My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyGermans had seen some prospect of the reunion of their country within the union ofEurope. This reunion is for them naturally an overriding desire, as strong as ourfeeling would be if England were divided at the Trent and the northern or southernsection was occupied by a foreign power. There was a serious hope that their disasterwould be overcome by the union of Europe, neither by war nor turmoil, or even by thestrength of demand for justice from so great a power, but rather by the assurance to begiven to Russia and the world that a Germany truly integrated into a reasonable andcontented Europe would no longer be a menace to anyone. The failure of thisEuropean policy reduced to the vanishing point all hope of a natural and pacificreunion of Germany within Europe. The hope too of ceasing to become a pariahpower and of regaining normal, great power status within the greater Europe was alsobanished. When reason is assassinated, unreason enters. Nationalism, however forlornits prospects in the new conditions, is born again.The treatment of individuals too contributed much to the revival of nationalism. Themen involved in the revival of nationalism were by no means all ex-national socialists.On the contrary, many of the leading figures had been strong opponents of that party,and the majority of the rank and file were too young to have had any involvement. Atan earlier stage young Germans fresh from the army, and particularly from the S.S.regiments, were passionately European and entirely supported my advanced Europeanideas. I had heard from many of them long before I was free to travel, and had aninsight into what they were then thinking which is perhaps almost unique. I know thatit was only the long and bitter story of suppression and persecution which drove manyof them back to the old nationalism. Particularly resented was the treatment ofsoldiers whose only crime was to obey orders. Some of these men were doomed fromthe start; if they did not obey when the order was given, they were shot on the spot byexisting authority, and if they did obey they were subsequently executed by thevictorious allies. Post-war persecution was even extended in less degree to men whocould not conceivably be connected with any crime.Such treatment may be illustrated by the conspicuous case of a post-war friend ofmine who was a soldier and airman completely free from any suspicion of any crime.Hans Ulrich Rudel was the supreme German hero of the last war. He won everymedal the air force had to give and a special decoration had then to be invented forhim. He destroyed five hundred Russian tanks with his own machine, and also aSoviet battleship. After losing a leg, he flew again, was shot down behind the Russianlines and escaped. It was an epic of heroism, but owing to the post-war boycott evenhis autobiography could not be properly circulated in his own country to obtain thelarge sale it would normally have achieved. It must surely be a case unique in historythat such a national hero should thus be without honour in his own countryimmediately after a war. Consequently, the story of his air exploits in the war couldonly be published effectively in Britain and France. My small publishing housebrought out the book in Britain and sold an astonishing number of hardback copiesbefore it went into a paper edition. Group Captain Bader, D.S.O., D.F.C., the Englishair ace—whom I did not know—wrote the preface as a tribute to Rudel; Bader too, inthe best tradition of the air, exerted himself to secure medical treatment and a woodenleg for Rudel when he was a prisoner-of-war. Clostermann, the French air ace andlater a Gaullist deputy, wrote the preface to the French edition.Was this really the world that British authority wished to create in Germany after the368 of 424