Germany

THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION--Hermann Rauschning--Putnam ($2.75).

THE OTHER GERMANY--Erlka & Klaus Mann--Modern Age ($2.75).

WHAT GERMANY FORGOT--James T. Shotwell--Macmillan ($1 .50).

Every month multiplies the number of ambitious plans for "Federal Union" of the democracies, of Europe, of the world (TIME, Feb. 19). Basic to such plans is recognition of the fact that European reconstruction and the problem of Germany are closely, not to say, desperately, related. Yet who among these planners has envisioned a credible future--or any future at all--for Germany?

Several recent books offer concrete facts, qualified interpretation, on some but not all aspects of Germany's--and Europe's--massive problem.*

"Core of Steel." Hermann Rauschning's The Revolution of Nihilism purposed to reveal the Nazis' secret plans for the Third Reich. It obscured almost as much as it disclosed, but occasional clear statements of the Nazis' real aims stood out like moments of nightmare in a some what foggy dream. His new book, The Voice of Destruction, is an evidently hurried transcript of notes on Hitler's private assertions in 1932-34. It may be substantially credited or discounted according to how much distortion the reader sees in Junker Rauschning's solemn retrospective indignation. It is certainly unique for the picture it gives of Hitler snapping and shouting at his pals, swearing to make Germany a "core of steel" for a new European society, breaking off to hum motifs from Wagner. Pertinent gems from the Fuehrer's frenzies :

-- "I shall maneuver France right out of her Maginot Line without losing a single soldier. How to do it is my secret!"

-- "Do you really believe the masses will ever be Christian again? Nonsense! Never again. That tale is finished."

"Mediator." Apart from the charm with which it is written, The Other Germany, by the son and daughter of Thomas Mann, is valuable as a discussion of important elements in Germany and in the German character which Europe's rebuilders will have to face. Like Rauschning, the Manns are weak on analysis of the tremendous economic problem that will arise if the totalitarian state is defeated. But their book is a strong and pertinent reminder of the cultural resilience and political talent Germany displayed under the Weimar Republic (whose constitution was as liberal a one as Europe had ever seen). If Europe after World War II is to be federal, as they hope, the Manns provide a logical line on the neglected question as to what sort of Germany should take part in the federation.

"Germany's structure," they say, "is regional. The Germans do not care to, and do not actually, accept dictation from Berlin. There are, moreover, simply too many Germans in Europe for one state. An empire comprising all Germans would always constitute an implied threat and a source of unrest for the Continent. . . ."

Further: "The land of Europe's middle, the mediator between North and South, East and West, has no mission to rule, but the more profound and noble mission to unite and reconcile."

Cost. Professor Shotwell of Columbia University, editor of the mammoth Economic and Social History of the World War (150 vols., Yale University Press), has neither Hermann Rauschning's intimate knowledge of the nihilistic Nazis nor the German culture of a Mann, but he has figures. Using them, in What Germany Forgot, to disprove the Nazi propaganda argument that Germany's post-war ills were caused by the Treaty of Versailles, he gives by implication a fairly precise idea of where Germany's future ills are coming from.

According to Professor Shotwell, it was only a few years ago that economists finally got around to finding out just how much World War I cost Germany. The cost: to the German Government alone, $50,000,000,000; to the German people, another $50,000,000,000; in all about four times as much as the total burden of reparations. Because these facts were not known earlier, Germans were easily led to concentrate their resentment on the well-known figures of reparations.

Professor Shotwell agrees with the Manns that given half a chance the German people could cope with their problems intelligently. He recalls the unfamiliar fact that the principle of the Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928 originated in Berlin. His book is as useful as any in making clear that talk of European federation must sooner or later come down to cases, in particular the case of Germany.

-- Though none among them matches the objectivity of a book published in Germany last year (shortly afterwards brought out in England and the U. S.): Count Puckler's How Strong Is Britain? The work of a young German foreign correspondent, it was a lucid study of British resources--industrial, military, strategic and diplomatic. So blandly written as to give Nazi critics no toe hold for complaint, it was also a detailed demonstration of the formidability of the Empire.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.