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GRUESOME HARVEST The Costly Attempt To Exterminate The People of Germany By Ralph Franklin Keeling Looting The sacking of Germany after her unconditional
surrender will go down in history as one of the
most monstrous acts of modern times. Its excess
beggars description and its magnitude defies
condemnation. Allied armies that swept into Germany came with
blood in their eyes and the conviction born of
propaganda that the Germans had lost caste as
members of the human race, were unworthy of
protection afforded by human law and civilized
institutions such as property rights and security
of person. It was not thought of as looting, but
simply as helping one's self to property the
Germans had forfeited by being German. Russian soldiers were particularly ravenous,
their appetites for loot being restrained only by
the limitation placed on their own rights to hold
property. Things the individual Russian soldier
could keep, such as wrist watches, they snatched on
sight, even from the arms of Yankees. The serious looting by the Russians was
conducted officially, systematically and
thoroughly. Every house and apartment was entered,
searched, and stripped of everything at once
valuable and movable - jewelry, silverware, works
of art, clothing, household appliances, money.
Stores, shops, warehouses were ransacked. Farms
were denuded of farm animals, machinery, seed
reserves, fodder, wine and food stocks. Telephones
were removed from residences, telephone and
telegraph lines and equipment were dismantled.
Automobiles, motor trucks, even fire engines, were
seized. Everything not nailed down was hauled
away.[l] For the German standard of living
must be lowered to the average of Europe. The Russian armies of occupation, kept equal in
size to the combined occupation forces of the
western powers, live off the land, paying for
requisitions by paper occupation marks. Exorbitant
occupation costs afford the Kremlin an effective
device for milking the territory. Charges in the
Soviet zone of Austria are several times greater,
relatively, than those the Germans imposed on
France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, and
elsewhere.[2] This, despite Austria's
promised "liberated" status. All of the Allies have issued huge amounts of
military currency which the Germans are forced to
accept in "payment." It is conservatively estimated
that altogether they have pumped into the country
between 15 billion and 20 billion occupation marks
as against a normal currency circulation of between
7 and 9 billion.[3] This means that the
four powers have obtained between 2 and 4 billion
dollars worth of German property for the mere cost
of printing money issued in payment. Just as there was a preponderance of American
forces in the armies that struck against the west
and south of Germany, so in these sectors was the
preponderance of the looting American. Chicago
Daily News foreign correspondent William H.
Stoneman, stationed with the U.S. 3rd Army, wrote
in May, 1945, when Germany was surrendering: A few days later he cabled: In one case looting resulted in arrests and
trials. A WAC Captain and a Colonel were arrested
in America and tried in Frankfurt, Germany, for
taking $1,500,000 worth of jewels, mostly of the
House of Hesse, from a castle owned by Princess
Margaret of Hesse, granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
Defense attorneys at the trials made clear the
extent of looting which had been done and the
philosophy behind it. An on the scene account reads
as follows: It is, indeed, unlikely that the case would have
gone to trial had the owners lacked such imposing
connections. It is well known that we took from
German museums some 200 art masterpieces with the
intention of keeping them. Public opinion was so
outraged that President Truman found it expedient
to promise their return; yet no one was prosecuted
or even arrested. American Provost Marshall Lt. Col. Gerald F.
