It is easy to poke ridicule at Mr. White's book. His approach is by no means scholarly, and the informal, unscientific little polls on which he bases his conclusions as to the state of German opinion suffer by his own admission that, "It is particularly difficult for an American now to discover what Germans really think."

Yet Mr. White feels he has probed to the heart of the matter by interviewing a score or so of "typical" Germans. Few people in the Third Reich, it seems, were aware of Nazi atrocities. Those who were aware or who were active in perpetrating them, were under the influence of "hysterical mysticism," and now want only to forget the things they did or knew. A very large percentage of the Germans, perhaps even a majority "never did like the son of a bitch, and always said he'd get us into a war," and real Nazis were so scarce that the author had to scour the whole of Berlin in order to uncover one.

As has been done so often before, Mr. White places the blame for World War II on the harsh Versailles Treaty, the iniquitous French, and the inexorable movement of economic forces which forced Germany to accept Hitler. And the moral to the tale is that we must "permit a free and democratic Germany to emerge from the present chaos, in which this industrious and talented people may work and enjoy the fruits of their labors on an equal basis with other nations."

Unfortunately for the logic of his position, Mr. White cannot explain away certain facts. One of his informants reports, "After (the fall of France) came the spoils of war--butter and bacon from Denmark, wines, perfumes and silk underwear from Paris--things that Germany hadn't known for years. Everybody thought the war was fine." The Germans began to disapprove of the war only when it appeared they were going to lose it.

There is enough truth in "Report on the Germans" to make it dangerous. We may think the author is a little presumptuous when he dismisses the Peace Conference of 1919, Woodrow Wilson, the Russian Revolution, diplomacy between the wars, the military strategy of the United Nations, the whole course of Russo-Anglo-American relations in the recent war, and the inner workings of Soviet Russia in a few incidental pages tucked away in the back of the book; but his observations on Germany, at least, are partially correct.

The Versailles Treaty was unworkable. Many Germans were opposed to Hitler. There was an attempt on his life. So what? It is equally true that the air raids on Rotterdam and Warsaw were not carried out by Adolph Hitler alone, using mirrors to give the illusion of numbers. Not even the ubiquitous Fuchrer could have exterminated millions of Jews in Poland, Russia, and Germany by rushing madly from place to place with a Luger in one hand and a hypodermic needle in the other.

Recognizing that all Germans are not "bad" and that their conduct was partially not of their own volition, the powers that finally dispose of Germany's future should temper their firmness with merey. But they should not be either weak or apologetic. Germany should be reconstructed in a fashion best suited to promote peace. Maudlin sympathy, such as Mr. White drools, should not be permitted to sheme Americans into letting Germany write its own ticket.