Margi’s translation for The Barnes Review magazine: The Allies’ war on the intellectuals

Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun was locked up in a psychiatric asylum after the war for having been for Hitler.

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Allies Suppress Artistic Expression, Free Speech During, After WWII

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DURING WORLD WAR II, FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT AND WINSTON CHURCHILL believed they were not only waging a ground and air war but a battle for the minds of the people of Europe. England, France and the United States, in particular, however, were actually waging a war against free thought, free speech and free expression.

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Poets, writers, artists and other maverick thinkers were brutally persecuted for their beliefs during and after the war, many of them receiving death sentences for voicing anything but the obligatory hatred of fascism, national socialist Germany, fascist Italy or Adolf Hitler, in particular.

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THE CRIMES OF THE “GOOD GUYS” DURING AND AFTER WORLD WAR II

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By Joaquin Bochaca, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Huffstickler

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Today it is a relatively well-known fact that the blacklists against artists and European intellectuals accused, rightly or wrongly, of being “Nazis” or pro-Nazis were drafted long before the lists of war criminals—except, of course, the first list, which included members of the German government.

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Louis Marschalsko says:

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These conquerors of the world who came to the vanquished Germany from the United States and were, almost all of them, communist fanatics, compiled  these lists and brought them when they came as press attachés and propagandists of the U.S. Army. But even though they wore the uniform of the American Army, they did not represent the spirit of Jefferson, but the vengeful and intolerant spirit of Jewish chauvinism. . . . These people were pursuing only one goal: to destroy the intellectual competence of the social classes and professionals and reduce the intolerable superiority of the white, Christian way of life.

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Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt said that in addition to the fight in the trenches, another struggle was taking place—for the freedom of mankind and the human spirit.

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Nevertheless, blacklisting, censorship, prohibition from pursuing professions and artistic careers, muzzling of the truth and intellectual terrorism pure and simple were implemented in Europe—the creator of almost all the cultures that the world has seen—not only by the Cheka that followed the Red Army, but also by the express wish of the governments of the Western democracies. These blacklists included men such as Ferdinand Sauerbruch, the greatest medical genius of the century, and Wilhelm Furtwangler, the greatest orchestral conductor.

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In addition, world-renowned musicians such as Richard Strauss, Herbert von Karajan, Clemens Krauss, Julius Patzak, Walter Gieseking, Vasa Prihoda, Hans Pfitzner, Paul Linke, Karl Böhm, Werner Krauss; great sculptors such as Joseph Thorak and Arno Breker, whose works were destroyed by the barbarians of “liberty”; actors and filmmakers such as Emil Jannings, Theo Lingen, Leni Riefenstahl; the Czech tenor Leo Slezak, who retired in 1934, but who went to jail for the fact that he resided in Germany and had been a supporter of Hitler; Fredl Weiss, a well-known comedian, who had often made jokes about Hitler—all had to appear before the courts of the “liberators.”

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The terrorism of these “liberators” knew no bounds even in the face of an intellectual genius of the stature of Gerhardt Hauptmann, suspect for having dared to write a few mournful lines expressing his sorrow over the fate of Dresden.

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Erwin Guido Kolbenhayer’s books were not allowed to be published. Even the dead were included in these blacklists, like Heinrich George, who had been captured by the Soviets and died in a concentration camp. All German artists and intellectuals were purged, to a greater or lesser extent. The purification reached even sports figures such as ex-boxer Max Schmeling, who was falsely accused of being a torturer in a concentration camp. After the war, in East Germany, the leader of this purge of intellectuals, artists and others was communist Gerhard Eisler. In the West, Dwight Eisenhower led the charge against free speech, free thought and artistic expression.

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Constantly inspiring him in that task were three individuals who were later unmasked as crypto-communists: Cedric Henri Belfrage, James Aaronson and Moses Kagan.
The four—Eisler, Belfrage, Aaronson and Kagan—belonged to the “foreign element, parasitic, alien in the West,” which was denounced by Francis Parker Yockey.

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ITALIAN ARTISTS PERSECUTED

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The purge of intellectuals was, of course, not confined to Germany. It was not just Germany that was the enemy of the Powers That Be: It was Europe and what it represented. Thus, in Italy, Gioacchino Volpe was sentenced to death in absentia; writers such as Julius Evola, Giovanni Gentile, Roberto Farinacci (both murdered by partisans) and Francesco Maria Barracu were condemned to many years of ostracism.

