Summary
"I remember seeing him sitting on the bishops' bench, and I went to him and said, George, I believe you are going to make a speech. He replied, yes I am. I said, George, there isn't a soul in this House who doesn't wish you wouldn't make the speech ..." Lord Woolton, 1944
George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, was the most famous churchman of his day. His brave speech attacking the allies' bombing tactics in World War Two is justly remembered here by Peter Hitchens as one of the clearest, most coherent and measured statements ever made about the war. But his contemporaries did not see it quite the same way. "Don't let's be beastly to the Germans," sang Noel Coward, in part inspired by Bell's anti-war stance.
But George Bell was not a pacifist - he just believed that the British should not be as barbaric, as he saw it, as the Nazis who had provoked the war. In his speech Bell said, "... to justify methods inhumane in themselves by arguments of expediency smacks of the Nazi philosophy that Might is Right." The controversy surrounding the tactics of bomber command remain alive today.
Peter Hitchens is a columnist on the Mail on Sunday, and was once described by a contemporary as a 'deeply compassionate man with the air of a propher about him; and like all prophets, doomed to be scorned by so many'. The programme discussion also includes Andrew Chandler, director of the George Bell Institute; and the presenter Matthew Parris.
The producer is Miles Warde.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult? |
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| 0:10.0 | I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti. I saw a footprint and that really gave me gusmas. |
| 0:16.4 | Or people who knew me. Emme, I remember every secret, every lie. I'm the only one who knows the truth. |
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| 0:29.0 | Great Lives is a download from Radio 4. |
| 0:32.0 | We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear. |
| 0:35.0 | This program is about moral courage, a man who spoke out against something popular, but that he believed was wrong. The date was |
| 0:44.4 | 1944 and in the House of Lords a Bishop stood up. His subject was the bombing of |
| 0:50.2 | Germany. George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, was not a pacifist. He had campaigned |
| 0:55.4 | furiously against Nazism, but he did believe the tactics, the area or blanket bombing of cities |
| 1:01.7 | like Dresden were immoral. |
| 1:04.0 | Here's an extract from that famous speech. |
| 1:06.0 | There's no archive, so I'll read it. |
| 1:09.0 | It will be said that this area bombing is definitely designed to diminish the sacrifice of British lives |
| 1:16.2 | and to shorten the war. We all wish, with all our hearts, that these two objects could be achieved, but to justify methods inhumane in themselves |
| 1:25.5 | by arguments of expediency smacks of the Nazi philosophy that might is right. |
| 1:32.8 | It said that George Bell missed his chance to become Archbishop of Canterbury because of |
| 1:37.1 | that speech, and some believe that Noel Coward wrote his sarcastic, |
| 1:41.1 | Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans with him largely in mind. |
| 1:45.1 | So a remarkable man. |
... |
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