‘Feeling sorry for the Germans’

4th December 2006

In my last post on ‘The British Soldier’s Pocketbook‘ issued to all British troops as they first entered German territory in 1944 and 1945, I wrote how soldiers were warned against ‘feeling sorry for the Germans.’ This reminded me of a debate on exactly the same subject, in the letters pages of the ‘British Zone Review‘ which ran through five issues, from 13th October to 8th December 1945.

I’ve included some of the relevant pieces from both sources below. This makes this post quite long, but I think it’s an interesting subject. Why were the British authorities so concerned that the ordinary British soldier would feel sorry for the ordinary German civilian? And the debate in the British Zone Review shows quite clearly the differences between the two schools of thought in Britain: on the one hand "The Germans deserve all they get," and on the other: "Humanity and justice cannot be based upon hatred and revenge."

To start with the Foreward to the ‘Soldier’s Pocketbook’:

"The civilian population of Germany has seen the war brought into its homes in a terrible form. You will see much suffering in Germany and much to awake your pity. You may also find that many Germans, on the surface at least, seem pleasant enough and that they will even try to welcome you as friends."

However the British soldier is warned that "The Germans have much to unlearn" and "much to atone for" and needs to be on his guard. After discussing atrocities committed by the German Government and the German Army, the book goes on to say that "The German people as a whole cannot escape a large share of responsibility" and "…it is only by the sacrifice of thousands upon thousands of your fellow countrymen and Allies, and at a cost of untold suffering at home and abroad through five long years, that British troops are at last on German soil. Think first of all this when you are tempted to sympathise with those who to-day are reaping the fruits of their policy, both in peace and war."

The same theme is repeated on the next page, in a section headed: "To begin with – "

"But most of the people you will see when you get to Germany will not be airmen or soldiers or U-boat crews, but ordinary civilians – men, women and children. Many of them will have suffered from overwork, underfeeding and the effects of air raids, and you may be tempted to feel sorry for them."

Again the British soldier is reminded of: "… how the German armies behaved in the countries they occupied" and told in capital letters: "THERE WILL BE NO BRUTALITY ABOUT A BRITISH OCCUPATION, BUT NEITHER WILL THERE BE SOFTNESS OR SENTIMENTALITY."

The book continues: "You may see many pitiful sights. Hard luck stories may somehow reach you. Some of them may be true, at least in part, but most will be hypocritical attempts to win sympathy…. SO BE ON YOUR GUARD AGAINST ‘PROPAGANDA’ IN THE FORM OF HARD LUCK STORIES. Be fair and just, but don’t be soft."

The same points are repeated later in the book, in a summary of Do’s and Don’ts.

"DON’T be sentimental. If things are tough for the Germans they have only themselves to blame."
"DON’T fall for political hard-luck stories."

The debate in the British Zone Review on ‘Feeling sorry for the Germans’ was started by a letter from ‘Lucia Lawson, Subaltern, A.T.S.’ in issue 2, on 13th October 1945:

"In writing this I am probably bringing a storm of criticism down on my head, but I do not think that I am alone in my views. And I would be interested to know.

Some time ago I went to Berlin, prepared to experience the greatest satisfaction of my life, by seeing the town in ruins and the people with no place to live. I came away feeing sorry for some of the Germans.

It is hard to believe when we have just come through six years of a war which was not of our asking that anyone can feel sorry for the people who caused it, but I challenge any average English man or woman to spend one week in Berlin and not feel some small measure of pity for some Berliners.

You will say that those sweet little children with curly fair hair and blue eyes are all potential killers, but with their spindly legs and lips just turning blue from lack of food it is hardly in human nature to hate them. The old man and woman who I saw digging for tree roots in the ruins of the Tiergarten for food, surely deserve a little pity, or do they? The young girl dressed in a thin summer frock who I found sleeping under the shelter of a pile of rubble in the Kaiser Wilhelm church, is she to be hated too? Hundreds are now dying from starvation and disease. In a couple of months the number may easily be doubled.

Well, it is open to discussion, but think before you write, or get someone who has been to Berlin to tell you what conditions are like. Maybe I am too sensitive and soft hearted, but I still say I am sorry for some of them."

Three responses to this letter were published in the next issue of the Review, on 27th October. The first, from Duncan Wilson, ISC (Information Services Control) Branch starts:

"I for one am sorry that Sub Lawson is sorry that she feels sorry for the people of Berlin. Why should one feel shy about a decent human sentiment, whatever its direction?"

He continues by saying that the Germans are not unique in their suffering, but that this does not mean "we should be indifferent to indiscriminate suffering here or anywhere else." He distinguishes 2 kinds of collective guilt. That of the active perpetrators, and that of "those who sat by passively or who carried out orders unthinkingly…. It does not seem to me that the guilt of these latter people differs in kind (in degree it does) from the guilt of others outside Germany who found it more comfortable to forget the seamy side of Nazism and thought it possible even in 1938 to do business with Hitler."

"Let us not be self-righteous; let us remember history’s indiscriminate judgement on ourselves; (the near catastrophe of 1940) and let us not pretend indifference to the sight of history being executed indiscriminately on the German people."

The second letter was from Margaret Beak, Sjt, ATS on the plight of children in Paris in December 1944, and in contrast, how well fed Germans in Frankfurt appeared:

"I personally cannot feel much pity for these people who are only suffering the same conditions that they have imposed on so many thousands of others in the past six years."

And the third from Sjt R.J. Dolamore:

"Surely no-one can feel sorry for any members of a race that has inflicted all the horrors of a second world war within a generation…. We all want to avoid another war in the future and the only way is to teach the Germans that war does not pay. We shall never do this by feeling sorry for them. Let them suffer all the hardships possible for the next 10 years and probably by that time the lesson will have entered their thick heads."

