About this Item
Eric MANN. Germany Prepares for War, the Case Against Germany. The Advertisers Press, Des Moines, Iowa, September 1944. 9x6", 20pp. This is a transcribed printing of Mr. Mann's speech at the Des Moines Kiwanis Club in 1944 for the Society for the Prevention of World War III (515 Madison Ave NYC). Provenance: given by the Society for the Prevention of World War III to the Library of Congress, and so bears a minor LC stamp at top right front wrapper corner and a rubber stamped surplus stamp on the rear cover. [++] Mr. Mann was way out in front on this issue, circumventing Versailles, and by making absolutely sure that Nazism was totally rooted out of Germany and that the state not be allowed to re-arm. Here's a very strong statement from Mann in this pamphlet on the Holocaust and massacres of Russian civilians and much else it is unusual to see such figures relating to the Nazi atrocities in 1944: "PUNISHMENT OF CRIMINALS. When I say criminals I do not mean war criminals only, I mean all criminals. You have read in papers and books about the incredible atrocities committed by Germans everywhere. Out of my own experience, for instance in Poland, where I was when the Germans invaded, I can tell you that what you read in papers and what you learn out of books is only an infinitesimal fraction of what the Germans have actually done. Let me remind you of the gas chambers in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered; of the mass graves found in Russia with the corpses of hundreds of thousands of Russian civilians in them; of the shooting of innocent men and women in Norway as hostages; of the killing of civilian Frenchmen, ten or fifteen for one German soldier executed by French patriots; of the starving to death of an uncountable number of Greek children; of the concentration camps with their tortures, of raping and looting all over Europe; of enslaving of millions of men and women in German factories and labor camps! I demand that crimes such as these should be punished not because I am revengful-revenge if any is God's-but for two other reasons: first, to save humanity from such criminals, and sec- ond, to bring home to prospective criminals as forcefully as possible the fact that crimes do not pay and that the law of man and the law of God eventually catches up with murderers. Furthermore, so much hatred has been accumulated in Europe against Germany that the European nations would fight anyone who would try to prevent them from taking a rightful revenge. President Roosevelt's suggestion that criminals should be brought back to the countries in which they have committed crimes and be tried according to the laws of the respective countries is a very wise one. I would sug- gest that perhaps the women of Lidice, the wives of Frenchmen who have been killed, the fathers of girls who have been ruined should form the jury."--from this pamphlet [++] Members of the Society included: William L. Shirer William H. Hale, Mark Van Doren, Clifton Fadiman, Christopher La Farge, Douglas Freeman, Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, Walter Johnson, Albert Simard, Emil Ludwig, Lewis Mumford, Allan Nevins, Louis Nizer, Quentin Reynolds, Walter Wanger, James Warburg, Darryl Zanuck.
Seller Inventory # ABE-1760893433210
Contact seller
Report this item
