immediately after victory I entirely agree with your  
friend that a long-range policy of continued  
suppression and penalisation would be a fatal mistake.  
Just as after the last war we should all begin  
disagreeing among ourselves as to its application  
and we should only invite the passionate effort of  
Germany to free herself from Allied interference.  
I also agree with him when he rules out the  
extermination of the German people. That does not  
however exhaust the alternatives. There is the  
third alternative of immediate and drastic reduction  
of Germany's power to become formidable in the future.   
That can be achieved most simply by taking away from   
her part of her fundamental resources in territory.  
My own solution would be immediately on the end  
of hostilities to allow the Poles to take East  
Prussia, expelling the German inhabitants and replacing   
them by the Polish pooulation of those Eastern districts   
which Russia will undoubtedly insist on retaining.  
Similarly the Poles and Czechs might divide and  
repopulate Upper Silesia with its great coal and iron   
resources and also expel the German population, or most   
of the German population, of the Sudetenland. Alsace Lorraine   
naturally goes back to France, and I see no reason why the Saar   
should not be added to it and the German population cleared out.    
Austria of course should be restored to independence.  
Such measures, coupled witb the appalling losses in the  
war, should permanently weaken Germany's vis-avis  
her neighbouts whose resources and ultimate population  
would be strengthened.