British humanitarian responses - or lack thereof - to the german refugee crisis

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HOW TO CITE THIS SCHOLARLY ESSAY: Anderson, Benjamin. "British Humanitarian Responses - or lack thereof - to the German Refugee Crisis." Institute for Research of Expelled Germans. http://expelledgermans.org/britishpressreactions_anderson.html (accessed Day-Month-Year).

 

BY BENJAMIN ANDERSON

(Editor's Note: this is Chapter 2 out of a Dissertation; see Chapters 2, 4, and 5).

 

On 23 August 1945, Charles Bray of the Daily Herald visited Stettiner Bahnhof in the Russian Zone of Berlin. The city was ruined: rubble stretched as far as the eye could see, and the vanquished German people, a hollow version of their previous, powerful selves, lived in it. Before Bray sat a woman, tears streamed down her face as her two newborn babies whined in her grasp. ‘I watched her trying desperately to force her milk from her milkless [sic] breasts—a pitiful effort that only left her crying at her failure’, he wrote.i During the summer and autumn of 1945, such distressing scenes permeated Berlin and Germany. When Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary, stepped out of his vehicle during an August visit he whispered to himself, ‘My God, this is the price of stupidity and war’.ii On 22 August, the British Military Government conceded that a massive humanitarian crisis was forthcoming in Berlin, and Germany as a whole, if the Allies did not address the various problems. ‘Time is not on our side’, it warned in a report.iii

For Berlin’s residents, water, food, medicine, shelter and clothing were already scarce, and the substantial influx of German refugees and expellees from Eastern Europe exacerbated these problems. On a daily basis during the summer, thousands of these people arrived in Berlin: in ten days in July, the Wedding population grew by 14,000; in one July week, 4-5,000 German refugees and expellees went through Charlottenburg; by September, approximately 17,000 refugees and expellees regularly passed through Berlin.iv The Manchester Guardian concluded in August, ‘The largest movements of population from the [E]ast are creating serious refugee problems’.v It was, therefore, a summer of survival for the German people.

The summer of 1945 until early 1946 was not just a critical period for the German people, it was also a fundamental one for the British people and their compassion. Many within British civil society supported liberal internationalism. However, the motivation for supporting this concept differed and illustrated the complicated opinion Britain showed towards forced migration and humanitarianism: some truly believed in humanitarian intervention, which was embodied by the Save Europe Now campaign (SEN); some were fueled by British nationalism; some were more concerned about Europe's political stability; and some feared Germany's famine and disease would spread and infect the British population. It is clear that motivation divided British society, but the Germans' expulsions also strengthened unity within Britain, for people begun to recognise the need for intervention, as demonstrated by Victor Gollancz, SEN’s founder, the SEN campaign itself, and the attitudes of those beyond SEN.

I previously highlighted the British press's reluctance to acknowledge the unofficial expulsions in the spring and early summer of 1945. However, in the late summer and autumn, this changed: stories on Berlin's subhuman conditions, like Bray's one above, filled the radio and newspapers. In a programme on the crisis in Berlin, one BBC correspondent reported, ‘I have never seen widespread ruin to equal that of the centre of Berlin’.vi The Manchester Guardian described how malnutrition killed over 100 children during one month in a children's hospital. Throughout August, the conditions that the Germans lived in were illustrated through multiple images that the newspaper published. vii The Scotsman wrote about the sharp rise in murders and robberies across Germany as its people battled each other for survival.viii The Dundee Evening Telegraph reported how ‘rough graves [were erected] outside Kottbus Station between Berlin and Dresden’.ix

Additionally, an increasing amount of newspapers published opinion pieces that discussed the conditions and refugees. These opinion pieces illustrated the relationship between political stances and attitudes towards aiding the German people. The right-wing expressed little sympathy, as the Daily Express indicated. In one article, a journalist joyfully contemplated the crisis that engulfed the Germans: he proclaimed the German conquerors had become the conquered, and they would rightly face the same trials and tribulations that they had imposed on the populations they previously occupied.x The politically neutral and left-wing press, however, tended to advocate intervention. The Times, which was politically neutral, opined, ‘Brutalities and cynicism against which the war was fought are still rife in Europe, and we are beginning to witness human suffering that almost equals anything inflicted by the Nazis’.xi Those on the left often directly addressed the refugee problem. Bertrand Russell, a leading socialist campaigner who advocated help for the Germans, wrote in The Times, and later the left-leaning New Leader, ‘It was decreed by the Potsdam agreement that expulsions of the Germans should be carried out ‘in a humane and orderly manner’ . . . this provision has not been observed’.xii The left-wing Manchester Guardian wrote the process of forced migration was well beyond ‘the word “humane”’.xiii Ultimately, the left-wing would largely lead the campaign for helping the Germans.

