In Albert Pike's Morals and Dogmas, he says there must be 3 world wars and the destruction of the Roman Catholic Church for world domination to occur.
By means of revolution in the Catholic countries and through the government in Protestant countries, it is about accomplished!

elizabeth robach, Grand Rapids, Michigan

To Kevin Johanson:

Such butchery as we saw in WW2 (and WW1, and since) was NOT common place in previous centuries. The scale of slaughter in the 20th century dwarfed ALL conflicts of ALL previous ages in recorded history. It is only the massive growth of central government, debt financing, fiat currency, and obscene taxation that allows governments to amass the resources and mobilize the manpower to wage such wars of slaughter. There is no historical precedent, and even the bloodiest wars of prior ages paled in comparison because no governments could reorganize society and had the technological and financial reach and organization to organize slaughter on such a scale, especially the slaughter of civilians, who were the main targets of military activity judging casualty rolls.

Historically wars were between governments, and often common people had nothing against each other and could travel freely. Prior to ww1, average tax rates were under 5% despite large militaries and works.

S Murphy, London,

As usual, the irony of the situation is that an article meant to show a different side to the tragedy that perhaps more than any other defined the remainder of the century once again inspires only dissent and divisiveness along national and religious lines, essentially the same staples of human thought that caused that war and so many other prior and since. I for one would applaud the author for publishing this account and remembering a side of the war that in our society and historical conscience is often forgotten, the suffering of the losing side, however much the victors feel it was deserved.

Perhaps instead of fighting amongst ourselves we should all focus on what is our duty as either witnesses of the war, or, as in my case, students of the history it has become, the duty of ensuring that no democratic nation ever turns to tyranny again as a result of divisiness, hatred, or fear. Let us do what our predecessors failed to accomplish, and perhaps we can break the cycle.

Jan Tammen, York, Pennyslvania, USA

The question is, Matthew, as you say, "Is there a better way?"
The answer is that of course there is a better way and it is somewhat independent of politics. Also consider how the world was 500, 700, 1000+ years ago, how only centuries ago such atrocities were commonplace.
When pondering or trying to come up with some verdict on situations such as the War or Hilke, to be fair, it is important always to divorce the crimes from those who committed them.
Another question, more pertinent (to me), is how to fit this article among your others!

Kevin Johansen, San Francisco, California

Why does there have to be all this bickering?
Children are children. History is history.
Can we not simply look at Hilke's account as another piece of the puzzle in our very complicated history? Why must we compare everything? It's an interesting historical document. Enough.

Deborah, London, UK

Yes, there was a better way. Of course Germany had to be fought, but the carpet bombing of Germany did not even achieve its strategic objective of destroying civilian morale and industry - I remember visiting the sites of industrial plants in the Ruhr which were left intact while the civilian areas had been obitlerated. Bomber Command lost 60,000 dead - as many as died in air raids in Britain. Resources wasted on bombing could have been used to launch D-day earlier and save Eastern Europe from communism. I also blecnh every time I pass Bomber Harris' statue.

No one denies the horror and futility of the Holocaust, but lamentably it was not unique. Hitler killed 3 million Polish Jews - and a further 3 million non-Jews. Of the 12 million Germans expelled in 1945 from the east, 3 million did not make it to Germany, the killing did not stop in 1945. Probably 20 million died in the Gulag, and we do not yet know the full tally of Mao's victims.

Stanley, London,

Hilke's diary is just a tiny glimpse of the 'Holocaust of the Germans that occurred under Allied bombs. The Allies bombed civilians not military targets; they created a diabolical myth: that the Germans were evil and they the liberal democracies were good. Wrong. The lesson of history shiows us that the Allies and in particular the Soviets and Americans were and are quite capable of the same monstrosities that emerged from the Nazi Reich. Eisenhower may have hundreds of thousands of dead on his conscience in flagrant violation of the Geneva concentions on POW treatment. The Russians may be upset that a statue is torn down in the Baltic but they don't want to remember the name Kolyma. Nor have they ever apologized the ordered mass rape of German women.