In the next issue, on 10th November, there were two further letters on the "Feeling Sorry" debate. The first from F/Lt E.A. Salmon, HQ Air Division:

"Subaltern Lawson’s recent letter and the replies it evoked must be of great interest to the many who are trying to adopt a correct attitude to the Germans. Sub Lawson found that although she can probably hate the Germans as a nation, it is more difficult to hate individuals whom she sees suffering in Berlin. I feel with Mr D Wilson that there is no shame in being sorry…. but it seems to me extremely important that our feelings should be given a true perspective…. If we appear sorry for their plight, they will only too readily assume the role of martyrdom. If we are harsh and indifferent they will accept us as conquerors and wait for revenge, instead of learning the meaning of civilised conduct, which must be our ultimate aim to teach. Surely, then, we must continually strive neither to condone nor to condemn, but rather to point out with as complete detachment as possible that although it is their nation which has caused  the terrible devastation and want now existing throughout Europe, maturer countries than Germany have grown out of tribal warfare and will try to help Germany to grow out of it as well. This will not feed hungry children. But everything possible is being done by the various organisations in the field to tide over the winter, and there is little more that individuals can do at present. Since, however, circumstances have made it inevitable that a lesson is to be taught, we can do our best to ensure that (unlike in the years after the 1914-1918 war) the moral is not lost."

And the second from F. Royen, Interpreters’ Pool, Berlin:

"As one who has lived in Germany for some months and who has a fair knowledge of German mentality I feel that Sub Lawson’s letter (‘Feeling Sorry for the Germans’) expresses not softheartedness but sympathy, which I am sure every decent human being must feel when confronted with cases of distress and misery.

We should however not be arrived away by feelings of sympathy, lest we ‘forgive and forget’ and by doing so help to create conditions leading to far greater distress and misery all over the world….

By methods of deceit and apparent servility, too much food is subtracted already now from rations which would far better be used to feed those who have suffered years of starvation in invaded countries, while the Germans were still doing well on food stolen from those countries.

It is necessary that they should suffer, and unfortunately innocent ones among  them, to drive it home to them that aggression does not pay in the long run. Do not let us be deceived by some cases of sufferings, which, painful as they may be, constitute only a fraction of the misery the Germans have brought about all over the world. A repetition must be prevented by hard means if civilisation, or indeed the human race, is to survive."

In Issue 5, on 24th November, Sjt J.P. Noonan joined the debate:

"Sir, Sgt Dolamore would condemn all Germans – men, women and innocent children – to the same fate as that of the unfortunate peoples of Europe when the Nazis were in power. May I suggest that if such methods of ‘justice’ are applied, within ten years there will be no Germans left in Germany – starvation and disease will have done an effective job.

We have called ourselves the Army of Liberation, the Crusaders of Truth, Justice and Liberty. If we are democrats and liberators of the oppressed, entrusted with the mission of enlightening and reaching the principles of truth, justice and liberty, then, in the name of logic and commonsense, why not practice what we preach? Humanity and justice cannot be based upon hatred and revenge. Our mission is to show the Germans they failed because they ignored the principles of humanity. We must punish the criminals responsible and teach the others by example that we have something better to offer: we must show them that, when they have paid their debt to society, they may once again become a democratic nation and a self respecting people. Let us punish the war criminals and the war mongers who have brought horror, misery and chaos to the world, but not innocent women and children."

The final contribution was in Issue number 6, on 8th December, in a letter from ‘D. G. Hannover’:

"The correspondence concerning sympathy for German children appears to be wandering from the subject.

I would suggest that one must have two standards of conduct. The first, official, in which one carries out the policy of the Control Commission. The second standard must be a personal one."

I would suggest three rules for this. First that merely because the Germans have been wicked, we are not justified in a similar retributive offence. It is nearly two thousand years since a better formula than an eye for an eye was suggested. Our standards must be our own, and be kinder than those of the National Socialists, or I do not know for what positive aim we fought.

The second rule is that one should be kind where one is. These wise men who say never be kind to Germans, reserve your sympathy for the French, Yugoslavs or Greeks, speak a half-truth. Of course one is sympathetic towards such innocent victims of German aggression. If I were in Yugoslavia, the children there should have all my chocolate and the German children none. But I’m not in Yugoslavia…. Sooner than see kindness in the wrong place, some people would see no kindness at all.

The last rule which occurs to one is that one should remember that Western Europe is a cultural entity…. Germany is, however unpalatable a fact it may be – and I recognise that it is very unpalatable – a major contributor to the civilisation of Western Europe, and one whose destruction will impoverish us all."

Germany 1944: The British Soldier’s Pocketbook

27th November 2006

The National Archives (TNA) has recently republished a 64 page pocketbook, first issued to British soldiers in late 1944 and early 1945, when they first crossed the frontier into Germany.

An introduction by Edward Hampshire, Modern Records Specialist at TNA, places the book in context:

"Germany [the pocketbook] must be viewed as a product of a specific historical moment, representing the beliefs, hopes and prejudices of the individual officials, propagandists and military officers who wrote it. At times unintentionally humorous and sweepingly generalist in its assertions, it deals with a range of social and political matters specific to the planned occupation; the guide also serves to open a window onto the wider cultural assumptions and political priorities of wartime Britain and its public servants."

The book was not immune from the tendency, common at the time, to indulge in national stereotyping. For example the following passage on ‘What the Germans are like?’

"When you meet the Germans you will probably think they are very much like us. They look like us, except that there are fewer of the wiry type and more big, fleshy, fair-haired men and women, especially in the north. But they are not really so much like us as they look. The Germans have, of course, many good qualities. They are very hard working and thorough; they are obedient and have a great love of tidiness and order. They are keen on education of a formal sort, and are proud of their ‘culture’ and their appreciation of music, art and literature. But for centuries they have been trained to submit to authority – not because they thought their rulers wise and fight, but because obedience was imposed on them by force."