Victor Gollancz, the prominent British publisher, was at the forefront of this campaign, when he established SEN in the late summer after a visit he made to experience the conditions first-hand. He saw SEN as a mission to promote liberalism and morality within Europe and British politics, and, therefore, as Matthew Frank writes, it was his ‘moral crusade'. xiv Prominent left-wing people participated in the campaign, including numerous Labour politicians, which instilled a new sense of morality within British politics. Such supporters included Eleanor Rathbone and Richard Stokes, two League of Nation Union executives, Michael Foot, a future Labour Prime Minister, and the Bishop of Chichester, George Bell, who co-ordinated a separate humanitarian pressure group that contained numerous religious sects. The morality of SEN supporters was also emphasised through their newspaper correspondence in October and November. One Biggleswade Chronicle correspondent called for the British people to let go of their grudge against the Germans and show their higher moral character by supporting the likes of SEN.xv Another correspondent to the North Devon Journal showed his support for SEN as he claimed its evidence was believable. Anybody, he concluded, who thought the situation in Europe was fine ‘must have worn glasses fitted with rose-coloured and distorted lens’.xvi

Morality was also at the heart of Gollancz's writings. ‘Respect for personality' was one concept he reiterated in his discussions on the humanitarian crisis in Our Threatened Values (1946) and In Darkest Germany (1947). The phrase in itself connoted morality because it suggested that man should respect each other. He believed ‘respect for personality' was a central pillar within Western principles and described it as ‘our value of values'; indeed, its emphasis on individuality meant it had strong liberal and, therefore, Western association.xvii He argued that every man was unique and that all of mankind must respect the uniqueness of individuality, regardless of them being a friend or foe. At the thesis's root was the individual's ability to understand themselves; he deduced that once the individual achieved this, then their self-assertion would become restricted and they would co-operate more, which, in turn, would create a society that allows individuality to be whom they want to be. xviii Such a theory illustrates that Gollancz was a sincere man who truly believed in humanitarianism because he wanted to create an ideal society that helped humans become better people.

However, Gollancz was motivated by a second factor, which made him slightly hypocritical: nationalism. For Gollancz, nationalism was ‘a vice because it concentrates on comparative inessentials—where a man lives, what of language he speaks, the type of his culture, the character of his "blood"—and ignores the essential, which is simply that he is a man'. xix He also held a low opinion of continental European nationalism, because he worried that its spread would erode Western values, and this would eventually lead to the Western countries and its people descending into the same backward thinking as the Russians and communists.xx With this, Gollancz called on the British people to help the Germans: ‘If we are to save them we must (1) stop doing the things they justly criticise, and give instead a living example of the liberal tradition’.xxi From Gollancz's perspective, the crisis was an opportunity for Britain to reassert its authority as a leading world power, as it was now up to Britain to breathe new life into Europe. After all, he argued, fascism never invaded and consumed Britain. Thus, it was an exceptional state within Europe. xxii This nationalistic element in Gollancz's thinking shows the complexity of British attitudes towards the German humanitarian crisis because other issues were just as influential in shaping how humanitarian advocates felt towards the crisis in Germany.

SEN’s central aim embodied this mixture of humanitarianism and nationalism, as it wanted to rouse the ‘British public from its moral slumber’ and, therefore, mobilise it for Britain’s exceptional mission in continental Europe.xxiii On 9 September, Gollancz published an appeal in local and national newspapers, periodicals and national organisations, which republished articles that detailed the humanitarian crisis. Additionally, he appealed for people to indicate through postcards their willingness to donate some of their rations.xxiv The campaign was considered a success, with David Thompson of The Spectator labelling it ‘impressive’, as its rise coincided with the beginning of widespread reporting on the refugee crisis in the late summer and autumn. Moreover, by the end of September, almost 20,000 people had replied in the postcard campaign. Peggy Duff, who served as SEN's secretary, remembered that 100,000 people had responded by early 1946. xxv The fact that contemporary opinion considered these numbers a success shows SEN was not intended to be a large-scale campaign. Even more significantly, however, it shows that Roy Douglas is correct in his assertion that SEN was a minority of the British population, and that large portions of British society were still not entirely convinced that Britain should be compassionate towards the Germans; thus, a degree of anger still lingered from the early summer.xxvi Nevertheless, the numbers do imply that some within Britain were beginning to reapply their compassionate and humanitarian convictions.