CT Jones, Bellegarde, France

There is of course a better way and that is to nip the careers of would-be tyrants in the bud. In turn, this requires vigilant peoples, politically active, historically informed, and ready to postpone immediate gratification to the discomforts and uncertainties of early resistance to cant and lies.

Derek, Shanghai, China

The diaries Hilke and Anne Frank are surely common in the sense of being young, innocent victims entrapped in the results of devastating ideologies not of their making, which they are trying to bravely attempting to comprehend through more innocent, questioning eyes. Surely one can see the common human condition without having to label by their nationality/religion, or enter into discussion about the relative justifications of Bomber Command strategy etc?

Richard, Auckland, New Zealand

Few German posts, please everybody, forgive my intrusion. Five years younger than Hilke, my life has glimpses of both hers and Anne Frank's. I escaped. Survivors & victors write history, Michael.The dead are silent, AF a rare exception! As a scientist, I have no wish to write on "THE QUESTION." Wouldn't know either what to say, MP. Facts are facts. Imbecil crooks took over my nation in 1933. Our ancestry part Jewish (my brother will deny it) but converted protestants long ago, my parents moved us around Germany, rural areas, to avoid trouble. A pediatrician, my Dad did all he could to protect us, joined the Party, searched the family tree, as required for Aryan status. He is known in Hamburg for helping to surrender the city to the English (his Lazarett was shelled by your army). Then denounced, imprisoned. Denazified helped by testimony from a British officer. Mum sold jewelry, china, silver for black market food. My sister did not survive the debacle. By grace, I live.

Hermann Burchard, Stillwater, OK , U.S.A.

There is a better way, but not an easier way. Jesus was tempted to stage a military insurrection against the unjust occupation of His country, but He decided that was not the answer.

Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK

It is quite wrong to join Anne Frank with any other diarist or memorialist of the WW2 years who was NOT Jewish. Jews had a unique experience and it is a form of denial of that experience to conflate it with the experience of others. The diary of the child Hilke is interesting in its own right. There was no reason to mention Anne Frank at all. It is true of course that many in the media in the UK are constantly pressing to re-write history and belittle the experience of Jews. I wonder what Parris' motives are?

E.Purgold, Cambridge, UK

I was a child during the war but I remember the American newreels. I particularly remember the devastation of Rotterdam (there was probably an earlier one showing the blitzing of Warsaw but I do not remember that). I do remember the moving pictures of the endless streams of refugees - mostly on foot but some on waggons or in carts and a very few in cars - carrying all their possessions fleeing from the German armies in the Low Lands and in France. I remember, as nightmares, the wailing sound of the Stuka divebombers bombing those columns of refugees. Perhaps these films could be shown again together with those shot when Belsen was liberated so that MP and those others too young to remember might try and understand what Britain (and Bomber Harris) was fighting.

Solomon Green, London, UK

I am typing this with eyes so full that I can barely see the screen, not least because of some of the nasty and combative remarks already posted.

Hilke and Ann Frank had in common their innocence, their complete helplessness to affect anything which was going on around them, and the fact that the adult world violated their childhood just as completely as if they had been raped.

It ought not to be beyond us to feel sorrow for both of these young women.

In another room in this house my three year old grand-daughter is fast asleep: a child whose world is secure, warm, loving and happy.

I weep at the notion that her elders who have learned nothing from the lessons of history may one day consign her to the charnel house of war. Sentimental? of course. But also sorrow based on fear for the future

John Pearce, Monkseaton,

Thank you Matthew Parris & Jim Paisley------ I envy the way you can express my thoughts so well. The depressing reaction by most of the people here confirms that there is a helluva long way to go before we answer the original question.

jerym eedy, caerphilly, U.K.

As one who fought in WW2 I am sure we all appreciate the

disdain felt for us by those who did not.