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Tremendous, as well, was the intellectual repression in Hungary. Laszlo Endre, a poet who ended his days in a cell of the famous Czech Andrassy Ut 60—a famous communist prison in Budapest, now a museum called the “House of Terror”—wrote in his letter of farewell: “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are authentic.”3 There was not a single writer or artist of a certain standing who had exercised his art and profession before the “liberation” who would not end up in jail or executed. The same applies to Romania, Bulgaria and the unfortunate Poland.

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Jacques Benoist-Mechin was a French intellectual and historian whose multi-volume history of the German army, written in 1936, became required reading for students of the day. Benoist-Mechin had great admiration for strong leaders and supported Hitler’s dream of a new, united Europe. He was thus an ardent supporter of the generally pro-German Vichy government of WWII France. When France fell to the Germans in 1941, Benoist-Mechin became an enthusiastic “collaborator.” As he put it: “A defeated country has the choice of either submitting to a conqueror or of being together with it; I chose to be with it.”

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After Germany was defeated by the Western Allies in 1944 and France was “liberated,” Benoist-Mechin was arrested. In 1947 he was sentenced to death for his political views. However, his sentence was commuted, and in 1954 he was finally released. Gen. Léon Degrelle drew heavily upon the work of Benoist-Mechin while writing his epic tome Hitler Democrat (softcover, 531 pages, #622, $30 plus $5 S&H inside the U.S. from TBR). Benoist-Mechin is shown (second from left in business suit) with French military officers.

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I say that France has never known a system as mediocre as that which, in 1945, was imposed on the country by its “liberators,” and which has not ceased to prostitute afterward, in its favor, the word “liberation.” Never has the lowest and most vulgar corruption reached such a degree—not of cynicism, in which there is something of bitter defiance—but of almost childish, infantile thoughtlessness in the pursuit of position, the smothering of scandal and the obscene display of satisfied mediocrity.

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BELGIUM, HOLLAND & LUXEMBOURG

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In Belgium, the intellectual cleansing began with the murder of journalist Paul Colin, director of the great weekly Cassandra. Jules L’host, editor of that newspaper,
was sentenced to life imprisonment but, at the request of the judge advocate, was tried for a second time and sentenced to death in February 1945. The same thing happened to another journalist, Joseph Streel, editor of Le Pays Réel, who was also sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge advocate again obtained a retrial, and he was sentenced to death. The same thing happened to Robert Poulet, perhaps the best of the Belgian novelists: first sentenced to life imprisonment; retrial and a death sentence, although he got a reprieve.

Also sentenced to death were the journalists Victor Meulenyzer and “Jam,” the satiric cartoonist, although the latter was pardoned. Other writers who had problems with the purgers were the celebrated novelist Georges Simenon and the playwright and essayist Félicien Marceau.

An example of the intolerance of the time is the case of the cartoonist Hergé, the famous creator of “Tintin,” hero of children’s stories. Under German occupation, two of his comic books, Tintin in America and The Black Island, were banned by the Germans because America was presented too positively in them.

Nevertheless, they allowed Hergé to publish his cartoons in the newspaper Le Soir in Brussels. This was enough to cause his arrest by the patriotic militia. Hergé found himself unable to exercise his profession for two years.

In Holland the purgers did not get lost in details: All the journalists who had written during the occupation were expelled from their newspapers, but the number convicted was minimal.
In Luxembourg there were four executions. One of the victims was Prof. Damien Kratzenberg, director of Volksdeutsche Bewegung, who was not accused of any inhumane act, but had opted for the Germanization of the grand duchy in his books. We have said before and will repeat again: The crime of having a truly different opinion is very frowned upon in the so-called democracies.

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THE FATE OF KNUT HAMSUN IN NORWAY

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In general, the intellectual purge presented similar characteristics in all the Occidental countries. Some individual cases, however, merit special attention. The case of Knut Hamsun, for example. Hamsun, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, this in a time when such an award was still of real significance, was generally recognized as the greatest contemporary Scandinavian writer.

Hamsun, certainly, supported the Quisling government and was adamantly anti-Soviet. On one occasion he requested an audience with Hitler to request the recall from Norway of Gauleiter
Josef Terboven, who execrated all Norwegians, whether loyal to the exiled king or to Quisling. According to Paul Serant: “The audience was a bitter disappointment for the
writer, as the Fuehrer was lost in general considerations and paid no attention to the proposals of the writer. Despite this disappointing experience, Hamsun was not swayed from his convictions.”

