Letters from World War II : J.H. Massey

Pages That Need Review

Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

p.
Needs Review

p.

8.

Without a moments hesitation. I picked up my soup - dashed it back into the bowl & everybody followed suit - I rang the bell, the whole lot was removed, soup bowl, dirty plates & all - & we were all sitting quietly having a cigarette when the A.C. arrived, apologising profusely for being so late. It all happened so quickly & it was really very funny.

I had your p.c. of Oct 15th yesterday & I was very pleased & relieved to hear that you have decided that you cannot do a full time job. I do hope you will find something to make you busy & useful enough to satisfy your conscience & make you feel that you are helping to speed on the end of the war & that it will be reasonably interesting work. I don't even know yet, of course, if you have moved to Beaconsfield. You said you had a room with Teddy Tibbles - but it sounded v. small & rather miserable. You also said - on Oct. 15th, that Max was 5 months old "today", what came over you darling?

I have been sitting here for some time, wondering how & where to continue my discourse. It is very difficult - there are so many things, so vastly many. But I must go on somewhere - so let us take Germany & what is to be done with the country. It is really tremendous problem. Look what Germany has done to the people of France & Poland & all the rest of them. There must be a vast number of people working for personal revenge.

Last edit over 1 year ago by jaxdnaquest
p.
Needs Review

p.

9.

counting the days for it. But obviously the revenge cannot be allowed to be a personal affair, & must be controlled by Governments. Revenge there will have to be - but God knows what the method is. It is all very well talking about Hitler & his gang, but his gang is an enormous one & the German people must take responsibility for what has been & is being done. I, personally, do not like the German people - I think they are dull & uninteresting & bad mannered & mean & cruel & their attitude towards women is revolting. And I never knew the Prussians who are so much worse. And yet the average Englishman rather likes the German & they will nearly always, confess to admiring them. And this outlook is often expressed in comparison with, & at the expense of, the French. The Germans are always supposed to be so much more respectable & "like us" than the French.

I think that after as much punishment as possible has been meted out to as many of the guilty ones as possible, we shall have to nurse Germany. It is obviously useless to merely impose harsh terms & then gradually relax them until she is strong enough again to abrogate the balance & begin another war. She will have to be controlled in education of the children, the way in which they teach history & so on - in their films

Last edit over 1 year ago by jaxdnaquest
p.
Needs Review

p.

10.

& plays & by mass education for the people on the right lines. There will have to be a great deal of supervision & intervention from us - & that is where difficulty lies. Have we enough people - men & women - of the right mind & ideas & with enough personality & drive & who are willing to go. I do not think we have. So many of our people will just settle down & become friendly & kind to them - the more important ones in a condescending & snobbish way - & they will think that they are doing very well, whereas they are doing no good at all & making themselves secretly disliked. It is a vastly complicated affair, darling - & trying to put one's thoughts & ideas down on paper makes it no safer - in fact it is a very acid test of one's own clarity of thinking. But firstly Germany will be occupied by the Army & possibly the R.A.F.

Russia will have a hand in this too, which, on the face of it, appears to complicate matters but may possibly be a big help. The Military will be policing the country - this will make for punishment & security. But that will not bring a settlement any nearer, nor will it be constructive towards preventing & recurrence of the German warlike mind.

Last edit over 1 year ago by jaxdnaquest
p.
Needs Review

p.

11.

No, our whole attitude & system will have to be most thorough, very methodical & rather subtle. The first two & the last are not easily found together. The English did in fact make themselves quite popular & well like during the occupation after the last war. They found the German people starving & gave them food from their own rations - & thought they were not such bad people after all - & they settled down & played a lot of games & behaved quite well, & there were many marriages. The French, on the other hand, behaved very badly & were very ill disciplined - & so we also gained by comparison.

And I think that much the same thing will happen again - we are said to be a forgiving race. The German people will profess to be overjoyed to be rid of Hitler, etc. & they are a servile & obsequious lot when they have not the upper hand. And so the Army will occpupy them again & settle down - things will go along quite happily. The Russians, on the the other side, will probably be very different & so again we shall gain in German eyes.

We shall have to be full of iron & super realistic & maybe some sensible instructions will be given by the Government & Higher Command - but I still cannot see the regular army officer being any earthly use. If he can find some German people of his own class who will invite him to a pleasant house for a good dinner & good wine & who will get him some riding & perhaps polo too -

Last edit almost 2 years ago by Khufu
p.
Needs Review

p.

12.

& who will tell him that he never approved of those low class Nazis & had always liked England & when the war came he just had to do his duty as a German officer, that will be that - the men will follow suit in their own way & fraternisation will set in on a grand scale. And the officers will come home on leave & some of them will have dinner with their local Ms. P & tell them all this, that we must not be too hard on Germany - they suffered enough under Hitler, all that nonsense. And the whole process will begin again & this may all sound very petty & loathing, about such a vitally important matter, but I firmly believe that such things have an important affect on our policy, in any case, when the old gang of Conservatives are in power - & even when they are not, through the permanent officials.

Incidentally - talking of Conservatives - I also think that we must have "Proportional Representation" in the election of Parliament, as soon as possible. Do you know about that? Under the present system, a member is elected for an area, irrespective of the population under the P.R. system, population is the controlling factor. Any other system is [?] & grossly unfair - for years, the Conservative party has had a majority of votes in Parliament & a large amount of votes in the country.