Another section covers ‘What the Germans think of us?’

"…the basic German view of the British is something like this: The British do not work so hard as the Germans or take their work seriously. The British do not organise as well as the Germans … But on the whole the Germans admire the British. The efforts of the German Propaganda Ministry to stir up hatred against us have not been in spite of the R.A.F. raids, a great success … Even Hitler had a grudging respect for us … He envied us the British Empire and admired the national qualities that went to building it up – imagination, enterprise and tough endurance."

Edward Hampshire in his introduction says quite correctly that "there are the generalisations that  appear absurd and simplistic to modern eyes." But it is easy to forget how common this was at the time.

Compared with the US film shown to US troops entering Germany for the first time, (see my earlier posting) this booklet is surprisingly free from prejudice, and in many ways is down to earth and practical. For example the following passage shows an understanding of the effect of propaganda in wartime:

"You must also remember that most Germans have heard only the German side of the war and of the events that led up to it. They were forbidden to listen to any news except that put out by their own Propaganda Ministry and were savagely punished if they disobeyed."

And the scale of destruction caused by the Allied air raids:

"If you come from the west you will enter the most-bombed area in Europe. Here the destruction is many times greater than anything you have seen in London, Coventry or Bristol. Compare these figures: in eleven months (September, 1940, to July, 1941) the Germans dropped 7,500 tons of bombs on London – we dropped nearly 10,000 tons on Duisburg in two attacks between Saturday morning and Sunday morning, the 14th to 15th October 1944. In western towns from Hamburg south through the industrial Ruhr and Rhineland – with Essen, Dusseldorf, Duisburg and many other centres – and east to Nuremburg and Munich, you will see areas that consist largely of heaps of rubble and roofless windowless shells."

And the condition of the German people:

"In Western and Central Germany you will find a war area of bleak poverty and devastation. The Germans have been well and truly paid for what they did to Warsaw, Rotterdam and Belgrade. But the German people have had other things to bear. Probably more than three and a half million German soldiers have been killed in action and another million severely wounded. The supply of food for German civilians was restricted even before the war began so that they could have ‘guns instead of butter.’ During the war their rations have been a good deal lower than ours; they have had much less meat, bread and milk and the quality of the food was inferior."

Not surprisingly perhaps, the book was concerned that some soldiers ‘may be tempted to feel sorry’ for the Germans and stated in capital letters: "THERE WILL BE NO BRUTALITY ABOUT A BRITISH OCCUPATION, BUT NEITHER WILL THERE BE SOFTNESS OF SENTIMENTALITY."

Soldiers were warned to be on their guard against "propaganda in the form of hard luck stories" and told to "Be fair and just, but don’t be soft."

‘Victory over Japan’ exhibition

20 November 2006

A ‘Victory over Japan’ exhibition was opened in London by the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, on August 21st 1945, shortly after the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6th August and the surrender of Japan on VJ Day (15th August in the UK). The exhibition ran for four months and closed on December 23rd, after it had been visited by over one and a half million people; that’s nearly 400,000 a month, over 10,000 a day on average.

Despite its massive popularity, I can find no mention of the exhibition in any books about post-war Britain, or on Anglo-Japanese relations. It is remarkable how events, which were massively popular in their day, fade away from memory.

The Times reported on August 21st that on entering the exhibition "visitors will find themselves experiencing jungle conditions." Giant cobwebs "brush against the face as one passes, and spiders, the size of a man’s hand, are seen curled up in the web. One hears the sound of running water, the noise of insects and the wails of jackals and hyenas." To add further realism "the temperature is kept at an artificial heat of 120 degrees."

Cecil Taylor, director of the Displays and Exhibitions Division at the Ministry of Information, wrote to LR Bradley, the director of the Imperial War Museum, inviting him to attend the exhibition, but warned that the exhibition was "drawing the public to an extent exceeding all our expectations. I suggest 10 a.m. is the only feasible time any day for an examination of the show; after that hour it is so crowded as to make detailed assessment practically impossible."

Bradley was interested in acquiring some of the exhibits for the Imperial War Museum collection, and in due course the museum did receive a few items including dummy figures, model aircraft, munitions and weaponry.

My own in interest in this exhibition arose because it was held at the same "10,000 square feet" venue in London, on Oxford Street, near Tottenham Court Road, where the ‘Germany under Control’ exhibition was held six months later (see earlier postings). I thought it would be interesting the compare the two exhibitions, to see how the British Ministry of Information presented victory over one enemy, Japan, and the post-war occupation of the second, Germany.

Unfortunately it seems that there is not enough material available about the ‘Victory over Japan’ exhibition to make a useful comparison possible. It will have to stay as a footnote in history, with a few interesting items in the archives. (This posting is based on material from The Times on 21 August 1945, 22 August 1945 and 24 December 1945 and a file at the Imperial War Museum).

I have discovered more about the ‘Germany under Control’ exhibition and will write about this in future postings.

Another view of Humphrey Jennnings’ film ‘A Defeated People’

11th November 2006

Last week I read Kevin Jackson’s biography of Humphrey Jennings (Picador, 2004). His view of the film ‘A Defeated People’ is quite different from mine. Jackson speaks of a "prevailing grimness of the piece," whereas I saw a very different picture; a humane film that showed people as individuals, that showed pity for their suffering and hope for the future (see my earlier postings).

Jackson refers to a meeting between Jennings and the poet Stephen Spender: "They argued about the Germans, Jennings taking the harsher and more vengeful line on German culpability." He then goes on to say that: "The more [Jennings] saw of the defeated enemy, the less respect he felt…It is at times shocking to see how his new-found scorn for the Germans curdled into disgust."

