New Guinea Germans Did
p. 78 · Read in the full issue
Not Suffer Alone
Letter to the Editor AS a reader of “PIM” I should like to express my personal views on the article in May issue entitled “New Guinea Germans Now Released.”
Even allowing for the injustices and cruelties of war and the fact that the few, so-called “good Germans” must suffer with the bad ones, both my personal ex periences and history have proven tc me that the old sympathy story: “We Ger mans are realiy good, peace-loving folk and Nazi ideologists were forced upon us against our will” has been told too often to even warrant discussion.
With all due respect to Mr. Jahnke, and an understanding* of his difficulties, I suggest that speculating on the possible return of New Guinea to Germany was a dangerous game and that trifles, such as becoming a British subject, should, on future occasions, not be overlooked.
Admittedly, wars such as the recent one, may not be much use to individual Ger mans. particularly when they are on the losing side; taut then our German friends should remember that war is of little use either to such presumably “unimportant” nations as Poland, Holland, France and Britain. The war is over, but I do not think it improper to suggest to our friends that they were not the only ones to suffer and that the game of war is expensive.
I am, etc.,
Robert Fleischman.
Canberra. ACT.
June 4. 1947.