Beane, whose duty it is to deal with crimes
committed by our soldiers, in an official report
released in Berlin late in 1945 on the nature and
extent of criminality in our army of occupation
stated that larceny and robbery are the crimes most
frequently committed by our soldiers. A leading
daily comments: Most of this type of looting died out during the
first year of occupation; after that the methods
became more subtle and indirect. Late in July,
1946, GI's were called to task for "sleeper
purchases" of German properties which could be
bought at the time for almost nothing, but which
may some day have great value.[8] Full
advantage has been taken of the currency chaos. In
September, 1946, military authorities, to kill
American profiteering in the black markets and
illegal acquisition of foreign exchange, issued a
new scrip currency, to replace all "foreign and
allied military currencies in financial
transactions throughout United States army
installations."[9] And if official Russian
accusations can be given credence, American
officials have stolen equipment from plants in our
zone earmarked for shipment to Russia on
reparations account and sold it to foreign
countries for their personal
profit.[10] However, the type of looting just discussed,
although it has run in value into hundreds of
millions of dollars and robbed the German people of
comforts and necessities they have sorely needed
during the dreadful days through which they are
having to pass, is but petty larceny as compared to
the gigantic program of industrial sacking
authorized at Potsdam. Potsdam decrees that future German production
shall be so limited by the Allied Control Council
that the average German standard of living will not
exceed the average of the standards of living of
other European countries, exclusive of Britain and
Russia, and that "productive capacity not needed
for permitted production" shall be taken by the
conquerors as plunder or destroyed. The prostrated
German economy must be drawn and quartered and its
flesh fed to other economies, a project which has
aptly been called "economic cannibalism." Potsdam piously recites, as a mere observation,
not a mandate, that the program "should leave
enough resources to enable the German people to
subsist without external assistance." At the same
time it admits that remaining resources are
disastrously inadequate, for it says that the war
and defeat "have destroyed German economy and made
chaos and suffering inevitable." Still, it proceeds
to lay down a reparations program to destroy or
remove a large part of the scanty remaining
production facilities. After much wrangling and horse trading, the
Control Council in March, 1946, reached its
decisions fixing the future levels of production
both for Germany as a whole and for individual
industries in accordance with Potsdam's
stipulations. As a top limit, but by no means a
guaranteed minimum, Germany's output under these
orders may reach by 1949, but not surpass, the
level to which it plunged at the bottom of the
great depression of 1932, just before the Nazis
were voted into power, when a third of the German
workers were unemployed. . In carrying out the Potsdam mandate calling for
the "elimination or control of all German industry
that could be used for military production" and
emphasis on "the development of agriculture and
peaceful domestic industries," many ordinarily
peaceful industries are entirely prohibited. These
include shipbuilding, manufacture and operation of
airplanes, ball and taper roller bearings, nearly
all types of heavy machine tools, heavy materials,
aluminum, magnesium, beryllium, vanadium,
radioactive materials, hydrogen peroxide, and
synthetic oil, gasoline and ammonia. Exports and imports are rigidly controlled and
drastically restricted. Payments for necessary
imports are given first call on proceeds from
exports. Imports are confined mostly to a small
amount of food and nitrates for fertilizer; exports
are limited largely to coal, potash, and lumber.
Foreign trade in the ordinary sense has been
impossible, however, and will remain so, as long as
the mark is given no value in terms of other
currencies. Future production of a large number of domestic
industries is drastically restricted. Electrical
engineering is cut in half; mechanical engineering
by two-thirds. Synthetic textiles are sharply
curtailed. Over-all chemical production is reduced
to 45 per cent of the old level. Steel production
may not surpass 5,800,000 ingot tons a year,
against the former 54,000,000 ton
capacity.[11] Britain had argued that such
a level would turn the Reich into an economic
desert and had fought for a 7,500,000 ton level.
Since Russia had held out for a much lower figure,
however, the 5,800,000 ton ceiling was reached as a
compromise. All during the negotiations Russia had fought
for extremely low production ceilings. She had even
asked for a sharp reduction in permitted food
imports, to reduce the volume of necessary exports,
and thus to free more industrial booty in which she
was to share. When a little later shipment of
reparations to her from the western zones was
halted, she suddenly reversed her stand, however,
and asked for higher ceilings. Molotov specifically
demanded higher coal production and said, "The
Reich must be permitted more steel, greater
industry and foreign trade." Mr. Byrnes at Stuttgart stubbornly defended the
agreed production ceilings and insisted the program
would permit some betterment in the German standard
of living if the German people would work and save
hard enough. Apart from generating bitter despair through
closing the door to any hope of achieving
prosperity, the ceilings have had little practical
significance, because actual German output has
remained far below the permitted levels. Our
military authorities have asserted that it will
require years for German recovery to reach the
ceilings which have been set. The current effect of
the program has been largely confined to repression
of power to produce thorough destruction and
removal of productive capacity and other measures,
such as the banning of scientific research. German science, upon which German industry
depended heavily, has been dealt a lethal blow,
partly by direct prohibitions and partly by the
operations of the denazification decrees which
automatically ended the careers of the great
majority of German scientists, at least within the
Reich. Potsdam has ordered control of "all German
public or private scientific bodies, research and
experimental institutions, laboratories, etc.,
connected with economic activities." In harmony
with this decree, German science has been
suppressed by orders from the Control Council. Research (in Germany) by scientists who had been
Nazis or had contributed to the development of
German weapons, secret or otherwise, has been
banned. Others, and they are very few, are
forbidden to probe into a long list of specific,
comprehensive subjects, 10 general categories of
chemicals, and anything of military value or
nature. Pure or theoretical science - explorations
into the basic laws of nature and the like - may be
conducted by the few eligibles, but only under
military government surveillance. In other words, German science has been
destroyed, and with it German ability to compete
commercially with the war victors. German scientists, as a matter of fact, have
become a highly esteemed form of war plunder.
