Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Illustrations
- Archive sources
- Abbreviations
- 1 The making of an internationalist
- 2 The humanising of an intellectual
- 3 The discovery of Gandhi
- 4 Quaker interventions
- 5 The 1930s
- 6 The Second World War
- 7 To India with the Friends' Ambulance Unit
- 8 Campaigning in Britain and the USA
- 9 Indian independence and its aftermath
- 10 India and the quest for a sustainable world order
- Appendix: Fritz Berber in the Second World War
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Appendix: Fritz Berber in the Second World War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Illustrations
- Archive sources
- Abbreviations
- 1 The making of an internationalist
- 2 The humanising of an intellectual
- 3 The discovery of Gandhi
- 4 Quaker interventions
- 5 The 1930s
- 6 The Second World War
- 7 To India with the Friends' Ambulance Unit
- 8 Campaigning in Britain and the USA
- 9 Indian independence and its aftermath
- 10 India and the quest for a sustainable world order
- Appendix: Fritz Berber in the Second World War
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
After their meeting in Geneva in November 1939, Alexander and Berber did not see each other again until they met in Delhi in April 1951. Berber has left an account of what happened to him during the war years in his autobiography, Zwischen Macht und Gewissen, ‘between power and conscience’ (1986). As we shall see, this provides a far from complete picture of his situation, but it can at least serve as a starting point for considering the issues involved. The book tells a story of increasing isolation and estrangement from his patron and protector Ribbentrop, beginning with his all-too-academic pamphlet on the attack by a British destroyer on a German ship, the Altmark. This took place in Norwegian territorial waters while Norway was still neutral, and Berber had no difficulty in showing how legally questionable the British action was. Unfortunately for him he presented the case in a moderate and objective way, and Ribbentrop, in an angry phone call, reminded him that Germany was engaged in a life-and-death struggle, in which scholarship in an ivory tower had no place. Thereafter Berber reckons that he further jeopardised his position by various memoranda expressing unwelcome views. In one, relating to the treatment of Britain after a successful German invasion, he emphasised the imprudence of introducing Gestapo methods there, as it would only alienate the population. In another he argued that the aerial bombardment of British cities was counterproductive if the strategic aim was to secure British cooperation.
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- Gandhi's InterpreterA Life of Horace Alexander, pp. 263 - 266Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2010