He also quotes from a letter Jennings wrote to his wife Cicely towards the end of his stay in Germany and refers to the language as a "vocabulary of ethnic hate…There is nothing else in Jennings’ writings even remotely like this; and the film that resulted from his trip through the ruins was a good deal more balanced in tone."

Here is the passage from the letter:

"Have I think been getting nearer the problem of the German character and nation – and a grey dust-swept character it is: seeing, watching, working with the Germans en masse – terrified, rabbit-eyed, over-willing, too friendly, without an inch of what we call character among a thousand. Purely biological problem – almost every attribute that we strive to make grow, cultivate, has been bred or burnt out of them, exiled, thrown into gas-chambers, frightened, until you have a nation of near zombies with all the parts of human beings but really no soul – no oneness of personality to hold the parts together and shine out of the eyes, The eyes indeed are the worst the most telltale part – no shine, often no focus – the mouth drawn down with overwork and over-determination – to do what? Terrified of the Russians – cringing to us. Certainly there is a difference between the SS or the Nazi party in the sense that these are the dupes of those. Yes they can laugh and cry and do almost every thing that so called normal humans can and do – yet there is something missing – helpless now, untrustful of any thing most of all themselves – precisely not ‘The Triumph of the Will.’"

It seems to me that Jackson, writing with the benefit of hindsight, does not fully appreciate just how common it was in Britain at the time to speak about individual people in terms of their supposedly collective ‘national character’ and how much prejudice there was against all foreigners; Germans and others. Official and public attitudes in Britain towards race and ethnicity have changed dramatically in the past 60 years.

Jennings’ letters to his wife Cicely, published in Kevin Jackson’s earlier book ‘The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader’ give a more balanced picture. They show how confused he was, unable to make up his mind on what he saw in Germany. As he said in his first letter written on 1st September 1945: "Well I have been quite overwhelmed by Germany in the past few days and can’t really say anything sensible yet – it is quite unlike anything one has been told or thought…" And in his second letter a week later: "I am still unable to give any sort of reliable picture of Germany… for the moment the contradictions are too great."

Towards the end of his stay, his letters do change in tone and show signs of the prejudice, arrogance and self-righteousness that is so evident in British policy and actions in Germany after the war. (See my earlier posting on ‘Humphrey Jennings’ letters home from Germany’).

But what is most remarkable about the film ‘A Defeated People’ is not what it shows us about conventional British views and attitudes at the time: such as self-righteousness and arrogance and distrust of German people after the war. The film does contain these elements, but it also shows understanding and pity for the suffering of others, whoever they are, and hope and concern for the future.

In the same way that Jennings’ earlier film ‘A Diary for Timothy’, made in Britain at the end of the war, instead of dwelling on victory, looks to the future and what will happen when the war is over, ‘A Defeated People’ also looks to the future and not to the past. It shows people as individuals, not collectively as the enemy. It shows people suffering. The commentary shows no hesitation in blaming them for "the war they started" but this does not mean the British can leave them, in Jennings’ words, to "stew in their own juice." The film doesn’t provide the answers, but it does show people surviving in terrible circumstances, and the "Life Force" stirring again.

In summary, ‘A Defeated People’ is not, as Kevin Jackson sees it, a grim piece about destruction and the aftermath of war. It’s about people surviving despite the destruction and chaos all around them, about hope for the future and Winning the Peace.

‘Your Job in Germany’ a training film for US troops in 1945

4th November 2006

Two weeks ago I went to the Imperial War Museum to view five films from their archive.

I wrote about four of the films in my earlier post on Humphrey Jennings’ wartime documentary films.

The fifth film was quite different. It was a 14 minute US film, directed by Frank Capra, originally produced in 1944, rewritten after the Battle of the Bulge, and released in April 1945.

It was shown to all US troops entering German territory for the first time, during the closing stages of the war. I believe it was also shown to many British and other allied troops on the Western front.

It is interesting to contrast this film with Humphrey Jennings’ ‘A Defeated People,’ to show just how much attitudes changed in the six months between April 1945 and September and October the same year, when Jennings was filming in Germany.

‘Your Job in Germany’ conveys an uncompromisingly hard line attitude. The title screen at the start of the film says:

"You have just seen some of the atrocities committed by the Germans. The motion picture you are about to see is a training film prepared by the War Department for the US Army of occupation in Germany, so that they will be fully instructed and advised concerning their all-important mission."

There was no attempt to show German people as individuals. Instead the German nation, as a whole, was portrayed as collectively responsible and guilty for causing wars in 1870, 1914 and again in 1939.

The job of the American soldier was to stay aloof, be suspicious, and stay alert.

That a film such as this should be shown to US and allied troops at the end of the war is not surprising. What is surprising is the transformation that occurred in the first six months of the occupation, after the British and Americans had personal experience of conditions in Germany, and had met German men, women and children face to face.

The contrast with "Your Job in Germany" makes Humphrey Jennings’ film "A Defeated People" appear all the more remarkable.

Here are some extracts from the commentary to "Your Job in Germany."

"The problem now is future peace. That is your job in Germany"

"You’ll see some mighty pretty scenery. Don’t let it fool you. You are in enemy country. Be alert, suspicious of everyone. Take no chances. You are up against more than tourist scenery. You are up against Germany history. It isn’t good."

In a sequence referring to events after World War One, when the British and Americans occupied part of Germany for a time, and then withdrew their troops:

(Ironically) "Nice country Germany, tender people the Germans." (Ironically again) "When it comes to culture, they lead the whole world… We poured in our sympathy, we pulled out our armies…millions of people had let down their guard…"

And then referring to the situation, now, after World War Two:

"We almost lost this battle. It took everything we had … It took every once of our courage and guts. It can happen again. That is why you occupy Germany. To make that next war impossible."