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When the world learned of the death of Hitler, a few days before the capitulation of the Third Reich, Hamsun published the following tribute to the late Fuehrer:

I am not worthy to raise my voice about Hitler; his life and his actions do not invite mere sentimental words. He was a warrior for mankind and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations. He was a reformer of the highest rank, and it was his historical fate that he had to carry out his work in a time of unprecedented brutality—a brutality that eventually killed him. So, it seems, must the average European consider Hitler; and we, his supporters, we now bow our heads before his memory.

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As soon as Germany surrendered, Hamsun was arrested. Brought to trial, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail and declared a “national disgrace.” On leaving the prison, at the age of 86, he was subjected to the outrage of being interned in a psychiatric asylum. His wife, who never participated in politics, was sentenced to three years hard labor.

THE SAGA OF AMERICAN POET EZRA POUND

Another particularly shameful case was that of Ezra Pound, the best American writer of his era and one of the greatest geniuses of contemporary literature. The war found him in Italy, where he lived. He spoke on Italian radio, accusing Roosevelt, Churchill and international high finance of having caused the war. Pound was taken prisoner by his countrymen. Not only was he imprisoned, but he underwent torture. After having been put in a cell on death row, he was locked in a cage in the middle of a field. The people of the area, duly instructed by communist cells, came to file past him, covering him with insults and spit.

He was then transferred to a cell, completely isolated and dark, remaining therein several months before being sent back to the United States.

Upon arriving in his homeland he was delivered to a committee of psychiatrists, who ordered his detention in a mental hospital. Pound continued to write, however, and his works were sufficient to show that his mental state was not as it was purported to be. Finally, in 1958, after a vigorous campaign by several writers with Ernest Hemingway at the helm, Pound was allowed to leave the asylum.

ENGLAND’S OWN REPRESSION

England, the home of liberalism, also experienced the fight against the intellectuals and against freedom of opinion. The strangest case was that of John Amery. He belonged to the best of British society, and his father, Lord Amery, was part of Churchill’s cabinet as minister of Indian Affairs. The young John Amery was a journalist in Spain and remained there until 1940. He then went to France, where he became acquainted with the French leaders Marcel Déat and Jacques Doriot. He presented a series of radio lectures directed at his homeland, inviting the English people to depose Churchill and make peace with Germany. He then enlisted in the Saint George Legion, i.e., the British Free Corps or the British Waffen SS, to fight against the Soviets.

In his trial, which took place on Nov. 28, 1945, Amery said he would not recognize the right to judge him of a court that was more Jewish than English. Consequently, he did not respond to any of the questions by the court nor bother to explain his motives. Sentenced to death, he was hanged a few weeks later. He was 33 years old. His fate had no impact whatsoever on the political career of his father, who remained colonial secretary of India until his party lost the elections and the cabinet was dissolved.

*** Wikipedia: “To general astonishment, Amery pleaded guilty to eight charges of treason, and was sentenced to death. The trial lasted just eight minutes.

Amery was hanged in Wandsworth Prison on 19 December 1945 by executioner Albert Pierrepoint, who in his autobiography described Amery as “the bravest person I’d ever hanged”,^[7] and buried in the prison cemetery.

An epitaph by his father appears in The Empire at Bay. The Leo Amery Diaries. 1929–1945:

At end of wayward days he found a cause –
‘Twas not his Country’s – Only time can tell
If that defiance of our ancient laws
Was treason or foreknowledge. He sleeps well.

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William Joyce, whom the English called “Lord Haw Haw,” the son of an Irish father and English mother, was born in New York. From a very young age he lived in England, and he joined Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, although in 1937 he broke with it to create a splinter group called the British National Socialist Party. In 1939 he moved to Germany and applied for German citizenship, which he quickly obtained. He was the main commentator on German radio broadcasts aimed at England.

He never attacked his former homeland. He only advised his former countrymen to urge their government to make peace with Germany and join it in fighting Bolshevism. Captured by
the British at the end of the war, he was sentenced to death for “treason” and hanged. Setting aside the fact that we do not understand how a supposed “democracy” can condemn someone for advising them to make peace, the fact remains that a foreigner such as Joyce, a naturalized German, can hardly be a “traitor.”

Chuter Ede, British secretary of state for information, stated that the number of Britons accused of treason and collaboration with the enemy amounted to 125.

Among the British who were accused of treason, the case of the famous novelist P.G. Wodehouse should be noted. On June 15, 1941, the BBC accused the novelist of having “prostrated himself at the feet of Hitler” and having “sold his honor in exchange for a comfortable life.” This information aroused deep indignation in the country, in which Wodehouse was one of the most popular writers.