Unsurprisingly, religious leaders co-ordinated a religious campaign to help the Germans, which reflected SEN’s humanitarian and compassionate attitude. In November 1945, Father Gilbert Shaw, of the Church of England, called for the British people to remember their Christian principles. ‘Had pity evaporated?’ he asked.xxvii Various religious figures also rebuked the Vicar of Gulval, who questioned the idea of people sacrificing their rations for the German people.xxviii Bell co-ordinated the religious campaign and led numerous religious leaders when they met with Clement Attlee, British Prime Minister, and Philip Noel-Baker, the Minister of Fuel and Power, to explain their position. However, they left the meeting disappointed. Attlee and Noel-Baker insisted the Government could do nothing more to ‘restrain the disorderly’ German transfers.xxix Their response showed the Government's despair over the transfers and that it knew the expulsions had spiralled out of control; it was now about limiting the problems the Germans faced.

Ultimately, the religious leaders and SEN’s campaigns served as an opportunity for the British people to reflect upon why Britain had fought the war. If the British people just watched the crisis deepen further, then they were no better than the Nazis. As noted above, the humanitarian crisis, therefore, provided the British population with the chance to express their British nationalism. As Frank highlights, this was the perfect moment for the British people to reassert their loyalty ‘to traditional British values’ and demonstrate that the war had not left the country morally corrupt.xxx This argument was made explicit at a meeting Gollancz arranged at Conway Hall, London, on 8 October 1945. Violet Bonham Carter, who had vivaciously opposed fascisms’ rise in the 1930s, was one speaker. It was time for the ‘Dunkirk Spirit’ to be shown again in one of the ‘most critical and testing’ times in British history. She then declared, ‘We stand alone for certain values . . . which to us are above all things precious’.xxxi The numerous progressive politicians, forty backbench MPs and the religious leaders named above applauded her speech.

It is evident that an element of unity formed within Britain and there was a desire to show compassion and forgiveness. These were trying times for the British peoples' considerate character because they had to let go of their previous anger and disgust towards the Germans. In the context of the period, when Britain found itself a diminishing power, people questioned how true the British were to their liberal and compassionate convictions that made the country so great for many centuries. In demonstrating this, the British people were effectively showing their British nationalism. xxxii

However, some, even on the left-wing, did not support intervention, or as will be shown later, were at least apprehensive about it, consequently demonstrating further the complex attitudes of Britain towards the humanitarian crisis. The Daily Mirror, traditionally associated with the left-wing, insisted Britain would not be helping the Germans out ‘of compassion . . . [but] it [was] the practical matter that [made] action imperative’. If the conditions were allowed to continue, it concluded, then Britain would be forced to stay longer in Germany as occupiers, which would mean spending more of the taxpayers’ money.xxxiii The Sunday Chronicle demanded help should be because it would assure the future security of Europe.xxxiv A local Sunderland newspaper claimed that if the conditions in Germany did not improve then there lay a real threat of the British troops being infected by ‘a virulent epidemic of disease', which would, subsequently, infect the British public. xxxv These views were more about self-interest, fear and money than compassion and benevolence.

Irrespective of the various motivations, a desire to help Germany was apparent within British society from the summer of 1945 to early 1946. However, it was a minority. Nevertheless, the transfers strengthened unity within British society as many found themselves motivated by this moral duty and desire to show British greatness. Some were equally motivated by a new socialism that had infected Britain during the war, who were determined to show solidarity with the German people. SEN played a fundamental role in raising awareness of the problems erupting in Germany. However, some were just as determined to help because of their motivation to ensure that there was future peace in Europe and to prevent Britain spending more money. As my next article will show, anxiety towards the peace of Europe was particularly evident amongst the majority of the Labour administration that found itself trying to reconstruct Britain and erect a democratic Germany.

 

 

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