"The German lust for conquest is not dead. It’s merely gone under cover."

"Somewhere in this Germany are the SS guards…the Gestapo guards. Out of uniform you won’t know them. But they’ll know you."

"Somewhere in this Germany are storm troopers, by the thousands, out of sight, part of the mob, but still watching you, hating you."

"Somewhere in this Germany there are 2 million ex Nazi officials. Out of power, but still in there, think, thinking about next time."

"Every business, every profession was part of Hitler’s system … Practically every German was part of the Nazi network."

"Guard particularly against this group. These are the most dangerous. German youth.
Trained to win by cheating. Trained to pick on the weak."

"Practically everything you believe in, they have been trained to hate and destroy. They believe they were born to be masters. That we are inferior, designed to be their slaves. They may deny it now, but they believe it."

"You are not being sent into Germany as educators. Every German is a potential source of trouble. Therefore there must be no fraternisation with any of the German people."

"Fraternisation means making friends. The German people are not our friends. You will not associate with German men, women or children."

"Don’t clasp that hand, it’s not the kind of hand you can clasp in friendship."

In practice there was no resistance to the British and US forces, and soldiers very soon did make friends with the people.

Field Marshal Montgomery, the British Commander in Chief, told in his memoirs how the non-fraternisation orders were soon relaxed:

"Such an order would simply not be obeyed. We must be sensible about it. Furthermore, if we were ever to re-educate the German population it would be a good thing to mix freely with them and teach them our standards of freedom and individual responsibility."

Already on 12th June 1945 the orders were relaxed, as Montgomery said: "to the extent that soldiers might speak to, and play with, children. They were of course, doing it anyway."

In July the rules were further relaxed, permitting conversations in the street, but not allowing soldiers to enter German homes. Then in September the ban was lifted completely. Montgomery said in his memoirs:

"We were then left with only two rules – no members of the armed forces were to be billeted with Germans, not were they allowed to marry them."

"It was a great relief to get this matter settled. I had never liked the orders which we had to issue; but it was Allied policy."

Humphrey Jennings’ letters home from Germany

Extracts from four letters Humphrey Jennings wrote to his wife while filming ‘A Defeated People’ have been published in Kevin Jackson’s book ‘The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader‘ (Carcanet, 1993).

I have already quoted one long extract from the letters in my first posting on Humphrey Jennings’ film ‘A Defeated People’.

The letters show that Jennings was initially confused and uncertain what to make of post-war Germany. In his first letter, written on September 1st 1945, he says:

"Well I have been quite overwhelmed by Germany in the past few days and can’t really say anything sensible yet – it is quite unlike anything one has been told or thought – both more alive and more dead … There is of course too much to photograph – ugly and beautiful – life and death – one can only choose bits and hope they are the right ones. I have never had to record a people or a country before. Of course really it’s impossible – specially as so many things really don’t seem to make sense: one can only go on looking at them until they do."

A week later he was still none the wiser:

"I am still unable to give any sort of reliable picture of Germany – even of the bits (Cologne, Essen Hannover, Hamm) which we have seen – for the moment the contradictions are too great …"

One specific example can perhaps give a more detailed illustration of the contradictions he may have been thinking of. Later in the same letter he says:

"Then again there is here the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra run by the Oberburgomeister which shows that not only Beethoven survives Fascism and War and Famine and all (which we knew) but also the capacity and the wish to play Beethoven … or perhaps the two are unconnected since the playing was encouraged by the Nazis or what? difficult points … at any rate we are encouraging it and at the same time quite rightly arresting the ex-Nazi orchestral players however good as players."

This echoes scenes in his earlier British wartime documentary films, (described in my posting last week), where British people are shown playing music by German composers.

In ‘The Heart of Britain’, to pictures of the Halle Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Fifth symphony, the commentator says: "But in Manchester today they still respect the genius of Germany; the genius of Germany that was." To the sounds of the music, the film moves on from showing the orchestra playing, to scenes of bomb damage and ruined buildings in Coventry. The message is ambiguous: either, there are two Germanys, the good and the bad, or alternatively, how could people who created such beautiful music create such destruction?

In ‘A Diary for Timothy’ the same theme reoccurs but with a different emphasis. In a sequence of Myra Hess playing Beethoven’s Appassionata piano sonata, at one of her National Gallery lunchtime concerts, the commentator says (speaking to baby Timothy): "Did you like the music that lady was playing. Some of us think it’s the greatest music in the world. Yet it’s German music. And we’re fighting the Germans. That’s something you’ll have to think about later on."

Although the film ‘A Defeated People’ makes no reference to the concentration camps, the issue was clearly in his mind. On 1st September he wrote:

"I have working with me besides our boys, an Army Film Unit Lieutenant who was at Belsen and did most of the films shot there: exceptionally nice chap."

And a week later:

"We have by the way with us one Lt Martin Wilson – Army Film Unit and ex-documentary film maker who was the first photographer in Belsen concentration camp and took most of the famous film pictures there and who has been all through the last German campaign and a great deal of the desert and Italian fighting. He is our ‘conducting officer’ and is really terrific. For this job the ideal assistant director."

So not only was Humphrey Jennings, the director of the film ‘A Defeated People’, the man who more than anyone else was responsible for creating the heroic images of Britain in wartime and the mythic image of the London Blitz, but its assistant director, who assisted with filming in Germany, was the first British photographer in Belsen.

This makes is all the more remarkable that the image portrayed in the film ‘A Defeated People’ is (as I wrote in an earlier posting) one that shows ordinary German people as individuals, that shows pity for their suffering and hope for the future.

But these letters also show that Jennings was not immune from the arrogance and self-righteousness that is so evident in British policy and actions in Germany after the war – despite a genuine desire by many, perhaps most, of the Military Government and occupation officials to do all they could to help rebuild a shattered country.