The alternative?? Simple.:

Join with the Swiss and the Swedes and not fight at all.

In that case you sit out the war and if the baddies win ,C'est le vie.

There is no such thing as being neutral.

Saladin, Greenwich,

Six million! I must not defend the ethnic interests of my people.

Fank Standing, Brighton,

Wow, this collumn has really been utilised as an opportunity for various posters to air some apparently long held-in latent anti-semitism.

The following moved me to post: Burt, or "Sceptic" from Andorra: "the Jewish people have acheived so little or have given so little to the World "

Please, your Jew-hatred is only matched by your ignorance...look up the percentage of Jewish nobel-prize laureates... besides which some major contributors to the "World" through the ages include Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Franz Kafka, Bob Dylan, Mendelssohn oh yes, and one Yeshua Ben-Yosef - a.k.a Jesus Christ.

NH, Formerly London , Now I remember why

Lets get this in proportion.
Germany started the war.
Read: I have not seen a butterfly around here, and see the impact the invasion by Germany, on their country, had on Jewish children transported to Terezin. Millions of children were deliberately murdered, starved and beaten by the Germans and their accomplices because they were Jewish. Up to 15000 children were transported to Terezin, prior to deportation to Auschwitz and other concentration camps where they were murdered. Only 100 came back.(the exact numbers will never be known)

Many English children died in air raids or were orphaned by German bombs.I still wake up in a panic if a heavy aircraft flies overhead at night.44% of our air crews were killed
No doubt given a choice these men would have preferred to have lived a contented and safe life on civvie street. Unfortunately in the war you did not have a choice, you were called up. Not everyone could get away with being a conscientious objector.

kris, Dunstable,

In reply to Fred Jones' comment that, "we [are] constantly bombarded by the Holocaust" and "[the Holocaust] is this the ONLY historical event we are obliged to accept as true, without any first hand evidence".

The Holocaust was not the first time that humans have sunk so low and treated their fellow humans with such utter contempt and, importantly, it was not the last. Because it was not the last, we must never forget the Holocaust and the other awful attrocities commited by one group of people against another. The more we are reminded of the depths to which humans can go the more we are able to avoid the same thing happening again.

Secondly, there IS plently of first hand evidence of the Holocaust. No reasonable person could deny the sheer inhumanity of the Nazis.

I am surprised no one has responded to Fred Jones' comments but perhaps no one has responded because his postion is so preposterous. However, so long as there is even one Fred Jones then they must be challenged!

Raymond Baudon, Edinburgh,

I live in Stuttgart, one of the largest and most vibrant cities in Germany. It's hard to imagine that 60 years ago it was all rubble.

When thinking about strategic bombing, we don't have to censure the brave aircrewmen who endured one of the worst casualty rates of the Western Allies. Neither do we have to justify the slaughter that it caused - the deliberate targetting of civilians is rightly today regarded as a war crime, no matter who does it. And certainly it should not lead us to question whether Nazi Germany was an evil that was rightly snuffed out.

We must never, however, allow ourselves to succumb to the delusion that wars can ever be lightly entered into, or fought without the spilling of inoccent blood.

Philip Brydon, Stuttgart, Germany

A better way is a matter of opinion, which is inevitably a function of one’s own interest. Of course there other ways. For example, they could abolish official secrecy and only private secrecy would be allowable. That would do horrible things to a lot of ‘important’ people to the considerable advantage of people like Anne Frank. I can’t see it happening in a rush but undoubtedly it is one alternative.

Henry Percy, London, UK

I have enough compassion to pity all innocent victims of war. Which I must certainly consider a child brought up in a totalitarian regime to be. Yes, Hilke was luckier as she survived and wasn't sought for as Anne, but why does that have to mean that it's wrong to pity Hilke's suffering as well? Hitler was a madman who played big on ignorance and the Entente powers' oppression of Germany. If you had been born into that society and time, would you have stood up for democracy at the age of 14? I can't say anything but that I hope I would've done it, I will thankfully never had to find out.

