 The Johnson-Wax Program, Words at War with Carl Van Doren. The makers of Johnson's Wax for Home and Industry in cooperation with the Council on Books in Wartime proudly presents one of the most widely discussed programs in America, Words at War, dramatizations of the most representative books to come out of this great world conflict. And with us again tonight is one of the keenest judges of good books in America, the eminent author, biographer, and Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Carl Van Doren. Mr. Van Doren. If I may judge, tonight's program will stick in your minds for a long time to come, but it's based on one of the most shock-filled books of our day. I'll tell you something about Book and Author, just as soon as Jack Castello finishes a brief message from our sponsors. If you are out in your car today, you probably noticed one thing. In spite of their aid, a large number of the cars on the road still look very new. If you'd stopped to ask their owners, you'd have found that many of them long ago learned the easy way to keep the finish of their cars clean and sparkling. I made, of course, with Johnson's Car New. Car New was designed for times like these. A polish that's easy enough to use so that you and I, or our wives or youngsters, can do the job ourselves. Car New does two jobs at the same time, both cleans and polishes with one application. Car New is a liquid which dries to a white powder. Wipe off this powder and your car shines like a mirror again. Incidentally, if you don't remove that dull road dirt and grime, it may do permanent damage to the finish. It's still a long time before you'll have a new car. Why not keep yours looking as new as possible with Johnson's Car New, spelled C-A-R-N-U. Car New. Mr. Van Doran? Tonight's Words of War program is based on George Creel's book, War Criminals and Punishment. It poses a question, what are we going to do with Hitler when we have ended the war he started? George Creel, you know, served as the chairman of the Committee on Public Information in the last war. Roughly the equivalent of the jobs now held by Elmer Davis and Byron Price, and is at present the Washington correspondent of Collier's Magazine. His book, War Criminals and Punishment, is the most outspoken indictment of the people that has appeared in a generation. We bring it to you in the form of an open letter to Hitler and his gang, written by a man who has read Creel's book, and wants the American public to know what kind of job is still ahead of us if justice is to be done. This is the open letter, my dear adult. This letter is addressed not only to you, but to the others in your Axis gang. This letter is addressed to all the crooks and perverts, to yourself, to Mussolini and Tojo, to Himmler, Goering, Goebbels, Rosenberg, Von Papen, Ribbentrop, Quisling, and all the rest. Yes, dear adult, to all of these and to approximately 80 million of your fellow Germans, this letter is written. But for convenient sake, I shall address it mainly to you. Have you served as a symbol for the lot? Do you mind? Practically every American who could put one word after another has written you a public letter or has planned to write such a letter, adult. They've presented these letters in every way, stage, screen, radio, what have you. And now it's my turn. But I promise you one thing, adult, this letter will be different from the others you've received. Quite different. Wait and see. Still, let me make a confession. If I hadn't read George Creel's war criminals and punishment, this letter to you would not have been different. If I hadn't read that carefully documented book, this letter to you would have been pretty much the same as all the others. There wouldn't have been much regard for realism in it, adult. But there would have been lots of fancy stuff such as filter effects and echo chambers and guns booming vengeance. There would have been voices. Oh yes, whispering voices, shouting voices, matter of fact reporting voices, each of them with a job to do. I should have been voice number one. In clip reporting tones, I should have traced your early history. The beer hall pooch, the intimidation of the German people by the Nazi hoodlums, the rise to power of Adolf Hitler. Next? Next we should have had our say. The whispering half-frightened voices of the people of Europe. Why don't Britain and France stop him? He has taken over the Tsar. He has marched his troops into the Rhineland in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles. He has murdered Adolf who's marched into Austria. Can nothing stop him? Now it's the Sudetenland he wants. Let's check our Slovak territory. But we Czechs are not afraid. Britain and France will not let him take our country. And then? The meeting of Munich has guaranteed peace in our time. Yes, Adolf. If I hadn't read George Creel's book, that's the slant the story might have taken as a starter. Probably it would have gone on from there to describe the horrendous cruelties of yourself and your gangster friends. All told in terms that would have torn at the heartstrings of my sentimental fellow Americans. And then, at the proper moment, there would have been a fanfare to proclaim the heightening of the drama. And after the fanfare a giant roll of the thunder drum. And then a strident voice. And thus, Adolf, I would have shown the Yanks on the march again. And inevitably, once more would have come the voices. All of them symbolically striking terror into your black heart. Voices with all the brisk self-confidence of an H.V. Cartonborn. Our troops drive Rome a lot of Africa. We take Sicily. We