But, back to Germany - the Army will have to do their policing & security work, but they must

Last edit over 1 year ago by jaxdnaquest
p.
Needs Review

p.

13.

be controlled, they will have to lead their own life & not be allowed to run anything.

The whole German attitude of mind must be changed. I think that, as a people & a nation, they feel themselves important & to have a destiny. And they have some right to such feelings, as they have a large country & there are 60-80 million of them, & they are able people. But they are terribly anxious - over anxious - to be liked & nobody does like them. And so the only alternative is for them to be feared & respected because of their strength. And after they have been thoroughly defeated, probably ravaged to a certain extent, & after what will certainly be pretty tough peace terms, they are going to be pretty low & will immediately begin thinking again of how to rise again. And this is going to be the time when our important work will have to begin. They must learn that force & going to war are not the proper or the best means of settling arguments & differences - that such methods just should not exist & that war is not a glorious, brave affair. All those ideas will have to come out of their thinking & teaching, & we shall have to see that they do.

Germany will have to be completely disarmed - no cadre or anything left to her - & so will France & Italy & every other possible country. And so, the U.S.A. & Russia & China & Japan too - will have to agree on rapid, & drastic disarmament. This will take time, but it must be done & then the League of Nations in an extended form will

Last edit almost 2 years ago by Khufu
p.
Needs Review

p.

14.

have to rule the quarrels & differences of the world. It seems to me wrong that a Peace Treaty should aim to give countries strategic frontiers & bases to go on. The means to make war should be removed & the league should have inspecting officers going round every country to see that no one is doing any quiet building or preparing.

The main points are that Germany must be punished & made to suffer - but she must also be lead into right ways - & armies must be done away, with except for policing purposes. Apart, entirely, from an other consideration, war is so ridiculous & rubbish. And yet we glorify it in certain ways. Before the war, an officer is a rather special person - a Colonel commanding a battalion was incomparably more important & higher in the social scale than me commanding W. North & Co - or your father commanding Peter Robinson 2rd. But that is also going into the depths of class distinction - which is not exactly within the scope of this letter - though it probably has an exceedingly important bearing on the whole affair.

And about religion - I should very much like to read "God in relation to the world was" - I hope you have been able to get a copy to send to me. I agree that the present form is badly out of date - & worse than that are most of the silly & foolish fatuous parsons who try to put it over. But I do think that religion has a

Last edit over 1 year ago by jaxdnaquest
p.
Needs Review

p.

15.

place & an important one too. The teaching of the New Testament is so very right, it does provide a moral code of life - I think that is very necessary. But the "high ups" in the Church are mostly such bloody fools - & they have completely missed their opportunity of doing good - quite apart from an increased fervour towards Christ. The A-B of Canterbury is the worst of the whole bunch too. It is speeches about Russia, since she became our ally, have been criminal, & almost amount to 5th column. To put it bluntly, the bloody old fool shared he told to keep his muth shut - maybe he has been told so by now. But I think the church are wishing - if they have not already missed their opportunity- I think it is a great pity.

But darling one - I must finish the letter & go to bed - it is 1.0 o'clock. I hope to goodness this is not all frightfully boring & that you will not curse yourself for having talked about those things in your letter & thus brought all this down upon your head. But it does allow me to get a few things off my chest, even if they are rather at random. Adn I have nobody at all to talk to.

I shall probably go on in this strain from time to time - unless you tell me to stop. Since I began this, America has repealed

Last edit almost 2 years ago by Khufu
p.
Needs Review

p.

16.

her Neutrality Act. This really does seem to be a momentous happening - things are much more cheerful & I am thinking continuously of a return home to you.

The Coy car driver, Private Laba, a Jew born in Russia & told me today that he came from Antwerp. An enormous wave of longing for you enveloped me immediately when I thought of our day there & Brussels, our honeymoon. Ah darling - what a lovely time this was. And naturally, the subject of honeymoon made me think of our next honeymoon, which will be when we meet again. It really makes me feel quite faint to think of being with you again & sitting beside you in a train or a car, on our way to some place to stay. It is like a vision of heaven. I shall hold your hand or your arm from the moment I meet you & never leave go, Sweetheart. The weather is now cold again & so my [?} is up & so Peter is on my bed - he's there now, & stays there all night. It is a dear dog & God knows what I should do without him.

love & kisses to Maxie & all my dearest deepest love to you Barbara darling XXX XX Harry XX

Last edit over 1 year ago by jaxdnaquest
p.
Needs Review

p.

3.

entirely out of touch with what is going on in the world, & right down to their own parish. You remember that ridiculous, shallow man in Chester, when Lisa died; he could have been a help & a comfort to us but it was merely another piece of business to him, & we should have managed very much better without him.

But, John [Stodham], whoever he is, had nothing constructive to say about how his desired result is going to be achieved on a basis of organised religion. And I think it must be organised, up to a point, & that means churches & clergy. And they will never change without some immense driving force behind them, which is going to radically change all theological education & teaching, & thereby turn out a different type of clergyman - & so revolutionise the church service. Will the moves take enough interest, & if so will their voice be loud enough?

I think a religious revival would be a fine thing but NOT as the Bishops want it. Can you envisage a Socialist, Christian State? I wonder.

I also bought "Good God" - which I will read next week

Last edit almost 2 years ago by MaryV
Displaying pages 191 - 200 of 294 in total