My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyassistance from German lawyers.The action was about to come into court, when another surprising event occurred.Chancellor Adenauer suddenly came across with a handsome apology, published tothe world. He had not used the words ascribed to him and there had been amisunderstanding, there was no suggestion against me, and finally the charges againstthe German had been quashed in the German High Court: 'Es ist daher bedauerlich', itis therefore regrettable that Sir Oswald Mosley should have suffered anyinconvenience in the matter. This seemed to me a fair and generous gesture, and I metit appropriately in a Press conference in Bonn. Thus democracy came to Germanyunder unexpected auspices.It seems to me a fair reading of the facts that British officials were directlyresponsible for this whole trouble. They had no love for me because for years I hadattacked their policies in my own country in terms which were vehement but provedfinally to be an understatement, when the full facts came to light about the truecharacter and long-concealed record of some of the favourite sons of the BritishForeign Office. In addition, I had publicly denounced from the start the proceedings atNuremberg and still more the pursuit of vengeance against a whole people.Retroactive law is always to me an outrage.This device by which any political opponent can be murdered at any time becamedoubly an outrage when judges were drawn from the Russian communist power,which had been guilty of crimes even worse, much worse in time of peace than anywhich could be charged against any German in time of war. When men commitcrimes like the murder of helpless prisoners, they can be charged and dealt with underordinary law. Any man thus guilty in any position should have been so treated at once,whether high or low. The creation of special, retroactive law and the pursuit ofvengeance over the life-tune of a generation can poison the whole European future.From the start and throughout I attacked this policy and its authors. I became stillmore unpopular in Foreign Office circles when I was later praised for seekingEuropean reconciliation. A successful German publisher wrote of me:'Happy memories from a sad period are particularly unforgettable—and among themfor us Germans, is the fact that since 1945 Sir Oswald Mosley had been the first, andfor a long time was the only Englishman, who spoke and wrote, in his own country,passionately and with clear vision for us Germans, without any regard to the burninghatred he thereby evoked. His great book, The Alternative., published in 1947, is oneof the most courageous and far-seeing books in the English language; it is one ofthose books to which one constantly returns, and is never laid aside without thegreatest admiration for the mind of a statesman who points the way to a new future forEurope. The watchword Europe a Nation which later gave our review its name; washere formulated as a policy for the first time. This fact alone makes Oswald Mosley aprophetic phenomenon and directing spirit in the otherwise confused thinking of ourtime.... A character, whose destiny with others of this kind may be that greatnesswhich only future generations can fully recognise.'It was an offence to the British official world that I should thus be addressed by thepeople whom they were trying to persecute, and their spite long pursued me in atrivial and often comical fashion. A ridiculous incident is worth recording which371 of 424