invade Italy from Rome. At this point, Adolf, I suppose I might have switched the scene to you. Probably shown you in your mountain castle in Bexisgarten, cowering in a closet at the approach of a bunch of G.I. Jones. Oh, this would have been a great scene, Adolf. I'm sure you've seen it before. Yes, pal, for this scene, I think I would even have indicated a comical musical curtain. But soon, Adolf, I think I might have shown you in your mountain castle in Bexisgarten, cowering in a closet at the approach of a bunch of G.I. Jones. Oh, this would have been a great scene, Adolf. The listeners would have laughed themselves sick at the spectacle of you, the killer of millions, cringing and shaking But soon, Adolf, the music would change to another theme. A dignified somber, get-hopeful theme. A theme one might use to describe the majesty of world law and order making ready to try him who had sinned against it. And the carefully spaced raps of the gavel would tell the listeners that here at last was the moment of high drama for which they had waited. The trial of Adolf Hitler. I can see that trial now, Adolf. Everyone from the lowliest Russian peasant to the prelates of the Vatican would submit documents against you. And in writing such a scene, I should be untrue to my craft if I did not employ dramatic license and bring in the most convincing witnesses of all. I bear witness against you, Adolf Hitler. I am one of those who know full well the horror and inexcusable excesses of Nazi brutality. Because firing squads and bayonets were too slow for Nazi hate, you squeezed thousands of little people into pens and blew them up with hand grenades. I was one of those thousands. I bear witness against you, Adolf Hitler. You heard the dust into freight cars, their floors inches deep in wet quick lime and packed to the suffocation point with barefooted wretches. Then your lackeys locked the doors and pushed the cars into the forest where no one could hear us scream as our flesh was eaten away. I bear witness against you, Adolf Hitler. I lived in the Russian town of Kiev. In September 1941, your Nazi officials drove some 60,000 buses out of the city to a great gully called Badi Yar, or the woman's ravine. After being stripped bare, all the men, women and children were lined up on the edge and machine gunned our bodies toppling down into the gully. It was the most clever device to save the labor of burial. I can add to that testimony against you, Adolf Hitler. I was a Russian soldier, a prisoner of yours when you killed and buried those 60,000 citizens of Kiev in one scientific operation. But in August 1942, when the swift advance of the Russian armies made Kiev's recapture fairly certain, your Germans decided that it would be wise to destroy all evidence of their crime. Accordingly, they dispatched 100 of us Russian prisoners to the women's ravine for the purpose of uncovering and burning the corpses. I alone dug up 5 or 6,000 bodies. Most of them were old people, children and babies. We dragged the bodies with iron hooks 30 or 40 yards to incinerators. They were made of iron fences of the Jewish cemetery. The bodies were put on iron grates, one layer of bodies alternating with a layer of kerosene soaked wood. Each contained almost 4,000 bodies. During the operation, Gestapo officers arrived frequently with trucks full of Russian prisoners whom they had murdered. They also brought some prisoners who were conscious, unconscious but alive and still breathing. These two were thrown in to be burned. Prisoners who weakened while working on the incinerators were shot on the spot and thrown into the fires. I, Adolf Hitler, was one of those who weakened. I too bear witness against you, Adolf Hitler. I also bear witness against you, Adolf Hitler. And then, Adolf, I would have presented the really big moment, the gripping climax of the drama. Adolf Hitler, rise and face your judges. It is the judgment of this court that you... Well, what fate would I have given you, Adolf? You know as well as I do that any death would be too good for you. Don't you? But that's not the point. You also know as well as I do that you're going to make suckers of us all, Adolf. You know that neither you nor your gangster pals will ever be brought to justice. On the other hand, if the American people listen hard enough during the next few minutes, and if they get mad enough as they listen, who knows? It might be that all you and all your gang would end up as guests of honor at a hanging party after all. Wouldn't that be cute, hmm? But I'm still betting against it, Adolf. I'm still betting you'll make suckers of us all. For the benefit of late comers, this is Carl Van Doren bringing you a dramatization based upon George Creel's searching book, War, Criminals and Punishment, another of the words of war series presented each week by the makers of Johnson's wax. We have seen this letter written to all the Axis gangsters, but for simplicity's sake addressed to Adolf Hitler, we have seen it document page by page the terrible crimes of Hitler and company. And then when the documentation was complete, when all the incontrovertible proof was presented, we have heard the writer of the letter make the flat statement that Hitler and gang would get away with their crimes. Were you startled by this? Have you come to the conclusion that the writer of the letter doesn't know what he's talking about? Do you want proof? Well, let's get down to cases, Mr. Hitler. None of our listeners has called me up yet, threatening to shoot me, so maybe they're willing to listen to see if I can prove my point. So I shall attempt