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| FOREWORD |
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| By the Right Hon. LORD
JOWITT |
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This book tells a story which, in its
horrible account of “man’s inhumanity to man,” has perhaps never
been surpassed. Yet it was right that it should be written and it is right that
it should be widely read. Mr. Phillips has performed his task faithfully and
well. He has omitted no material which the reader requires to form his own
judgment on the events which were revealed at the trial.
I myself find
it quite impossible to believe that these events were not widely known
throughout the German Reich; and it is to the eternal disgrace of the German
peoples that they should have been, as they must have been, tolerated.
The reader may ask how it is possible that a race which has contributed
so much to literature, to music and to the arts, which boasted, not without
reason, of its contribution to culture and science, can have sunk to these
depths of degradation.
He will, I think, find the answer in the general
acceptance of the Führer principle, which is expressed in the following
oath, which all members of the S.S. took: “I swear to you, Adolf Hitler,
as Führer and Chancellor of the Reich, faith and steadfastness. I pledge
to you and to those whom you entrust your orders unwavering obedience unto
death.”
That was the doctrine of the Party, and the Party was all
powerful; and to this doctrine there was no qualification. That obedience which
had to be rendered to Caesar was not controlled or qualified by that higher
obedience which should be rendered unto God.
There was no God save
Hitler. This was the monstrous doctrine that the Party accepted; this was the
monstrous doctrine that the nation — with exceptions, as few as they were
honourable — tolerated.
In such circumstances, whatever the
character of the leader may be, this way lies disaster ; for it is surely true
that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But when the leader starts
by being a half-crazy degenerate, disaster must come very soon.
His
commands were obeyed. He called other men as evil as himself to act as his
lieutenants and their commands were obeyed. It mattered not that these commands
offended against every principle that civilized men have held sacred —
those who carried them out lost all feelings of mercy, of pity, of tolerance,
of justice. Obedience to orders was the drug which rendered all these feelings
ineffective, and in all too short a |
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