Letters to the Editor =gss Germany—Pro
and
Con
DEAR SIR:
As a naturalized citizen of German birth, and a non-Jew, I would fail in my duty toward my adopted country if I did not protest the sentiments expressed by Carl Tiedcke in the July 14 C&EN. Mr. Tiedcke is welcome to his inflated appraisal of the German position in the natural and medical sciences—even in the •field of "efficiency" so ably demonstrated by the systematic mass killing of Jews a n d "inferior" races, but I a m glad he omitted the word " h u m a n i t a r i a n " from his recitation. Will Mr. Tiedcke please name those nations which, as he says, " h a v e com mitted [sins] just t h e same?" W h a t other nation has systematically and with the u t m o s t brutality exterminated its Jewish citizens as well as millions of conquered peoples and proudly boasted of the fact? And since when must we overlook such wrongdoings on t h e ground t h a t similar crimes have been recorded in history? T h e author of this attempted whitewash apparently thinks t h a t his readers a r e either so ignorant or so naive as to believe t h a t " m o s t Germans . . . never approved of the Nazi ideology." Would it were so! H a s n ' t Air. Tiedcke seen the results of t h e recently conducted poll in G e r m a n y which showed t h a t even a t this date m a n y Ger mans still think t h a t naziism was merely a good idea gone wrong? H A R T M U T W.
RICHTER
Railway, N. J.
DEAR SIR:
I t is with a feeling of utter disgust that I read Carl Tiedcke's letter in C & E N , J u l y L4. Most scientists take pride in being fair a n d objective, but Mr. Tiedcke, m a k ing shambles of objectivity, serves us i n s t e a d the same old German Superman dish with a new dressing. Mr. Tiedcke talks about Germany a s t h e "top-ranking nation in natural science, medical sciences, music, literature, philosophy, organization, and efficiency." N o less! The unquestionable contribu tions of G e r m a n y through t h e ages only make more striking t h e depths t o which t h a t country h a s fallen. Whereas t h e over-all proportion of G e r m a n Nobel laureates is impressive, their percentage during the past 15 years is a n y t h i n g b u t staggering, and the trend is nothing to J proud or joalous of. Let us take a few examples. I n the field of medical sciences, while British scien tists discovered penicillin, Americans came up with streptomycin a n d tracer techniques, and Russian doctors pioneered in neuro-surgery, t h e German medical VOLUME
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leadership made itself felt with experi ments in nail-pulling and exposing human guinea pigs to lethal gases. How m a n y of the great inventions of the past two centuries, such as the steam engine, airplane, radio, telephone, etc., were German?
ANOTHER % HANDLE SP\NDL-E.
MORRIS FEINLEIB
New York, Ν. Y. Φ
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DKAR SIR:
T h e controversial correspondence in C & E N re Maltenfort vs. Tiedcke vs. Maltenfort is getting to be somewhat boring and not a little nauseating. Obviously, Mr. Tiedcke is backing a dead horse, t h e effluvium of which will permeate t h e nos trils of h u m a n decency for many years t o come. T h e world cannot give credit for great scientific achievements to a nation and a t the same time u t t e r l y ignore the ignoble and infamous performance t h a t same n a tion, with m a n y of its famed scientists in the " c a s t of c h a r a c t e r s , " gave to t h e world. Louis FREEDMAN
New York, Ν.
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REQUEST BULLETIN NO. N-9
β
DEAR SIR:
HOKE,
Starting with G. G. Maltenfort's com pilation (April 21 issue of C & E N ) , o n e arrives a t an estimate of approximately 20 Nobel a w a r d s per million Jewish nationals in t h e territory of t h e prewar Reich. I n t h e same area, t h e German nationals a c quired only a b o u t 0.5 Nobel prize per mil lion population. Thus, one m a y argue t h a t with Jews the probability of the o c currence of a superior intellect is approxi mately forty times greater than with G e r m a n s . Jewish and German nationals, only in p a r t differing in faith, competed in t h e s a m e country a n d climate side by side. T h e y went through the same institutions of higher learning to meet essentially equal opportunities in the performance of their professions. T h e outcome is cer tainly amazing. G. G. Maltenfort is, however, probably mistaken when he assumes t h a t the Ger mans have surpassed others in any field, a n d the ''science of mass m u r d e r , " as he calls it, is an especially poor example. Of course t h e Germans were forced to ac quire a good a m o u n t of military efficiency. Prewar Germany, with a population of 60 millions, occupied a n area equal to N e w England, New York, New Jersey, P e n n sylvania, a n d the eastern half of Ohio with n a t u r a l resources perhaps equal t o those of t h e indicated area in the United States. T h e rest of Europe, surrounding Germany on all s ; des, exceeds the area of t h e United States, a n d it h a d a violently nationalistic population of 400 millions. These people had to be considered as potential enemies
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2527
LETTERS at all times?, and they happened to be actual enemies rather frequently. This does out y ' consider the colonies or the Siberiai ace of Russia equal to twice the area oî 3 United Stat es. It is logical that any cu) ntious government of Germany bad to t xe these facts into consideration. In spite of this, 'he supreme accomplishment in the development of weapons, the atomic bomb, cannot be credited to the Germans. The "most monstrous of all the purely military atrocities" (Dorothy Thompson, The American Mercury, May 1947), the killing of the 12,000 Polish officers, has to be credited to the Russians. The same party seems to hold the record in mass murder outside the sphere of armed conflict; the establishment of the Bolshevik régime was performed at the estimated expense of 20 to 30 million lives. Since that time some more must have been accomplished by organizing Poland, the Baltic countries, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and parts of Finland, Turkey, Iran, and the Far East. Even with the cooperation of the Russians, the Allies should have a hard time to beat this record now, since the Morgenthau plan, which called for a "reduction" of the German population to 40 millions, seems to have been officially abandoned. A. A. BENEDETTI-PICHLER
Little Neck, L. /., Λ'. Y.