Kristofer Dingwell, Goteborg, Sweden

Ms Edelstein, you are missing the point. His point is not pity for anyone in particular, whether German or German Jewish. His point is not about the Holocaust at all. His point is, like many Londoners, in the course of daily life, he passes a statue which still exists to Bomber Harris, an Englishman. I have passed it myself many times and asked the same question he does.

He is brought to consider what the continued presence of this statue in our capital means. He has been reading a child's book which vividly makes it clear what it meant on the ground.

Perhaps you do not know what Harris did, why he justified it, and what it cost in English lives as well as what it did on the ground.

The diary reminds him of Anne Frank's. But no amount of reflection on the Holocaust, or pity for its victims, will resolve this issue for him and other Englishmen. Nor would it resolve similar experiences Americans might feel in similar circumstances about Hiroshima.

George Johnson, London,

No better way until people who need to run the lives of other people (i.e. politicians) cease to exist. Democracy is a control on politicians, but is not infallible. It requires honest politicians, or institutions that identify and communicate lack of honesty to the electorate. It requires an electorate who participate in democracy, which is much more than merely voting on rigged reality tv shows.

Democracy has not controlled the behaviour of the current UK government - immigration is unchecked and unmeasured, crime touches most of us directly, even though both are major concerns to the electorate.

Many countries have even less democracy (e.g. China, Iran, North Korea), but do have the technological capacity to threaten and blackmail those who do. If Germany had been an effective democracy in 1939, Hamburg would not have been bombed. Until democracy becomes global we need the RAF and other services to protect the UK. Inevitably, Blair&Brown have neglected the UK's armed forces.

Tony G, Harrogate, UK

MP, perhaps the answers can be found in the responses to your column. What I read as a compassionate musing on the diary of an innocent child in wartime others seem to have read as an opportunity to air their prejudice and intolerance.

So there you are. Perhaps people like you, MP - who are capable of consideration for the innocents, no matter their parentage - hold the potential for 'another way'. Sadly, you will always be outnumbered by the bigots and warmongers.

John Blackley, Austin, TX, USA

While I sympathise with Matthew Parrish and his feelings for " Hilke ",
I think it is about time to discuss The Palestinian Holocaust. There is
a minority view that Israeli interest's do not allow such an Article !
I am sure there are many Palestinian children who have written about
their family treatment at the hands of the IDF. The Dispossessions,
arbitrary killings, destruction of their homes, the killing of children !
An opportunity for The Times to prove impartiality ?

Mr.M.J.Ryan., Christchurch, UK

Judith Edelstein has it right. The issue is not whether Hilke deserves sympathy, or of the evils of war. The issue is the untenable and provocative comparison to Anne Frank. The same is true for Parris' earlier column where he makes the odd "observation" to the effect that the reputation of the Jewish people has dropped more so than any other people in history (!) --a collective judgment of a people--any people--that belongs to a nastier past. Parris would be much more effective if he didn't make these gratuitous provocations. He also needs to move beyond this special concern, if I can put it that way, with Jews. He is drawing interesting company in the process--and one can see that in some of the comments to this article.

David Hastings, Phoenix, AZ, USA

I am roughly the same age as Hilke would now be, and, like her, after a brief evacuation to the country, I returned to face the aerial bombardment of my city – not Hamburg in my case but London. I did not keep a diary, but I have recorded some of my memories and feelings at the time on the BBC - WW2 People's War archive.
War was and still is very horrible, and once it has been allowed to start it has to be seen through to the bitter end. Hard decisions are honourably made, and glorious deeds are performed; but there is no glory in victory.
This is a lesson which, sadly, the present generation is having to re-learn.

Roy, Newent, Gloucestershire

I think that Mr Parris needs to do some hard thinking. Sentimentality will not suffice. Perhaps he will now publish an article on the life and death of DICKEY LEE. He was last seen on 18 August 1940 thirty miles North East of Margate pursuing three German fighters, running out of petrol, and disobeying the order to return. A close friend had recently been killed in battle (compare the war experience of Siegfried Sassoon). As I write Iraq is in chaos.