to do so, simply without fuss or fanfare. But let's not keep them waiting. Okay, voices on, Mike. All right, let's get up there. I'm first. I'm number two. Now then, what's the point we want to prove? Voice one. We'll prove that Mr. Hitler and his gang have not only one chance of escaping punishment for their crimes against humanity, but three such chances. And do we just manufacture this proof? Voice two. We certainly don't. We take it from the documented records of history. All right. All voices in order, please. What is Mr. Hitler's first chance of escape? Tell the little man himself. Your first chance of escape, Mr. Hitler, is that the new German government, which will be set up by the Allies after your defeat, may refuse to deliver you and your gang for trial, on the grounds that such degradation of their national heroes would cause a revolution. What possible reason could we have for believing such a thing could happen? Well, it happened last time. That's exactly what happened. That's how Ludendorff and Hindenburg and Stupnagel and the rest escaped trial after World War I. Exactly. Now, what is Mr. Hitler's second chance to escape? Your second chance of escape, Mr. Hitler, will come if you and your gang are brought to trial, just as it did for others after World War I. You'll remember that then, out of all the thousands of German war criminals, only 49 little unimportant men were brought to trial. Yes. And those 49 were tried not by the people whom they had abused, but by their fellow Germans in a German court in Leipzig under German rules of law. And the verdicts? The German verdicts. Less than a half a dozen were found guilty of any offense. Men who had butchered helpless children, men who had split the windpipes, and broken the backs of defenseless allied prisoners of war were either applauded by the German court and the German crowd, or were merely reprimanded for being too enthusiastic in the performance of their duty. Yes. And none of those few found guilty served more than a few weeks in jail. You see, Mr. Hitler? All right. Tell him what his third chance of escape is. Your third chance of escape, Mr. Hitler, is to fly to a neutral country. You and all your criminal colleagues can always do that. Will it work? Not. It worked last time. That's what Kaiser Bill did. He escaped into neutral Holland, set himself up on a beautiful estate in Dorn and lived on the millions sent to him by an admiring German people. And Holland refused to give him up to the allies. Now, let me be naive for a minute. Surely that can't happen this time. Oh, can't it? Have the neutral nations been approached on the matter? They certainly have. But their replies have either been cold to the point of rebuff or else so cautious as to be meaningless. What did Spain and Portugal answer? Spain and Portugal were noncommittal. How about Argentina and Turkey? Well, they stated that they would, quote, conform to the principles of international law, unquote, a distinct evasion. And Sweden? Sweden merely took note of the request without giving an answer. And Switzerland... Oh, yes, yes. What about Switzerland? Switzerland totally replied that she would be guided by Dury God for her own sovereignty. That, rather, is the cooperation we're getting from the neutral. See what I mean, Mr. Hitler? There isn't a chance they'll get you unless. But let me return to my naivete for another minute. Let's scare the pants off of that, alfellas. Let's remind him that regardless of difficulties, with all of us allies being united on this matter, we can bring enough pressure to bear to see that justice has its day. Save your breath, brother. United? The heck we are. Why already the sentimentalists and the lawyers in love with the sterility of their profession are insisting on, quote, proper judicial procedure, unquote. Listen to us. No, no, no, wait up. What's wrong with, quote, proper judicial procedure, unquote? Nothing, except who is to say what is proper judicial procedure. Watch a couple of lawyers battling in a traffic court about what the law is or is not, and I tell you that by the time the lawyers get it settled, dear Adolf and his gang will have died of old age. And in addition, lend an ear to some of our best pulpits, all the way from the Archbishop of Canterbury down the line. What are you here? Horror at the thought of bombing German cities. Sermons for a policy of loving kindness. Turn the other cheek. Whatever else we are in our treatment of war criminals, please, let's be conservative. See what I mean, Mr. Hitler? And we're not making it up. Oh, no. It's all in George Creel's book. Document it. Prove. I hope you won't think me prejudiced, Mr. Hitler. I'm not. I just want to see you hanging from the highest gibbet in Christendom. So do most of my fellow Americans. And why? Not because we're vengeful. No. merely because we know that if you get away with it, someday another Hitler will come along to bring disaster to the world. And please don't let me hear that bull about the democratic decent Germans making another dictator impossible over there. You've killed or banished most of the decent Germans. And democracy has never stood a chance in Germany anyway. Three times in 70 years the German people have banded like robots under a dictator and have marched out to ravage the world. Three times in 70 years. Decency? Freedom? Democracy? Nuts. The German people don't even know what the words mean. Here, voice number seven. Read what George Creel says about the German people. Before the ink was dry on the Treaty of Versailles, while Belgians and Frenchmen hunted and ruined homes for