Can Germany Become a Free and Democratic Country?
Nearly all Americans would agree that it is immensely to be desired that Germany should become a free and democratic country. There are, as has been said above, some who think that it will come about of itself—that the Germans, aften ten years’ experience of what despotism is like and what it leads to, will have learned to detest that system and will themselves set up free and democratic political institutions. It is to be hoped that this prediction will prove true. But it must be remembered that the Germans had a republican form of government for thirteen years after the last war, that it did not work at all well, and that in the end they rejected it, or at least permitted it to be overthrown practically without resistance. There were large democratic groups, especially among the workers, but they lacked able and vigorous leadership, and the antidemocratic forces proved to be the stronger. It may turn out so again. The question is, what, if anything, the United Nations can do to help