Gerald Morgan, Dublin/Lydbrook, Ireland/England

To Judith and the other confused on here - not all - this isn't about comparing AF with Hilke. It's fundamentally about the insanity of war, and to make the point MP has elaborated the contrast between the innocence of a child who simply wants to live a normal life, with the brutality of war - waged by adult human beings possessed of too much power, taken from or given to them by their trusting subjects, too many of whom end up paying the ultimate price. The total "tally" for the 2nd WW alone was over 60 million, almost all of whom were innocents by any yardstick - a bit of time and perspective lets us see this truth clearly - and in that monstrous figure tens of millions of tragic tales are lost. The murder of innocence on such a scale is beyond comprehension. MP's final paragraph in which he weaves together so many of the pertinent disparate elements that make up the tragedy of war is truly evocative and heartbreaking in its plaintive cry for a better way to solve our problems.

jim, Paisley, Scotland

"anne frank with a difference--- that difference being that while anne frank was born jewish, hilke was not. so hilke grew into a woman, married and died by accident. but anne, because she was jewish, died alone, naked under a rag of a blanket, sick and emaciated, realizing that the world she had viewed so optimistically had, in fact, abandonned her. there were 6 million anne franks, each with a different tale of horror. save your pity for them.

judith edelstein, great neck, united states" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forgive me for repeating it whole but there lies the whole problem. Anne Franks parents were Jews and Hilkes parents were not Jews therefore Hilke does not deserve any pity.To put it another way pure bred Aryans are good and pure bread Jews are bad. .Now who believed that?

jerym eedy, caerphilly, U.K.

Judith Edelstein writes "..there were 6 million anne franks, each with a different tale of horror. save your pity for them."

I prefer to save my pity for the living, and currently there are plenty of people living in the occupied territories who have tales to tell that are little different from anne frank or hilke. Excercise your conscience on their behalf.

John Small, Faversham, UK

Anne Frank will always have a special place in my heart, as she does in the hearts of so many others. While Judith Edelstein is quite right, to point out that the fate of Anne was so different to that of Hike, can we not feel sorrow for any child who has to endure the ravages of war?

Thomasyne Flynn, Leiden, The Netherlands

Nice column. Remembering that oridinary Germans were victims of the war, too, in no sense diminishes the Holocaust.
I think that the ability to empathise is the only chance for preventing war. Unfortunately our leaders only view victims as statistics.

Daniel, London, UK

What is all this about pity, it is an interesting glimpse into a lost world from a slightly prissy girl's perspective. Anne Frank was holed up in a bizarre and terrifying, psychologically straining situation and it is fascinating how a young girl can deal with that, one person whose experience can in some way stand for 6 million others'. Hilke was out in the Fir trees feeding the Deer, it is not quite the same level of suffering or indeed of interest, but it is something that is rarely seen, an innocent's view of the Third Reich, and brings lots of questions to the mind about the strange futilities and chance courses of life.

Statten Roeg, London,

I offer one point of view.
In the years between WW1 and WW2 a desperate search was made to find a "better way". It failed, and it is failing again now. Why ?
Is it because the truth about having to face vicious demagogues is so unbearable it cannot be acknowledged ?
Or is it because the "hand wringing liberals" would rather evade the question than admit they are wrong ?

Peter Bolt, Redditch, UK

No, there is no better way.

Only way to defeat the Nazis and gang that taken over Japan in the 30's was to kill a lot of German and Japanese civilians, as innocent, sweet and recognizable as they may have been.

When a high level journalist-sketchwriter asks a quesion like yours - "is there a better way?" - to deal with the bad guys, then there are only possible explanations:

--the writer has had a difficult day, and had to get something, anything onto the screen.