Some pilots of the Royal Air Force—it is unknown whether authorized or not—left on a mission to bomb the house of Wodehouse in Touquet, but destroyed, by mistake, the house of a neighbor. Wodehouse had lived for several years in France. In reality, the novelist simply recorded some lectures in which he recounted, with his usual grace, some of his adventures,
and especially those of 1940 in occupied France and later in the Free Zone, ruled by the Vichy regime. The Germans spread those talks in a series of programs destined for Britain. The massive support of his English counterparts, especially Evelyn Waugh, saved Wodehouse from going to jail.

Another case that became famous was that of the writer Sisley Huddleston, an English writer of great quality, although silenced by the censure of the postwar era. This Englishman was living on the Riviera when the war broke out and, says Paul Serant,  “was one of those Englishmen who make France their second home,” as was also the case with G.K. Chesterton. In 1940, after the French defeat, he refused to return to England. “It seemed to me,” he wrote, evoking that period, “that this was the end of my life. . . . Without ceasing to be English, I had at that time the conviction of being more French than English.”

Huddleston opposed the policies of Churchill, whom  he called a murderer after the English attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. But then 40 million Frenchmen called Churchill a murderer at that time. Huddleston requested and obtained French nationality. At the time of the “liberation” of France, he took refuge in Monaco, but the authorities of the principality agreed to his extradition by the French. Huddleston was sentenced to five years in prison for “sympathy for the occupiers,” which was not true because Huddleston was rather in favor of the basically anti-German politics of Marshal Philippe Pétain.

EVEN IN NEUTRAL SWITZERLAND . . .

The psychosis of the persecution of intellectuals reached even the neutral countries. In Switzerland, for example, journalist and writer Georges Oltramare was sentenced to three years in prison for having written in his Geneva magazine Le Pilori that the main enemy of Europe was Bolshevism. As for Frank Burri, writer and leader of the Nationale Bewegung der
Schweiz, which demanded democratic general elections in Switzerland to consult cantons on whether they wanted to remain part of the Helvetic Union or preferred to join France, Germany or Italy, he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.

This harshness of the Swiss judicial authorities contrasted powerfully with the magnanimity shown to the other side. For example, the authorities of Graubünden amnestied the Israelite David Frankfurter, convicted and confessed murderer of Wilhelm Gustloff, the president of the Association of German Residents in Switzerland. To a murderer, Switzerland granted amnesty, but to a writer, jail. And this in a neutral country.

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ENDNOTES:
1 Louis Marschalsko, World Conquerors.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Both Mauriac and Sartre had sought and obtained the favor of the occupation authorities, but they were able to sniff out in time the winds of military and political change in 1943 .
5 Troyat was Jewish. He was that unheard-of thing, a pro-Nazi Jew.
6 As late as 1960, the Romanian writer Vintila Horia, whom a literary jury had awarded the “Goncourt Prize,” had his prize withdrawn because the “France-Israel Committee” dragged out a few articles written by him 20 years earlier, and judged to be anti-Semitic.
7 “L’Intransigeant,” Paris, 13-III-1948.
8 Guilty of that ridiculous order was the head of the occupation troops, General von Falkenhausen—who, on the other hand, allowed much leeway to the gunmen of the “resistance.” It is curious, but undeniable: where the occupation was led by members of the NSDAP there were fewer problems than when a hyper-nationalistic general with a monocle was in charge of these functions.
9 Paul Serant: The Fate of the Vanquished, 301.
10 Many journalists and nearly half of U.S. senators suggested some years ago that the United States make peace with Vietnam and, to our knowledge, none of them were hanged.
11 The Times, London, 11-IV-1946.
12 Nevertheless, for some years Wodehouse was subjected to a total “blackout.” His books were removed from public libraries and his works were no longer published. Wodehouse moved to the United States, where he rounded off a most fruitful literary career.
13 Paul Serant: The Fate of the Vanquished, 233-4.
14 During the war Switzerland had generously hosted anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist refugees, and about 25,000 Israelites of all nationalities. In early 1945 Europeans threatened by anti-fascist purges believed they could benefit from the same hospitality. They were wrong. Mrs. Mussolini was denied entry. So was Jean Herold-Paquis, who was delivered to the French, knowing that he would be shot.

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This article first appeared in the Sept-Oct.  2014 issue of the superb Barnes Review magazine, which can be subscribed to here: www.barnesreview.org. Margi and I, put together, did about 64 articles, both translations and original writing, for this unique magazine.