14th August 2010
Earlier posts on this blog, on the British Military Governors in occupied Germany and other senior army officers of their generation, such as Field-Marshal Montgomery, Generals Brian Robertson and Alec Bishop, have shown how their view of the world was permeated with the ideals, values and prejudices of the British Empire. The same applied to some of the civilian diplomats and administrators, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of Harold Ingrams (whose papers I have recently read at the excellent Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge).
His background was very similar to that of Generals Montgomery, Robertson and Bishop. His father was a clergyman and assistant master at Shrewsbury School. He was born in 1897 and so was the same age as Bishop and a year younger than Robertson. He fought and was wounded in France in the First World War. He then joined the Colonial Service and was posted to Zanzibar, Mauritius and Arabia, where he served with great distinction. For reasons which are not entirely clear, he was seconded by the Colonial Office in 1945 to the Administration and Local Government branch of the Control Commission for Germany and in December that year was made head of branch. It seems odd that someone with no experience of local government and elections, who probably had not even had an opportunity to vote in Britain, should have been given responsibility for restoring democracy in post-war Germany, but he threw himself into the task with conviction and enthusiasm.
Not content with repealing Nazi laws and restoring the German administrative system as it had been in 1933 before Hitler came to power, he decided a more fundamental reform was necessary and that as far as possible, a British model of local government should be introduced in Germany.
In a comment which possibly reflected a point of view he had learnt at school or from his reverend father, or both, he wrote that true democracy had to be based on Christian principles (as understood by the British) and the biblical ‘thou shalt not’ of the Old Testament replaced by, in his words, ‘the principle of duty towards one’s neighbour, as we understand it, and if we are to change German methods our only yardstick is our own system.’ This sentence embodied three principles he stuck to throughout his time in Germany: the need for a fundamental change to the former German system; his belief that the essence of democracy lay not in collective social or political structures or institutions, but in personal relations between individuals conducted in a spirit of Christian morality; and a conviction that the only practicable way forward for British people in Germany was to apply as much of their own system as possible, as this was not only ‘the most robust in the world’ but the kind of democracy they knew and understood best.
True to the principles of ‘indirect rule’ in the British Empire, he wrote that suitable controls over local administration had to be prescribed and imposed by Military Government, but ‘German authorities will to the fullest extent practicable be ordered to assume administration of such controls. Thus it should be brought home to the German people that the responsibility for the administration of such controls and for any break-downs in those controls will rest with themselves.’ As he added in a later document: ‘Policy cannot succeed without the understanding and cooperation of the Germans. ‘Works without faith’ is not enough. Change of heart necessary.’
The same fundamental principles were expressed in different ways in many other documents. In February 1946 he prepared a one page paper with the title ‘On Promoting Democracy in Germany’ which he showed to General Robertson, the Deputy Military Governor. According to Ingrams, Robertson ‘read it through carefully and then passed it back saying, with some emphasis “I agree with every word if it.”’ Ingrams asked for the paper to be printed as the Forward to a new Military Government Directive on Administrative, Local and Regional Government and the Public Services and this was done.
In this he wrote, firstly, on the assumed superiority of the British form of democracy and the need for a fundamental change to the German system:
‘The character of a people generally reflects the influence of the country in which they live. Our democracy, the most robust in the world, is the product of our character and our country. It is on British soil that it flourishes best but we do export it and tended carefully it grows and flourishes in diverse lands, even if it takes a long time to acclimatise itself.
Although the Germans are to some extent of the same stock as the British, democracy as we understand it, government by the people, for the people and through the people, has never really flourished on the plains of Germany as it has in Island Britain.’
And secondly, on his understanding of the Christian basis of democracy:
‘Miracles are not to be expected but they may happen if we work with sufficient resolution and faith. The democracy we seek to establish is based on Christianity, the fulfilment of our duty towards our neighbours. The welfare of everyone of us is the concern of each of us and this is the idea which we have to practise ourselves and help the Germans to practice in each other and to us.’
A few months earlier, in November 1945, he had given a lecture tour, speaking to Military Government regional and local government detachment commanders across the zone. In this he stressed the difficulty of their task ‘selling democracy in extremely trying economic conditions’ but also the unique opportunity:
‘We have such an opportunity as has never yet occurred in history of attempting to introduce forms of democracy which, if successful should make it far more possible for us when the time comes, to leave Germany better fitted than ever before to take part with the rest of us in peaceful cooperation in Europe.’
Government, in his view, was the concern of every individual man and woman and it was ‘to the individual in the first place we have to turn our attention’. He described the role of the British in Germany as similar to that of a doctor with a patient, though in some ways, his words read as though the role in had in mind was that of priest and sinner, rather than doctor and patient:
‘I think that our role with the German is rather that of a doctor dealing with the case of a man suffering from a serious illness which he has brought on himself. It is the doctor’s role to make the patient realise his own responsibility for his sufferings, and to make him realise the danger he has been to others, to induce in him a feeling or repentance for what he has done to others.’
Needless to say, Ingrams’ ideal view of British democracy represented, at best, a very partial view of history. He made no mention of rotten boroughs or the widespread corruption that existed in British politics before the 1832 Reform Act, let alone that large parts of the population, such as those without property, farm labourers, and women, had not been able to vote at all until very recently. In his emphasis on the role of the individual, and an accompanying distrust of political parties, he seemed to hark back to an idyllic rural past, when everyone in the village knew each other and the church was the focus of the life of the community. As he said in his lecture in November 1945:
‘Nothing is more conducive to sound local government than such things as mothers’ meetings, baby shows, relief organisations and the like, and the real strength of local government in England, which is very constantly described as the home of local government, resides not so much in the higher formations but in the parish; and the strength of the parish was originally in that Christian life of collective organisation for mutual help which centred round, and was often directed by, the Church.’