Jennings writes happily about how good the food is – for the British – and how listless and apathetic the Germans appear, (a condition due in large part to the near starvation diet they were living on at the time).

On 30th September, writing from Hamburg, he refers to the waiters in the hotel he was staying at:

"the German waiters – ‘the dwarfs’ as we call them – scurrying like Black Beetles – listening apparently for the crack of the whip – pathetic and beastly…"

In his final letter towards the end of his stay he comes back to the same theme – clearly it was common practice among the British occupying forces to refer to the German waiters who served the officers in the mess as ‘dwarfs’, in Dusseldorf as well as in Hamburg:

"We are back in the mess (Park Hotel) where we were on our first visit to the Ruhr a month ago – extraordinarily comfortable – with excellent drinks and food and hot water and countless little German waiters (‘Dusseldwarfs’) longing to be ordered about – I must say after two or three hours on straight roads towards Aachen in an open Jeep one needs all of them. Military Government has quite rightly taken over the best of everything and keeps up – particularly I think here – a very polished turnout and manner – simultaneously strong and ‘correct’ – the only trouble seems to be that the Germans are really incapable of doing anything for themselves – so long as someone is there to give them orders well and good. Only our job is to make them capable of behaving sensibly without instructions from us – at least otherwise we shall be here indefinitely…"

Fortunately the film itself has no pictures of German waiters in the British officers’ mess portrayed as ‘dwarfs’ (with all the associated racial overtones more reminiscent of the Nazis than the British), but conveys a much more humane image of ‘A Defeated People’.

If your college of library subscribes to Screenonline you can see the film for yourself, and make up your own mind.

Humphrey Jennings’ wartime documentaries

21 October 2006

Last Wednesday I went to the Imperial War Museum to view five films from their archive.

The first four were short wartime documentaries directed by Humphrey Jennings: ‘London Can Take It,’ ‘Heart of Britain,’ ‘Listen to Britain’ and ‘A Diary for Timothy.’

‘London Can Take It’ was made in 1940, during the blitz. It was intended for release in the US, to persuade Americans that the British could take everything that was thrown at them and deserved US support.

‘The Heart of Britain’ made a year later, showed what were considered to be quintessentially English scenes, including cathedrals, countryside, textile workers in Lancashire and bombed buildings in Coventry. The commentary includes some memorable phrases such as:

"… and the simplest, most difficult task of all – just staying put"

"… people who sing like that in times like these cannot be beaten" (to scenes of the Huddersfield chorus singing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah).

"… and the Nazis will learn, once and for all, that no-one with impunity troubles the heart of Britain."

‘Listen to Britain,’ made in 1942, consists of a dense sequence of sights and sounds, with no commentary at all, apart from a 2-3 minute spoken introduction, added to the film later, against the wishes of the directors. 

The absence of any commentary in this film may have been influenced by research undertaken by Mass Observation.

Tom Harrisson, one of the three founders of Mass Observation, (together with Humphrey Jennings and Tom Madge) has described work done in the war on the effect Ministry of Information films, such as these, had on morale. (‘Films and the Home Front – the evaluation of their effectiveness by Mass Observation’, in  Propaganda, Politics and Film, 1918-1945, Nicholas Pronay and D.W. Spring, eds. Macmillan Press Ltd. 1982.)

"So already before the war and partly because of Humphrey Jennings, who to my mind was one of the real – I do not think it is too strong a word to use – intellectual geniuses of our time, we started a lot of film observation, working out techniques for observing people’s responses and behaviour in cinemas."

Harrisson describes how film viewers were uncomfortable with overt propaganda and switched off when they detected it in films. People were more interested in the pictures, and disliked too much commentary.

The fourth Jennings film I saw on Wednesday, was ‘A Diary for Timothy‘ released in 1945. It was made in the closing months of the war, when, despite setbacks at Arnhem and the Ardennes, victory was certain and mines and barbed wire were being cleared from the beaches, as everyone knew the threat of invasion was over.

This film looks to the future, following the early life of a baby, Timothy Jenkins, born in September 1944, on the fifth anniversary of the start of the war. It asks the question: What will happen when the war is over – will it be followed by unemployment and economic depression, as after the First World War, or will the world become a different place, for an injured miner, a farmer, an engine driver, and a shot-down and wounded fighter pilot, as well as for baby Timothy?

I found all four films deeply moving, even sixty years on, after they were made.

With my own interest in how the British approached the occupation of Germany after the war, using Jennings’ film ‘A Defeated People’ as evidence of this, (see earlier postings), I was especially struck by three sequences in his earlier wartime films:

Firstly in ‘The Heart of Britain’ the commentator says, to scenes of the Halle Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Fifth symphony: "But in Manchester today they still respect the genius of Germany; the genius of Germany that was." To the sounds of the music, the film moves on from pictures of the orchestra playing to scenes of bomb damage and ruined buildings in Coventry. The message is ambiguous: either, there are two Germanys, the good and the bad, or alternatively, how could people who created such beautiful music create such destruction?

Secondly, in ‘A Diary for Timothy’ the same theme is repeated. In a sequence of Myra Hess playing Beethoven’s Appassionata piano sonata, at one of her National Gallery lunchtime concerts, the commentator says (speaking to baby Timothy): "Did you like the music that lady was playing. Some of us think it’s the greatest music in the world. Yet it’s German music. And we’re fighting the Germans. That’s something you’ll have to think about later on."

And thirdly, in ‘Listen to Britain’ there was a sequence of children in a school playground, playing games and walking round in a circle. This reminded me of a similar passage at the end of ‘A Defeated People’ which shows a group of German children holding hands, walking round in a circle.

