My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleythat he would in the end commit atrocities. They would conclude that because he wasan anti-semite he was bound finally to massacre Jews on an enormous scale. Surely aplain example from everyday life shows this view is unmitigated nonsense. Manypeople want to be rid of a man's company without wanting to murder him: many havesuch desires, but few commit murder. If someone says to you, I cannot stand so-andso,and never want to see him again, you do not ring up the police and call on them toprevent a murder. The suggestion that Hitler's final, mad and criminal acts shouldhave been foreseen before the war is not merely wisdom after the event, but adishonest attempt to create prejudice for political purposes.What then happened in the end? How did this man come to be responsible for one ofthe most execrable crimes in all history? For to kill prisoners in cold blood, whetherJew, Gentile or any other human being, is a vile crime. It is inhuman, it is unsoldierlyand therefore un-German. Hitler must in the end bear the responsibility for it, which isshared only by a few close associates and executioners who obeyed their orders. Itwas emphasised in the war crimes trials that the secret of the mass murder of Jewswas so carefully kept that men were not executed for refusing to kill Jews, but onlyfor talking about it. How, then, can it possibly be contended that the mass of theS.S.—German patriots who gave their all for what they believed was the renaissanceof their country and the defence of its life—should be blamed for crimes of whichthey could not possibly know anything?I know fine soldiers and airmen—some of the best in the world—who were dedicatedNational Socialists, but had not the least idea these crimes were being committed; infact, at the end of the war they did not believe it until they were presented withoverwhelming evidence; I personally did not believe it at first when I returned to theworld, for the same reason—that it appeared incredible. How did it happen?—Thequestion points to one of the tragic mysteries of history, but the fact remains. It in noway affects the enormity of the crime whether 12,000,000 Jews were killed, as wasalleged at Nuremberg, or 6,000,000, as stated later, or far less, as many Germansclaim; the killing of any defenceless prisoners, in cold blood without charge or trial, isa hideous crime. It is obviously true that it could not have happened if the process ofwar had not hidden crime both from the Germans themselves and from the moraljudgment of mankind. If war had been avoided, the lives of 6,000,000 Jews wouldhave been saved, as well as the lives of 20,000,000 other Europeans. Horrors of thatmagnitude cannot possibly be perpetrated in time of peace. Most people go rather madin war, and Hitler in this respect went very mad. There are no restraints to crime ormadness in war, either internal or external, which are comparable with the restraintsof peace.Since they were first proved, I have utterly condemned these crimes, and havesummarised my view as follows: Hitler in the final period had no sense of moral lawor of the limitations of the will. He tried to inflict on a whole people a cataclysm ofnature; he usurped a higher function than that of man. Everything can be taken intoaccount without excuse for this deed; the agony of defeat, his fixed belief that theJews were responsible for the war, the fact that Germans were dying and starving andthat Jews suspected of relentless enmity to the state had to be guarded and fed. Noneof these terrible things justify a breach of the supreme moral law which is reflected inthe simple instinct of brave men, that you cannot kill helpless prisoners in your powerwho, as individuals, have committed no crime. Morality and the nature of manhood310 of 424