-- the writer has serious internal barriers, perhaps unadmittable to himself, to adequate inner/emotional maturity.

bluey , lausanne, switzerland

Why are we constantly bombarded by the Holocaust - why is this the ONLY historical event we are obliged to accept as true, without any first hand evidence, and on pain of imprisonment?

fred jones, Birmingham, uk

Interesting article giving a different perspective of war.Its very easy to look at war/conflict from the victors view as this will enter the history books.
The Romans were one of the most successful empires but very little is written of enemies unless used as a propaganda weapon..
Mankind has not changed in the last 10,000 years and its simplistic to judge events.
Given the oppurtunity any nation's media can, given sufficient time and resources mould the majority of its population to believe in any great ideal whether it be National socialism or Stalinism who are we to judge.
Its important to listen and read views from an opposite standpoint.

Michael Cartz, Telford, Great Britain

Yes, the difference was that Anne Frank was deliberately murdered for being Jewish (along with 6 million others) whilst Hilke lived through the justifiable consequences of that terrible crime. Mr Parris should be ashamed of himself for making such a distasteful and ludicrous comparison.

Stan Rosenthal, Lindfield, England

I'm ex-RAF, post-WW2 but I've delivered the odd mite of mayhem - which did no good I ever perceived, despite looking as hard as I knew how.

And still I see restraint in warfare as a contraction in terms. The only way to avoid the slaughter of the innocent, which term incidentally includes conscripted/drafted soldiers, is to punish the megalomaniacs who reach Downing Street and the White House for the lies that trick us into warmongering follies like Iraq - and Iran?

Noel Falconer, COUIZA, France

Judith Edelstein why do you have to compare Anne Franks diaries with this young girls beautiful reflection of her growing up and don't you think we have had enough of this Jewish propaganda it has been going on for over 60 years OK, it was a tragedy but so were very many others and ever since and at every opportunity the holacaust has been exaggerated, massaged and rammed down the throats of people all over the World as if nothing else mattered and I for one am sick of it, maybe because the Jewish people have acheived so little or have given so little to the World this is the only thing they have to speak about so they give it their all but enough is enough get on with your lives.

Sceptic

Burt , La Vella, Andorra

Judith, Anne Frank was innocent, so was Hilke.

AndyN, Reading, England

Withholding pity from Hilke because she was a Christian European puts you on the same level as those who withheld pity from Anne Frank because she was a Jewish European.

Nick Strange, Cologne, Germany

It is interesting to note that at the end ".All the pictures of Hitler are being buried, ..."

Burying objects in this way suggests that the owners were planning to recover them one day when the heat had died down, something which suggests that the German population of 1945 was not exactly repentant about its late Leader.

Michael Huntsman, Kettering,

Poor Miss Edelstein.
I pity her.
All four of my grandparents owed their deaths to Germany.

john, london, england

A fervent fan though I am, Mr Parris, I fail to see the reason for even mentioning this girl's diary in your column. Unless you mean to say that she too was a victim - albeit a lucky, privileged one - of her Führer and his willing executioners, not anyone else. (By the way, it's also Düsseldorf.)

Willem Ginckels, Mechelen, Belgium

I know the question. It is 'Why do people obey orders?' I don't know the answer.

eric campbell, harrogate, uk

Judith, Suffer the little children etc etc etc?

Chris, Northampton,

anne frank with a difference--- that difference being that while anne frank was born jewish, hilke was not. so hilke grew into a woman, married and died by accident. but anne, because she was jewish, died alone, naked under a rag of a blanket, sick and emaciated, realizing that the world she had viewed so optimistically had, in fact, abandonned her. there were 6 million anne franks, each with a different tale of horror. save your pity for them.

judith edelstein, great neck, united states

Hilke lived through the real holocaust, where innocent people were indeed burned alive. The Hamburg firestorm was actually worse than the one in Dresden. Instead of industrial areas, working-class boroughs had been singled out for destruction by the RAF.

Vladimir P. Nin, Riga, Latvia