Sit,—I doubt whether anyone has had a better opportunity for
forming a judgement on this problem than Professor Karl Barth, and, while it is being discussed, it is worth while taking note of his considered estimate (in his letter to the French Protestants, published by the Sheldon Press, together with his Letter to Great Britain).
"At the beginning of the war the slogan was announced that the war was not directed against the German people but only against its present rulers This was a noble formula, but it was an over- simplification of the problem. The new slogan, however, that every people gets the government it deserves, and that the whole German people must be held responsible for the actions of its government, is again too simple. The truth lies somewhere between these two poles. The German people are not wicked as a people, are not at any rate more wicked than any other people. The idea that today they must be Punished as a whole is an idea which is impossible both from a Christian and from a human point of view. But Hitler's National Socialism is most certainly the wicked expression of the extraordinary political stupidity, confusion and helplessness of the German people."
If this is a just view of the facts with which we must deal, the question of course remains what kind of action we should take in regard to them.—Yours faithfully, EDWYN BEVAN. The Athenaeum,
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