It seems that his ideal view of British history and democracy was based, to a large exent, on a desire to present it as the opposite, the antithesis, of his understanding of German history. Above all, in his view, it was essential to make it as difficult as possible for anyone in Germany to re-establish the authoritarian Führerrprinzip or ‘leadership principle’ which Hitler had made the basis of Nazi society in Germany. An analysis of regional and local government under the Nazis, with the help of briefing papers prepared by the British Foreign Office, had led him to the conclusion that ‘What democratic self-government there was in Germany proved an easy prey for the Nazis’ and ‘to restore the pre-1933 system could be nothing more than ineffectual patch-work.’ As he said in the lecture:
‘German democracy has never been able to stand up to the authoritarian spirit of Prussia. There were weaknesses inherent in the political system of Weimar which inevitably led to the overthrow of that regime, and there were defects in the administrative machinery of local government which tended to bureaucracy and made it easier for an authoritarian administration to centralize power.’
The conclusions he drew from this for his work in Germany were that:
Firstly, there should be no early elections, as they needed time to introduce a new procedure, based on the British model. Simply asking German officials to arrange elections based on pre-1933 practices, as was done in the US zone, was in his view, dangerous and unwise.
Secondly, until elections could be held, nominated, rather than elected, councils should be established, with the members chosen by British officials, on the colonial model. In this way councillors would acquire experience of the British form of local government and develop a sense of responsibility.
Thirdly, elections, when they did take place, should be on the British ‘first past the post’ or ‘majority’ system, with the electorate voting for an individual rather than a party list, as had previously been the practice in Germany. In his view, the proportional system, with candidates elected in proportion to the number of votes cast for their party, did not lead to a democratic way of life, as it was impersonal, candidates owed their election to having been selected by a party caucus, rather than to their ability to convince the electorate, and so, in his view, the system tended to lead to one strong man with a weak following. Proportional representation also tended to encourage smaller splinter or ‘freak’ parties, as he called them, rather than promoting stable government by one major party with another as an effective opposition.
Fourthly, elected representatives should be unpaid and should decide policy. The paid executive officials, who carried out agreed policies, should not be party members or take part in politics. In particular, there should be a clear separation of role and function between the elected ‘Chairman of the Council’ and the paid 'Town Clerk' or Chief Executive of the local authority.
Fifthly, to avoid a ‘clean sweep’ of one party winning all the seats at any one election, councillors should remain in post for three years, but elections should be held, and one third of the councillors elected, each year.
So how did it all work out? Ingrams’ reforms aroused strong opposition in Germany, ironically especially among confirmed anti-Nazi supporters of the Social Democratic Party, which was disadvantaged politically by many of his reforms.
Wolfgang Friedmann, a legal expert who had fled from Nazi Germany to Britain in 1934, qualified as a lawyer and barrister in Britain, and later in 1955 was appointed Professor of International Law at Columbia University New York, was highly critical of Ingrams’ reforms in a book he published in 1947 on ‘The Allied Military Government of Germany’. Friedmann spent two years working for both British and US Military Governments in Germany from May 1945, the same time that Ingrams was there.
Referring specifically to the proposal to separate the functions of ‘Chairman of the Council’ and ‘Town Clerk’, which previously in Germany had been combined in the position of the ‘Bürgermeister’, an elected mayor with executive responsibility, he wrote that:
‘By this administrative reform the British Control Commission created a vital divergence between local government in its own zone and that of the other three zones. From the beginning it aroused violent opposition amongst the vast majority of German parties and organisations. Opposition was directed mainly against the alien character of the reform, the duplication of the apparatus and the increase in cost.’
‘It has also created an instinctive opposition to a reform contrary to a great, though lately perverted, tradition of German local government. The English principle is time-honoured but has led to an increasing de facto predominance of the permanent official over the changing councils. Its operation is moreover entirely dependent upon the existence of a class of people who can take honorary office after having obtained professional security or retirement. This is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain even in England. All these traditions are absent in Germany.’
Friedmann was not impressed by the colonial mentality of some of his colleagues and it is quite possible he had Ingrams in mind when he wrote that:
‘Another type of British administrator suffers from the colonial mind. Many came to Germany with the idea that Germany could be administered on the pattern of an undeveloped British Colony. The British experience of colonial government may be more of a handicap than of a benefit in the administration of a highly developed and civilised country.’
In practice Ingrams had to compromise on proportional representation and most of his other reforms were rolled back in later years by an independent West German government.
Even in Britain, many of the features he considered a fundamental part of British democracy and an essential safeguard against authoritarianism, no longer apply. Most people now vote for a party rather than an individual, proportional representation has been introduced for elections to the European, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies, elected mayors in London and some other cities combine an elected role with (paid) executive responsibilities, (as has long been the case in the US), and special advisers have started to erode the principle of an independent, non-political, civil service.
References
Harold Ingrams papers at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge
W. Friedmann, The Allied Military Government of Germany, (London: Stevens & Sons Limited, 1947)
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