A Little History of the World (45 page)

My task was to listen to German broadcasts and translate them into English so as to know what German listeners were being told, and what they were not being told. This meant that from 1939 to 1945 I was in the curious position of living through all six years of that terrible war on both sides, as it were, if in very different ways. At home in England I saw determination, but also hardship, anxiety for the men at the front, the effects of air raids and fear at the turns the war was taking. From German radio broadcasts all I heard were cries of triumph and outpourings of abuse. Hitler believed in the power of propaganda, a faith which seemed justified when the successes of the first two years of the war exceeded even his wildest expectations. Poland, Denmark and Norway, Holland and Belgium, France, large parts of Russia and the Balkans were overrun, and only Britain, that little island on the edge of Europe, still held out. And even that resistance could surely not last long, for, to the sound of trumpet fanfares, the German radio ceaselessly proclaimed how many ships carrying supplies and armaments intended for the British had been sunk by their U-boats.

But when, without any declaration of war, in December 1941, the Japanese attacked the American fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor and virtually destroyed it, and Hitler took it upon himself to declare war on the United States, and when, in the autumn of 1942, the German troops were beaten back in North Africa and defeated by the Russians in January 1943 outside Stalingrad, and when the German air force – the Luftwaffe – proved powerless to prevent the Allies’ devastating bombardments of German towns, it became clear that it takes more than fine words and fanfares to win a war. When Winston Churchill became prime minister in England, at a time when the outlook was grim, he said: ‘I can promise nothing but blood, sweat and tears.’ And it was precisely because he had said that that we also believed him when he held out a glimmer of hope. How many German listeners paid any attention to the justifications and promises that I heard, day in, day out on the German radio, is anyone’s guess.

What I do know is that neither the German listeners nor we ourselves were aware at the time of the most horrifying of all the crimes committed by the Germans during the war. In connection with this I shall, if you don’t mind, take you back to page 179 where it says (speaking of the Spanish conquistadores of Mexico): ‘there and in other parts of America they set about exterminating the ancient, cultivated Indian peoples in the most horrendous way. This chapter in the history of mankind is so appalling and so shameful to us Europeans’, I wrote ‘that I would rather not say anything more about it …’

I am even more reluctant to talk about the monstrous crime that was committed in our own century – after all, this book is intended for young readers who should not have to read about such things. But children grow up too, and they too must learn from history how easy it is for human beings to be transformed into inhuman beings through incitement and intolerance. And so it came about that, in the last years of the Second World War, the Jewish inhabitants of every country in Europe under German occupation – millions of men, women and children – were driven from their home countries. Most were put on trains and sent eastwards, where they were murdered.

As I said before, the German radio said nothing about any of this to its listeners, and like many others I couldn’t at first bring myself to believe it when the war ended and the unthinkable became known (in 1945). But sadly there is abundant proof of this monstrous crime, and although many years have already passed since it was committed, it is of the utmost importance that it should not be forgotten or hushed up.

With the mingling of peoples on our tiny planet, it becomes more and more necessary for us to respect and tolerate each other, not least because technological advances are bringing us closer and closer together.

The impact of technology was also demonstrated in the Second World War, when the almost inexhaustible reserves of the American arms industry, which benefited both Britain and Russia, made the outcome inevitable. Despite the desperate resistance put up by the German soldiers, the British and Americans were able to land on the French coast of Normandy in the summer of 1944 and drive the Germans back. At the same time the Russians were pursuing a by now unresisting German army and, in April, they finally reached Berlin, where Hitler took his own life. There was no talk of a peace treaty this time. The victors remained in Germany as occupying forces, and for decades a heavily guarded frontier ran right through Germany separating the sphere of influence of Communist Russia from that of the Western democracies.

However, with the defeat of Germany the World War was still not over, for the Japanese, who had meanwhile conquered large parts of Asia, were far from defeated. And because no end was in sight, the Americans brought out an entirely new weapon: the atomic bomb.

It so happened that, shortly before war broke out, I had met a young physicist who told me about an article published by the great Danish scientist, Niels Bohr. Its subject was the theoretical possibility of constructing a ‘uranium bomb’ whose destructive power would far exceed that of any known explosive. At the time we were both united in hoping that such a weapon might only be dropped on some desert island, to show friend and foe alike that all other ideas of weaponry and warfare had had their day. Although many of the scientists who were working frantically throughout the war to realise this weapon certainly felt as we did, our hope was in vain. In August 1945, the Japanese towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the first victims of an unimaginable catastrophe, and Japan was finally defeated.

