PrintAugust 27, 2011
Two Great Minds on World Peace
The year was 1932. At the invitation of the League of Nations, the predecessor of today's United Nations, two world-famous scientists exchanged open letters addressing the issue of putting an end to all warfare.
Both men were Jews -- one German, the other Austrian. Both had lived through the Great War of 1914-1918, in the aftermath of which the League of Nations had been formed to ensure that nothing like it would ever happen again. But now, with the storm clouds of Nazism gathering with frightening speed, both men knew that another war was likely -- and that the League of Nations would be powerless to prevent it.
"Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?" wrote the German to his Austrian counterpart. In his letter, he proposed "[t]he setting up, by international consent, of a legislative and judicial body to settle every conflict arising between nations." Ideally, every nation involved in a dispute would unquestioningly...(Read Full Article)