their dead, America rang to a chorus of pity for the poor Germans. Today, with conquered lands knowing every horror of enslavement, there is a definite movement to have it believed that Hitler's organized savagery does not represent the popular German will. That's bunk. American correspondents bear witness that German citizens, without urging or official order, killed and tortured Jews no less enthusiastically than did the stormtroopers. It was not only brown shirts who fed the bonfires at the book burning Mr. Hitler, but German university students. Shall I go on? Oh, certainly. Continue. Over here in America, plays and films applauded by packed houses exploit the courage and heroism of a German underground movement. There is no such movement. Polls, checks, Dutch and French are resisting to the death. Each day, new thousands are thrown into unmarked graves. But not from a single authoritative source is there word of such resistance in Germany. Those that might have dared were killed or jailed at once. And who's to blame for all this malaki going around? Why, the American sentimentalists, of course. But the sentimentalists have their little helpers. And you know who they are? The refugees. More particularly, the articulate refugees like Hermann Rauschenig and Prince Hubertus through Lervin... Hey, wait a minute, mister. I'm just a plain American and that don't seem right talking about the refugees. In America, we love the refugees. Oh, yes, yes, I know. The love, adoration and applause of German refugees is a national sport, second only to baseball. And not that a lot of them don't deserve. But listen, let's hear what Creel says. Many of the German refugees in the United States and England have no larger conception of democracy than Hitler himself. They blame only the Fuhrer, not the militaristic imperialistic German mentality which made Hitler not only possible, but welcome. Many of those refugees most vocal today played a prominent part in the overthrow of the Weimar Republic. Many of them still have, as a secret slogan, Deutschland über alles. They still refer plaintively to what they call the infamous Treaty of Versailles as a complete excuse for every German crime. Want some more? No, no, that's enough. That ought to get the idea, of course. Then can I add a prayer? A prayer? Why, sure. From the American and British sentimentalists from many of the German refugees, good Lord Deliverus. Amen. Well, Mr. Hitler, you can see what we're after. We make no bones about it. It's our hope that if the truth is spread wide enough, your nation will never again threaten the peace of the world. And no nation will ever again spawn devils like yourself and your friends. That's our hope. Frankly, I still believe it's doomed to fate. But you can never be sure, Mr. Hitler. Who knows? Maybe our people will wake up. Maybe they'll rise up at their hind legs and tell the sentimentalists to shut their traps. Maybe the American people will make such an awful row that no neutral nation would dare give you sanctuary. Maybe they'll insist on the three-point plan of action that alone can save the world. And no one knows better than you, Mr. Hitler, what those three points are. Point one, unconditional surrender, followed by military occupation of Germany to enforce permanent disarmament. Point two, the arrest and arraignment of all war criminals from the highest to the lowest, uncomplicated and unimpeded by the slow, tortuous processes of civil courts. Point three, an instant end to Prussia's evil, brutal domination of the German Empire. The smashing for all time of the gun-toting Prussian Reich. Yes, Mr. Hitler, maybe our American people will set their hearts and souls on attaining these three points. If they do, maybe, maybe there'll be peace in our children's time. I remain very sincerely yours. One American. I'm going to present a message on behalf of our sponsors, after which Mr. Carl Van Doren will return to tell us about next week's Words at War program. A home where the floors, furniture and woodwork are regularly waxed does become more and more beautiful. It takes on added refinement and charm, that mellow, richly polished look that good housekeepers so much admire. Yet with all that beauty, the number one service of Johnson's wax is protection. When you apply a coat of the paste or liquid wax to your floors or furniture, you're protecting their surfaces with a tough, invisible shield. This wax shield itself takes all the wear and the surface underneath is safe. And this is just as true for a tabletop or windowsill as it is for a floor that gets hard wear. This protection of surfaces with Johnson's wax makes them last much longer, saves money on refinishing. And of course, it saves you work all year because your daily or weekly cleaning is so much easier. The polished beauty, which is known so well to Johnson's wax users, is really an added advantage, like an extra dividend. Now Mr. Van Doren, what about next week's program? Next week our Words at War will be taken through a book that made me laugh a lot as I read it, Donald Huff's Captain Retreat. It's a very good story of a World War I soldier who joins up this time and discovers that it's rather different. This is Carl Van Doren, inviting you to be with us again next week. And until then, goodbye. Tonight's dramatization was written by Richard McDonough and featured Ned Weaver. Music was composed and conducted by Morris Mamorsky. And the production was under the direction of Anton M. Leeder. Next week, the Johnson Wax Program presents Captain Retreat on Words at War. Jack Costello speaking, this is The National...