By now, the message portrayed in ‘A Defeated People’ seems to be that children in Britain and children in Germany are really much the same, even after the most violent and bitter war in history.

The fifth film I viewed at the Imperial War Museum was quite different. ‘Your Job in Germany’ was a training film prepared by the US War Department, shown to all soldiers in the US army of occupation. I’ll talk about it in a later posting.

Humphrey Jennings’ wartime documentary films can be viewed, by appointment, at the Imperial War Museum. Copies are also held and can be viewed at the British Film Institute Library (subject to a viewing charge). Three of the films are available commercially (eg from MovieMail) on VHS video cassette, Listening to Britain, A Jennings Trilogy and a collection of four films on DVD: The Humphrey  Jennings Collection.

A Defeated People – what the film reviews said in 1946

14th October 2006

I spent last Wednesday at the British Film Institute library, looking for contemporary reviews of the film "A Defeated People," produced by the Crown Film Unit, part of the British Ministry of Information, and directed by Humphrey Jennings, probably the greatest of all the British wartime documentary film makers. It was released to the public at the Tivoli cinema in London, on March 17th, 1946. (See my earlier post on Humphrey Jennings’s film: A Defeated People).

At first I was disappointed, for all I could find was a brief reference in the BFI’s ‘Monthly Film Bulletin’ for March 1946.

I then asked the librarian at the desk if they had any other journals with film reviews for 1946, and was amazed when she gave me a microfiche of the Ministry of Information’s press cuttings file for the film. In all, there were copies of 14 reviews published when the film was first released, from most of the major Daily and Sunday newspapers, including The Times, Manchester Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Express, News Chronicle, Daily Telegraph, Daily Worker, Sunday Dispatch, Sunday Times, Sunday Express and Reynolds News.

Most of the reviewers were agreed that, in a week in which there was a shortage of good new feature films: "it is left to documentaries again to bring weight and dignity to the week’s screen" (News Chronicle) and the "most important film of the week is A DEFEATED PEOPLE" (Daily Worker).

The headline for the Reynolds News weekly film review column, by Joan Lester, was "A Documentary Film You Must See", and the News Chronicle said "It is a film we have all been waiting to see."

Here are some more extracts from the reviews:

"A DEFEATED PEOPLE, made by Humphrey Jennings for the Crown Film Unit, gives a picture of life in the British Zone of Germany all the more impressive for its restraint. The tone is agreeably free from gloating, and it would need a much more vindictive race than ours to see without sympathy women cooking amid the ruins and crowds studying huge boards covered with the names of missing persons." (Daily Telegraph)

"A Defeated People" (Tivoli, Sunday): an honest attempt by the Crown Film Unit to report to the British cinegoer just exactly what is going on in Germany today. If the report had been three times grimmer it would be about accurate." (Daily Express)

"This is camera-journalism on a brilliant level. The queues – the search for missing relatives – the life in the cellars of Berlin – the rest of the film you and I might see or imagine for ourselves: but it takes an observer with a touch of real inspiration to catch so memorably the spirit of cunning arrogance there even in defeat." (Daily Mail)

"Most important film of the week is A DEFEATED PEOPLE (Tivoli, Sunday), a Crown Film Unit excursion to British-occupied Germany. It is a fine piece of screen-craft directed by Humphrey Jennings. But how the subject screams for a wider, deeper approach." (Daily Worker)

"Two documentary films on modern Germany are the week’s best pictures, although both have been cut down to the bone. "A Defeated People" at the Tivoli to-day, is a fine example of British production in spite of having to prove its worth in 18 minutes." (Glasgow Herald)

"This film will stay in your mind and that is high praise of any film. Though it reeks of desolation and defeat it is infused with purpose. You will never obtain from any written or spoken narrative such an effect of empty misery and crushed aggressiveness, of a country so lost it is ripe for anything." (News Chronicle)

"Humphrey Jennings, Crown Film Unit director, has produced some gems in the short documentary field. A DEFEATED PEOPLE (Tivoli) must have been one of the most difficult films he has had to tackle. This deals with the vital and complex problems arising out of the economic, political and human tangle created by Nazism in defeat." (Reynolds News).

"Many people wonder what it is actually like inside Germany today. This picture will show them a grim panorama of destruction and ruin, of shattered industries, of tattered people living in cellars and searching for lost relatives crowding limited transport and working amid incredible conditions." (Star)

"Once again the Crown Film Unit do an inspired job of reporting, this time about Germany today." (Sunday Dispatch)

"This sets out to show the workings of the government of the British Zone. If it has hardly the scope to do that fully, it does show with the inescapable persuasion of visual impact the nature and complexities of the task facing the administrators. And it shows the spirit in which these are being tackled – painstaking, just, practical, determined." (Sunday Express)

"Humphrey Jennings’s "A Defeated People," skilled though its mosaic of German problems – transport, health, food, housing, fuel and the dreadful search of a million families for their scattered members – remains oddly tantalising. The attempt to cover in half-an-hour the whole task of the Military Government in the British zone is hopeless." (Sunday Times)

"As a whole it is sensitively planned and much of it is memorable. Yet the very fact that it is impossible to fit such a vast subject into an over-short picture makes a ‘line’ a necessity, and we are given an elegiac insistence on personal reaction and personal bewilderment which may have been the only solution to the problem of compression, but which makes the entire thing seem a little fragile." (Tribune)

In summary, the reviews confirmed the high regard in which documentaries were held at the time, and the level of public interest in knowing what was going on in Germany after the war.

The reviews also confirmed my view that Nicholas Pronay was wrong when he said (in "Defeated Germany in British Newsreels: 1944-45" in K.R.M. Short & Stephan Dolezel, Eds, Hitler’s Fall: The Newsreel Witness) that "there was a basic consensus in Britain about Germany" after the war and that it was a "remarkable fact that, for once, the right-wing populist newsreels and the austerely elitist and left-wing documentarists presented an identical perception of Germany," that of a guilty people receiving their just deserts.

