3 - Collaboration and Resistance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
Summary
Reflecting on his involvement, as head of the Political Warfare Executive, in the production of wartime propaganda directed at Germany, Robert Bruce Lockhart noted the difficulty posed by the fact that in the early years of the war ‘there was no official policy about the future of Germany’. This meant that it was not possible to suggest to potential resisters what an Allied victory might mean for them. According to Bruce Lockhart:
The problem with which the Government were faced was: ‘Were there sufficient so-called “good Germans” to justify a promise of a reasonable peace provided that they turned against Hitler before the end of the war?’ […] Certainly nearly all members of Parliament […] held strong views on the subject, and more often than not had their own pet German émigré.
(Comes, pp. 158–9)As I noted in Chapter 1, views on this issue were polarised. The work that Muriel Spark was involved with during her time with the PWE relied on the belief that there were ‘good Germans’; for his own part, Bruce Lockhart implies that he did believe in the existence of ‘good Germans’ but felt that their ability to take action against the regime was severely constrained so long as German victory still seemed possible (Comes, p. 159).
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- Information
- The Second World War in Contemporary British FictionSecret Histories, pp. 90 - 126Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2011