Abstract

Europe Against Hitler III. The Passive Resisters

Europe's fight is not merely a negative one -- against Adolf Hitler. The Nazis have taken away the opportunities for individual security inherent in every democracy. The immediate fight against Hitler is for the restoration of those opportunities; in the long run, it is for economic and political security, for the assurance that no man and no group will ever again be permitted to deprive millions of their sustenance. Every statement that has come out of the European underground has called for a post-war world in which there will be jobs for all workers, land for all peasants, and a vote for everyone. Two hundred million Europeans -- with the exception of a small clique of Quislings, traitors, and congenital scoundrels -- are united in the fight. Oppression, visited equally upon everyone, has put everyone on an equal plane -- spiritually, economically, and politically. Everyone to some extent has felt the deleterious effects of hunger. Everyone has seen, or has been subjected to, the ruthless, well-organized methods of the Gestapo.