DEAR S I R :
The chauvinist preening of correspon dent Tiedcke and the incoherent rage of correspondent Benedetti-Pichler are a force of intensity sufficient to rock my ivory tower and overcome the inertia of my pen. Against Herr Tiedcke's pride in the ac complishments of the scientists of his native land I break no lance. There is nothing improper about pride in the ac complishments of one's fellow humans, one's countr\ r , community, lodge, or fam ily. But to attempt to absolve the crimes of a nation tyy pointing with pride to the accomplishments of some of its children (of whom, as other correspondents have indeed pointed out, many were adopted or else disavowed) smacks of the effrontery of the man accused of murdering his ewn father and mother who pleaded with the court to deal leniently with him because he was an orphan. In hindsight Herr Tiedcke declares: "Most Germans, including myself, have never approved of naziism anyhow." A diligent search of the prewar files of C&EN fails to reveal any protests by Herr Tiedcke and his co-nationals against the activities of the Nazis. I have read the opinions of trained observers of unimpeachable integ rity, who have reported back unani mously that the only regret shared by the majority of the Germans is that they lost the war. I have spoken with, and read 2528
TO
EDITOR
the letters of survivors of the German con centration camps who were thrown into contact with countless numbers of Ger mans of both sexes, civilian as well as mili tary, in the course of their involuntary tours of t he German camps; they are unani mous in denying t h a t they were ever shown any kindness. At best, they say, one of the guards may have been less bru tal than the others. There is no evidence, past or present, in support of Herr Tiedcke?s belated disavowal. ELLY T. MARGOLIS
Los Angles, Calif.
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DEAR SIR:
Bravo to Mr. Tiedcke for resuscitating the discredited notion of German supe riority. His one mistake is that my home land, Bacterany, is actually the greatest of all. In organization, Bacterany far surpasses Germany. The great people of the latter country permitted themselves, on several well-known occasions, to be organized un willingly by a gang of world-grabbing thugs and capitalists. In Bacterany the super men govern themselves. T o be sure, the organizational genius of the German people is manifested b}' their age-old rejection of that decadent, inefficient method of govern ing known as democracy, but in Bacter any we have made every superman his own dictator. In efficiency, we have outdone the Ger mans in wanton destruction of millions of people. We convert their fat to high molecular weight amides (instead of soap) and their other fractions to various rare chemicals. NORMAN RADIN
New York, Ν. Υ.
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D E A R SIR:
Can we afford to let the German JekyllHydes run around? According to the 1947 World Almanac, the recent misunder standing and lack of appreciation of the German point of viewr cost the rest of the world nearly S700 billion; the Axis 422 billions. There were 22,060,000 dead and 34,000,000 wounded. A similar world myopia during 1914-18 cost circa S500 billion, 8,538,315 dead, 21,219,452 wounded, and 7,750,919 prisoners and missing. With such figures in mind it is a pid dling matter to argue about the Germans' attitude about their Jewish scientists. The point to remember is that they voted Hitler in. The3' supported his plans and policies. Belsen, Buchenvvaid, Oswiecim, and Auschewitz were part of these plans. Our Army Signal Corps released some photographs dealing with these rest camps. Representatives Leonard Hall of New York and John Kunkel of Pennsylvania were among official witnesses. CHEMICAL
It is true that: When a felon's not engaged in his em ployment Or maturing his felonious little plans— His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest man's. Louis SATTLBK
New York, N. Y. DEAR S I R :
It is a shame and a disgrace for you to publish letters like these of Carl Tiedcke and A. A. Benedetti-Pichler in C&EN, July 14. It is a sin against each of the mil lions dead a t the hands of the Germans that you should offer in print Tiedcke's statement, " M a y God bless this nation, irrespective of her sins, which, by the way, other nations have committed just the same." An outrageous perversion of the truth. The blatant lies of Tiedcke and the fool ish and inept attempts of Benedetti-Pich ler to abrogate the verdict of Nuremberg and the world are long familiar as the winn ings of apologists for Nazi Germany. Censorship of letters to the editor is in deed reprehensible, but freedom of speech does not include t h e right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater. Liberty, not li cense, should govern your selection of let ters to be published. SAMUEL C. JACOBS
New York, Ν. Υ. DEAR SIR:
In this age of myopic nationalism tribute is due to t h e universal mind of a Tiedcke. He surveys almost all of human activity, science, literature, philosophy, music, and crime, a n d finds Germany pre eminent in everything except crime. Dr. Tiedcke's generosity in adjudging that Germany cannot claim first place in crime is sufficient answer to any who might question his scholarly objectivity. We regret Dr. Tiedcke's silence on cer tain topics. Which race is the master race of art? And what of religion? It is true that art and religion both flour ished millennia before Germany even emerged into existence, but the same can be said of literature. Dr. Tiedcke's authority is witness that the late start can have been no handicap in the German rise to literary dominance. Let us not overlook the subtle humor with which Dr. Tiedcke leavens his schol arship, his marvelous irony in accusing a great French leader of being dominated by jealousy of German culture. ERWIN -
KLINGSBERG
New Brunswick, N. J. EDITOR'S N O T E : In order to conserve space, many of t h e above l e t t e r s have been shortened The remainder of the l e t t e r s on this subject will be published in a forthcoming issue b u t , d u e t o space limitations, no further replies will b e ac cepted for publication.
AND ENGINEERING
NEWS
