Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of MankindKnickerbocker, H. R. (Hubert Renfro)
History
Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind
Knickerbocker, H. R. (Hubert Renfro)
Europe -- Politics and government -- 1918-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945 -- United States
If he remains alive, our people being incurably sentimental, we should
probably treat him the way the Allies treated Napoleon after Leipzig.
They sent him, as you may remember, to Elbe, and gave him an annual
income of 2,000,000 francs, which was about $400,000 and equivalent to
$1,000,000 in purchasing power today. Perhaps we would not, though,
especially if the American people have to live through a great deal of
hardship and bloodletting on account of this man. Maybe we will become
like the British, who, after all, are going to have something to say
about the fate of Hitler if and when he is ever caught.
The _Daily Mail_ of London ran a questionnaire asking its readers what
they thought should be done with Hitler after the war. The largest
number, twenty-five per cent, wanted him shown about the country in a
cage. This is an idea which had been suggested for the former Kaiser,
and it shows a surprising insight into the source of the deepest
emotions for extremely vain men of the type of Hitler and the Kaiser;
they certainly would suffer more from such public humiliation than from
any other punishment.
Another twenty per cent wanted him executed by hanging, shooting, or
beheading, in that order. Fifteen per cent wanted him exiled to remote,
unpleasant places, as Devil’s Island, the Andaman Islands, Ascension
Island, Arctic wastes, and the African desert. Another fifteen per cent
wanted him condemned to lifelong solitary confinement. Ten per cent
wanted to make him live the rest of his life under the same conditions
the English are living under now, with bombs, rationing, and so on.
Five per cent wanted to hand him over to the Poles or Jews. Five per
cent would have him treated as a certified lunatic.
Five per cent suggested all sorts of miscellaneous treatment, including
confinement under precisely the same conditions as normally obtain
in a Nazi torture chamber. There were no suggestions at all that he
should be treated well, as Napoleon was treated. The question is not
trivial and the answers of the British are really important, because
they throw light on the temper of the British people after the brutal
manhandling they have received from Nazi bombers. The most constructive
suggestion I ever heard on the subject of what to do with Hitler came
from my brilliant friend, Edgar Mowrer, who had a decade of experience
in Germany. He suggests that after we have defeated Hitler we put him
in a cage and send him about Germany to explain to the Germans how
wrong he had been.
Q. _What would happen if Hitler were to be killed?_
A. It would reduce the German war effort by one-half, and would
guarantee that Germany would lose. Hitler is irreplaceable, unique, and
if he were to be killed, or died, or anyhow left the scene, Germany
would not collapse but she would be as an automobile going at top
speed, suddenly run out of gasoline. The momentum of the car would
carry it forward a certain distance, but it would eventually stop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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