Max Boot in the LA Times recounts a footnote in the long history of appeasement which echoes today:

Even in January 1942, when German armies were at the gates of Moscow, George Orwell wrote in Partisan Review that “the greater part of the very young intelligentsia are anti-war … don’t believe in any ‘defense of democracy,’ are inclined to prefer Germany to Britain, and don’t feel the horror of Fascism that we who are somewhat older feel.”

As if to illustrate Orwell’s point, a pacifist poet named D.S. Savage wrote a reply in which he explained why he “would never fight and kill for such a phantasm” as “Britain’s ‘democracy.’ ” Savage saw no difference between Britain and its enemies because under the demands of war both were imposing totalitarianism: “Germans call it National Socialism. We call it democracy. The result is the same.”

Savage naively wondered, “Who is to say that a British victory will be less disastrous than a German one?” Savage thought the real problem was that Britain had lost “her meaning, her soul,” but “the unloading of a billion tons of bombs on Germany won’t help this forward an inch.” “Personally,” he added, with hilarious understatement, “I do not care for Hitler.” But he thought the way to resist Hitler was by not resisting him: “Whereas the rest of the nation is content with calling down obloquy on Hitler’s head, we regard this as superficial. Hitler requires, not condemnation, but understanding.”

Boot follows up on the parallels between the unappeasable enemies of yesterday and today.

Savage’s letter (excerpted here) includes one more element that Boot didn’t include in his piece. Savage wrote

(Hitler) is, however, “realler” than Chamberlain, Churchill, Cripps, etc, in that he is the vehicle of raw historical forces, whereas they are stuffed dummies…living in unreality. We do not desire a German “victory”…but there would be a profound justice, I feel, however terrible, in a German victory.

Today we have Ward Churchill and his ilk in place of Savage. But the inability to perceive right and wrong continues, sixty years on.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 at 10:00 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.