Mehnert, Klaus, 1906-1984

eVols at University of Hawaii at Manoa

VOL. VIUlBE~COOllRYSHANGHAI, JANUAHY 19HjIN THE FURNACEBy KLAUS MEHNERTNo. IWHEN on Ncw Year's Eve the midnighthour was tolled from those of thechurch towers of Gcrmany that werestill standing, millions of Germanswere in t.he thick of battle, millions at work innight shifts. millions asleep after a. long day'stoil in llrmament plants. In what little leisuret.hey had for reflection, they will have look dback on 1944 as representing the hardest tellttheir nation bas ever had to face in its history.No other nation ill modern times has stooda similar test. France, Poland, or Haly. notto m ntion smaller countries: they all caved inunder 1\ fraction of the pressure borne byGermany today. The British are proud oftheir fortitude in tho summer and autumn of1940 and on it blU>e their faith in the mornlgreatnell8 of their people. Yet Great Britain,after Dunkirk, was IlIJ almost untouched islandwhich had seen no enemy soldier, ringed by ahuge navy, and baekcd up by the reaourees ofher g.lobe.encircling Empire and America's aid.The Bolsheviks ba c their claim to the supe-riority of the Soviet system and people ontheir behavior during the time when the Ger-mans were on the ban ks of the Volga. Yet inthe days of Stalingrad the USSR stilJ had almosttw nty million square miles with huge industrialplan til, raw materials, and agricultural produc-tion on which no enemy plane had ever droppfda bomb. Both Great Britain and the SovietUnion were then only in their second year ofthe war, and neither of the two had more thanone front to look after.The strain on the Germans in 1944 was in-compafllbly grcater. :For them 1944 has beena year of terrible sctbacks, hardship8. and dill-appointments. During this year, their armiel'had-to abandon arcas many times the size ofGermany in northern, eastern, southern, andlVeete.rn Europe. Alone they faced the entiremanpower and industrial capacity of theUSSR and a large part of the maIl power andindustrial capacity of the USA and the Briti~hEmpire, not to mention all the many minor8tate8 which are lined up a.)j around the Gel monfortress. Three of Germa.ny's ames left her campin 1944, two being pressed into the service ofthe Red armies against her. The AtlanticWalJ. although holding up the invasion, didnot prevent it. The new paperl:l were full ofobituaries, amOJlg thEm tbat of the most popularmilitary leader, Marshal Rommel. The eoun-try's cities, plants. and railrolluli were under aceasele s hail of bcmbs fr(,m up to 2,000bomh rs a day. and countlesa Germalll:l weredeprived of aU their earthly poslSeslSionll. Manyvaluable raw materials, including the oil ofRumania" and territories rich in agriculturalproduction were lost. Neutral counuil'l:l wereforced by ber enemies to abandon trade withthe Reich. The re-election of Roosevelt tm-phal:lizcd the fact that 110 slludcn ('hange inAmerican foreign }lolicy is likely to relieve thl:prcsllure. Day and night. scores of rudio sta-t ions alJ around GCJmany, iII programs diHctA:dat the German p pulation, painted 11 blackpicture of Germany's military and cOlJ<lmicposition. appealing to tbe Germans to quit andcalling ullon tbe 12 miJJiGll or more fureignlaborers in Go many to risc in H";olt.• • •Every German knows all this. For, howeVHexuberant German Fublicity may ba,e beenin the earlier stage8 of the war, it wos grimlyrealistic in Hl44 and lIas left the GlJmaDtlunder no illu8ions as to tbe gravity of thecrisis through \\hich they are pat'8iJJg.Yet the strength and detumination \\'ithwhich the Gel mans arc fightiTlg and WOl king-and the testimon .. of their emmicll provcs thiE<-are a8 great as if the wor hod jUI't ",tarted.Reports cablfd by Allied wor corrctipondtDtsfrem the front, articles written by the militaryccmmentators of their Il(;wl'papers, evrn thetlpeecbC's of Churchill and Roosevelt, C.llpreb8the en<mies' amaZlment at Gl'lmaIlY's stnnd.They caJ:lDot und rstar;d it. They had figurfd:the Gel mans haven't got n. cLaDce, thcrefoJ'f'they'U quit. 