HL Deb 07 May 1947 vol 147 cc394-5

2.49 p.m.

LORD BEVERIDGE

My Lords, I beg to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[The question was as follows:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether it is proposed to repatriate compulsorily a thousand or more Germans from Tanganyika to Germany, and whether, having regard to the prospective congestion of population in Germany, they will postpone and reconsider action in the matter.]

VISCOUNT HALL

About 800 former German residents of Tanganyika are being sent back to Germany. There was a strong and highly organized Nazi movement in Tanganyika before the war, and the great majority of those repatriated were members of this movement, or persons of known Nazi sympathies, with their dependants. These people are not being repatriated purely on grounds of nationality. Every individual case has been fully investigated, and some 350 Germans are being allowed to remain in or return to Tanganyika. But my right honourable friend is convinced that, in the interests of the people of the territory, and in particular of the African population, it is essential that Germans who have identified themselves with Nazi doctrine should be excluded from the territory. The policy in this matter has recently been endorsed by the Trustee Council of the United Nations, and it is not possible to hold out any prospect that it can be reconsidered.

LORD BEVERIDGE

I thank the noble Viscount for his answer, but I am bound to say, in spite of the applause that greeted it, that the answer appears to me to be most unhappy, illustrating the way that planning is interpreted on the Benches opposite—namely, by dealing with each problem absolutely separately from every other problem. Looking to the Government as being responsible for Germans as well as for Tanganyikans, and for making Germany democratic and free of Nazi teachings, I ask them whether they consider that these Germans, possibly uprooted from a place where they were living contentedly, will contribute more to a peaceful anti-Nazi Germany by being repatriated than by being left where they are.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT ADDISON)

My Lords, I think in the interests of the House I should intervene for one moment to call attention to the rule, which has been agreed by all, that we should not use the starred questions as occasions for making speeches. The other form of question is appropriate for that sort of thing.

THE EARL OF PERTH

Arising out of the question, could the noble Viscount tell us what will happen to those people when they return to Germany? Will they be set at liberty; will they be sent to concentration camps; or will they be tried by the denazification courts?

VISCOUNT HALL

This is a matter which will have to be decided when these people are sent back to Germany. I notice there is some laughter, but I must say that I see nothing jocular in that. Here are avowed Nazis who, because of Nazi activities in Tanganyika, were excluded from Tanganyika and detained in Rhodesia. The Government of Southern Rhodesia have made representations over a period of two years for those persons to be repatriated from Southern Rhodesia, and with the consent of the United Nations they are being repatriated to Germany.