It was clear to all of us that with this invention an entirely new chapter in the history of the world had begun, for the discovery of atomic energy might be likened to the discovery of fire. Fire, too, can warm, and it can destroy, but its destructive power is nothing next to that of today’s even greater atomic weapons. One can only hope that this development has made it impossible for such weapons to be used ever again against human beings. It must be clear to everyone that if they were to be used, neither side would be likely to survive and vast areas of the globe would be turned into uninhabitable deserts. Of course, the world has changed enormously since the last war. The inhabitants of whole continents that belonged to the British empire have since then become largely independent – although, unfortunately not yet any more peaceable for it. Yet despite the brutal conflicts and worrying crises that have broken out since 1945 in various parts of the globe, we have been spared a third world war because we all know only too well that it could mean the end of the history of the world. It isn’t a great comfort, but it’s better than none at all.

Not surprisingly, this entirely new situation in human history led many to condemn out of hand all the achievements of a science that had brought us to the edge of the abyss. And yet those people should not forget that, without science and technology, it would not have been possible for the countries concerned to make good, at least in part, the damage and destruction caused by the World War, so that life could return to normal much earlier than anyone had dared to hope.

Finally, I should like to make one more small correction to my book, to make good an omission that lies close to my heart. My chapter ‘Men and machines’ is not exactly incorrect, but it is a little one-sided. While it is indeed true that the switch from artisans and craftsmen to factories and machines entailed a great deal of suffering, I should nevertheless have mentioned that without the new techniques of mass production it would have been quite impossible to feed, clothe and house the steadily increasing population. The very fact that more and more children were being born, and fewer and fewer of them were dying soon after, was largely due to the scientific advance of medicine which insisted on such things as piped running water and proper sewerage. True, the growing industrialisation of Europe, America and of Japan has meant the loss of much that is beautiful, but we must not forget how many blessings – and I mean blessings – it has brought us.

I well remember what people meant in my youth when they talked about ‘the poor’. It was not only the destitute, the beggars and the homeless who looked different from the middle-class inhabitants of large towns, but factory workers too – both men and women – could be recognised at a distance by their dress. The women usually wore shawls on their heads against the cold, and no factory worker would ever have dreamed of wearing a white shirt, for it would have instantly shown the dirt. And when I think about it, I remember people used to talk about ‘the smell of the poor’, because the majority of a town’s inhabitants lived in poorly ventilated tenements with, at most, a single tap at the foot of the stairs. A middle-class household (and not just the wealthy ones) usually included a cook, a parlour-maid and often a nursery-maid to take care of the children as well. Such women often had a better life than they would have had if they had stayed at home, but it can’t have been very pleasant, for example, to have had only one day a week when you were allowed out, and to be generally looked upon as a servant. It was during my childhood that people were just beginning to think about such things, and after the First World War, servants became officially known as ‘home helps’. Even so, when I visited Berlin as a student, houses often had a sign at the entrance which read ‘Entrance for Gentlemen and Ladies only’. Even in those days this made me feel uncomfortable. Servants and tradesmen had to use the back stairs and weren’t allowed to use the lift, even if they had a heavy load to carry.

Thankfully, all that is over now, like a bad dream. To be sure, life is still hard for many people, and there are wretched and joyless neighbourhoods in the towns of Europe and America. But most people who work in factories and even most of the unemployed live better today than many medieval knights must have done in their castles. They eat better, and above all they are healthier and as a rule live longer, which was not the case only a short while ago. Since time began people have dreamed of a ‘Golden Age’, and now that something close to one is true for so many, no one is willing to admit it.

But the same could not be said of those countries in Eastern Europe which were forced by Russia’s armies to adopt the Communist system. It was especially hard for the inhabitants of East Germany, who, as the years went by, saw how much better the lives of their Western neighbours were, until the day came when they were no longer prepared to make the heavy sacrifices that the Communist system of economics demanded. And so, in 1989, quite unexpectedly, the unthinkable happened. The East Germans succeeded in forcing open their border and both parts of Germany were once more united. The mood took hold of Soviet Russia, where the political system collapsed, as it did in all the remaining countries of Eastern Europe.

I ended my account of the First World War with the words: ‘We all hope for a better future, it must be better.’ Has such a future come? For many of the people who live on our earth, it is still remote. Among the constantly growing populations of Asia, Africa and South America the same misery reigns that, until not so long ago, was accepted as normal in our countries as well. We have no easy remedies, not least because there too, as ever, intolerance and misery go hand in hand. And yet improvements in sending information have made the consciences of richer nations a little more attentive. Whenever an earthquake, a flood or a drought in a far-off place leaves many victims, thousands of people in wealthier countries put their money and their efforts into providing relief. And that, too, used not to happen. Which proves that we still have the right to go on hoping for a better future.