'Iliat is what France did ill 1940.But thcy find that tbe Goman determinationis gr ater in the sixth than in the finn, )' ar ofwar, and that the entire naticm-mlD, w<.me·lJand ehildnn-arc fighting a8 one.How can we account for this? ls it dcairt'for glory, intoxication with I:\IOgOJ1S, a grandi1Jusion. a Messianic ecmpln religious rnodne...... ,the Gestapo, rapaciOlls instincts for world con-TIIB XX... OENTURY'qu08t~ The enemy war reporte show tllatnone of the3e explanations will do. So theylook for othel'lJ. Soviet newspapers allege thatthe Germall8 are m£l.de drunk before being eentinto ba.ttle, and Anglo-Sa.xon commentatorshlW'p on the word "fanaticism," a word whiohexplains nothing. Yet the a03wer to the mo-tives behind the phenomenon of Germany'ssta.nd is quite simple.In the first place it is the nation's tremendoWiwill to live, which manifests itself in the readi.U638 of each German to die tb.at Germany maylive; a will to live which knows: only those cantruly win life who are willing to risk death; awill to live whieh has been enhanced by thebrutal frankness with whioh the enemies arediscussing the annib.ila.tion of a defeated Ger·maQ. ', In tbe seooml pla.oe, it is the German senseof duty, It has often been rioiduled abroadaQ~ uauaUy tniaundel'litood, beQause mos peoplehave &38umod that duty in the eyes of theGerman means clicking his heels to superiors,while in reality it is the following of innerrather than exterior commands. ImmanuelKant, Germany's greatest philosopher, wasthe apostle of Duty. It was he who taughtthe Germa.ni that all other attributes ofman-intelligence, courage, wealth, power-may be good as well as evil, while only hisgood ,intention is good' in itself.. Even if agood intention should not be crowned bySUCC883, it would, Kant said, "shine like aje't{el, as something wbich carries its value initself."RLW"Oly has an entire nation felt what itsduty W&3 with such overwheln;iing and simplecla.rity as tho Gorma.ll8 do today: to fight andto work. Of course, they also) p~e theirhopes in the new weapons, in the strength oftho.ir fortifioations, in the 1'~ult8 being achievedby the arlOed forces of their ally J~pan. Buttb.is is not what keeps them going. It is noteven'so much the question of vi$ltory or defeat.They feel it simply to be their duty to carryon.The final outcome, tbe individualGerma.n know8,d6pondtt on ma.ny fa~tor3 beyond his reach. Butwhat ,lios plainly before him is his own duty. Thisalso explains the fact that there ia little diso11l-sion of postwar plans in Germany today. Itindicates not lack of confidence in the futurebut ~e irrelevance of such plans at the preeenttime. Fighting as they are for the survivalof their nation, the Germans feel no inclinationto theorize on what they will do with them.selves or others after the fight. They areconvinoed tha.t, once they come out of thilwar, there will be no task they cannot master. -In this mental state it is quite immaterirJ tothe German that the greatness of his strugglehas only led his enemies to more vociferoushatred and threats of annihilation, and thatthe same people who heap praise on Tito par-tisans, Frenoh maquisa.rds, or Dutch saboteUl'll,twist every sign of his extreme heroism intonew proof that he is a "war criminal."Neutral observers have often said: "Wouldit not be oleverer of Germany if •• :' andthen added some political advice. But theGermans are beyond clever considerations 'today.Each one just does his duty and each one feels:since all 75 million of us are doing it, we oan-not be wiped out. The growing empha8isbeing placed upon the "People's Grenadiers"recruited last summer and the nonuniformed"People's Storm Divisions" recently orga*edis deeply significant. For Germany the 'irarhas become a people's war if ever there was one.. . .'The homeless war widow who is worki~ i,na factory; the farmer's wife who Hince 1939 hasseen her soldier hWlband only durinfJ r,~periods of leave and is carrying on her ~otkwith the aid of priBoners of war; the mao' whogOes on producmg war, material in a plantbombed, evacuated, and rebuilt twenty times;the boy or ~rl who for years has been handli~the tasks of an adult; the villager of EastPrussia or the worker of the Saar who, leavinghis plough or machine, is throwing his heartand "panzer fult" against the enemy tanks-they can all look back on the bitter y~ of1944 with pride: all that was 'petty, 861~sh,and impure h&8 been burned away in)fiemin the blast furnace of bombed cities and fi&m~irig fronts. They have stood the test of 19«,. I;TO OUR READERSOur readers m':Jy have not'.ull lhat THE XXth CENTURY hru become thinner i" lAe''course of the years. But the. m'Jre observant amrmg them may aUo have di.8cerned tAal iIhaJJ been our p:Jlicy to effect tM.. paper-saving necessitated by the war without reducing lINm:Jf1azine'& contents. A.Bide from the fact that the. slimmer appearanu of the tnagaziMis due 'PlJrUy to a thi"ner q~':Jlity oi p':Jper, tAe fewer number of pagu /aas bee" madaup fo~ by the ,U8e of sm:J!ler' type (since Ju~ 1944) anti, start.ng lO11h thU i86U, ~" ,! a reductio,n o/the m'J.rgin, which latter aU;' about 15 per cent to the content8 0/ eacA page. ,

In the Furnace

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In the Furnace

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