In fact there was a tremendous diversity of views. People recognised that the situation was difficult and complex, and there were no easy solutions.

As Joan Lester said in her review of ‘A Defeated People’ in Reynolds News: "Mr Jennings has, within certain essential limitations of time and opportunity, brought to his subject understanding, intelligence and humanity."

And as, the brief review of ‘A Defeated People’ in the Monthly Film Bulletin says, very far from agreeing with it, the film was trying to counter the view of those who said: "Leave the Germans alone: let them suffer and die as they have brought suffering and death to others."

‘A Defeated People’ was an official film. The Crown Film Unit, who produced it, were part of the government’s Ministry of Information. The film was made with the full cooperation of The British Control Commission for Germany and Military Government.

Humphrey Jennings, the director, had made some of the best and most popular wartime documentaries including ‘Britain Can Take It’, ‘Words for Battle’ and ‘Fires were Started’. A regional film officer, responsible for showing films in town halls and factories, described how the audience "sometimes wept as a result of his direct appeal to the rich cultural heritage of Britain."

I would argue this story shows there were many in Britain who knew that winning the peace, as well as winning the war, meant helping the former enemy, recognising that they too were suffering and needed help rebuilding their lives.

‘Germany under Control’ exhibition – part 2

11th October 2006

The exhibition, ‘Germany under Control,’ which opened in London on 7th June 1946, can tell us much about how the British Control Commission and Military Government in Germany wanted to present themselves to people at home. Having won the war, what were the British now doing to win the peace?

Two weeks before the exhibition opened, on 25th May 1946, the British Zone Review, the official journal of the Control Commission for Germany (CCG), published an article on how the London exhibition would illustrate ‘achievements and problems in the British Zone.’

"It will endeavour to explain to the public at home what the 22,000 odd solders and civilians working for the CCG are doing in conjunction with the men and women of the three services stationed in Germany."

"In his last budget speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that the occupation of Germany would cost Great Britain £80,000,000 a year."

The exhibition would, the article continued

"…emphasize the necessity for continued effort in the interests of world peace and prosperity. We have won the war: we have yet to prove that we have won the peace. The verdict of history on this last struggle will be based largely on the achievements of the Control Commission."

"The first section of the exhibitions will represent the chaos and destruction in Germany a year ago when the allies first entered the country."

"From destruction, the visitor passes to the beginnings of law and order. A white section will show in charts, photographs, and captions, the allies’ intentions for Germany embodied in the Potsdam declaration, and the machinery created to carry out those plans."

"From this section, the visitor is taken to a display of the British component of the Allied Control Authority."

"The remainder of the exhibition is taken up with further detailed displays of the various problems facing the British in Germany."

"First comes the economic problem, with its inherent vicious circle. Coal is a paramount necessity; coal requires transport, transport requires steel and industry; steel and industry require coal… A model of the smashed Bielefeld viaduct will introduce the visitor to this problem …"

"From the economic problem the visitor passes on to finance, from finance to food, where he can see a model of the normal ration for the German people. From food he proceeds to displaced persons and population movements of all kinds within Germany. A glimpse is given of the everyday problems of the German people – paramount among which are the problems of housing and health."

"A staircase then leads the visitor up to the sections which deal with the re-education of the Germans and the rebuilding among them of a democratic way of life. The actual education problem is dealt with at length together with the reorganisation and reconstitution of local government, police, law, trade unions and political parties."

"The visitor is then confronted with a large board, with illustrated sections lit up, designed to sum up the whole of the exhibition and to give the visitor something fairly concise to carry away in his mind. So often, after seeing an exhibition, no very definite impression remains. This section will try to avoid that by gathering together all the various subjects and presenting them with a simple message:- ‘We’re in Germany to finish the job.’"

"This part of the exhibition has intentionally been made as popular as possible, and is designed to enable 7,000 people a day to pass through without missing anything of its purpose."

To cater for the expert "there will be an Information Room on the site of the exhibition, but away from the main display sections."

"Experts from all Divisions of the CCG will be on site to answer questions either at a special desk in the Information room or at the various sections in the popular part of the exhibition."

"It has been designed and constructed by the Exhibition Division of the Central Office of Information in collaboration with the Control Office for Germany."

British Zone Review

8th October 2006

The ‘British Zone Review’ was a fortnightly review of the activities of the British Control Commission for Germany and Military Government.

The first issue appeared on 29th September 1945 and the final issue was published almost exactly four years later on September 20th 1949.

It was published by the Control Commission’s Public Relations and Information Services Control Group, (known as P.R.I.S.C.), and so is as close to an ‘official view’ of the activities of the  British occupation forces and civilian administration as we are likely to find.

In the second issue, General Sir Brian Robertson, the deputy military governor, described the Review as "Our Shop Window" with a wide circulation. "It goes not only to every part of the British Control Commission and Military Government at Headquarters and in the field, but also copies are sent to our opposite numbers in the US, Russian and French Zones. Editors of the principal newspapers in England will read it, as well as British Military Missions on the Continent."

A diversity of views were represented. Articles were published on all aspects of the occupation, written by staff representing all divisions of Military Government, including the army and air force, research department, education, local government, food, health, culture, legal, finance and economics, as well as public relations and information services control. 

A long running series on "The Price of War" catalogued the devastation in most of the major cities in the British Zone, while other articles described efforts to reconstruct railways and canals, rebuild bridges, and restore the economy. In a regular ‘Guest Feature,’ journalists from the major British newspapers and press agencies were invited to express their opinions, and an "Open Letter Bag" section published widely divergent views from serving members of the armed forces and Control Commission.