east, with many also being killed at the hands of the Soviets. Surrender was everywhere but on paper.
May 7 would be the official day, four days in Mr. Black's future.
And what Mr. Black warned against in the coming of surrender was this--that even though Germany was defeated, we must make sure that Nazism is defeated too. He warned that the Nazis claimed to be fighting a common enemy in the Soviets, and at the end tried to align themselves with the West against the rising East. "Even the surrender of Nazi generals and suicides by Nazi leaders in no guarantee if a surrender of the Nazi will and the defeat of the Nazi ideology.
He went on: "In the moment of defeat, the Nazis have done things to assure the rebirth of the Nazi movement" pointing out hidden money, transfer of major funds to neutral countries, setting the stage for retrieving patents and industries, and so on.
Black points out that the Nazis started a war that killed at least 50 million people, and who in their quest to defeat "Russian bolseheviks" killed hundreds of thousands of British, French, and American soldiers, and civilians, caused the deaths of millions more, imprisoned millions and ran concentration camps.
"When we have accepted the Nazi surrender, our real difficulties will begin" Black writes, telling his audience that the Nazis must be separated from the non-Nazis, and that Germans who were "victim of false indoctrination will have to be subjected to intensive re-education", and that "those who are anti-Nazis must be encouraged to take leadership and to aid in the rebuilding of German life and of German democracy..."
Black was advocating a sensible, thoughtful approach to a longer-termed peace in discussing the termination not of the German state, but of the Nazi ideology.
Comments