Russia, the first to recognize their value, was
unable to hide her anxiety and frantic efforts to
grab as many as she could. Britain, France, and the
United States were not slow in following her
example, entering the competition with marked
success. We even managed to kidnap a large number
from the western Russian zone when we retired to
let the Russians take over. At first our interest
was confined to experts who had been working on war
developments, especially atomic fission and secret
weapons. Others in our zone, including numbers who
had fled before the Red armies, were held in jail.
We changed this wasteful policy, however, after Dr.
Roger Adams, head of the chemistry department of
the University of Illinois and scientific adviser
to the deputy governor of AMG, declared it unwise
to confine ourselves only to war industry
scientists, since many of those languishing in
prison would prove equally valuable to us for other
purposes if we chose to use them. In consequence we
have now at our disposal hundreds of ex-German
scientists who no doubt constitute one of our most
profitable acquisitions taken from the fallen
Reich. Perhaps they should be counted as
reparation. In addition we have sent into Germany teams of
experts to scour the country and search out all
German patents, designs, and secret processes,
privately owned, or otherwise. According to
Assistant Secretary of State Willliam L. Clayton,
in testimony before a U.S. Senate committee in June
1945: Mr. Morgenthau called for the industrial sacking
of Germany by proposing that, instead of repeating
the mistake made after the last war by demanding
"reparations in the form of future payments and
deliveries," requiring production and sale of
exports, this time These proposals to trample on the sanctity of
private German property could hardly fail to meet
with wholehearted approval in the Politburo. In
effecting the program no pretense is made that the
owners of confiscated private property will be
compensated now or later by either the Allies or
the German government, for the latter, if it is
ever established, will no doubt be so weak that
such compensation would be beyond its financial
capacity. Yet the Hague convention in Article 46 in the
section dealing with "Military Authority Over the
Territory of the Hostile State" says: "Private
property cannot be confiscated." Article 53
underscores the point by saying that any private
property taken during an occupation "must be
restored and compensation fixed when peace is
made." In view of the present deadly, worldwide assault
against the institution of private property, those
who pretend to be its defenders should insist upon
adherence to these provisions of international law.
Flagrant Big Four violations not only create the
injustices the laws were established to prevent but
incriminate the victors of World War II for the
very actions for which they so strongly and justly
condemned Hitler. One can readily understand why
Socialistic Soviet Russia would violate private
property rights in occupied countries, but the same
cannot be said of the United States. Russia at Yalta took the lead in demanding that
German reparations be set at 20 billion dollars,
half of which was to go to herself. President
Roosevelt, engrossed as he was in his "great
design," gambling that Russian suspicions of the
western capitalistic powers could be allayed by
giving Stalin everything he wanted, and more,
agreed to support the demand. Prime Minister
Churchill, however, pointed out the obvious fact
that if Germany was to be so weakened by
de-industrialization that she could not pay
reparations from current production and if
reparation was to be limited to plant and equipment
discarded by de-industrialization, there could be
no justification for Russia's position. The
de-industrialization program would automatically
limit the amount of reparation to the amount to
plant and equipment not ruined by war, less
whatever amount would be left to the Germans. For
the sake of harmony, however, the 20 billion dollar
figure was accepted "as a basis for
discussion." At Potsdam Russia was apportioned the lion's
share of the reparation. She was to receive all
from her own zone, plus 25 per cent from the other
zones. Of the latter, two-fifths was to go to
Russia outright and three-fifths was to be given to
her "in exchange for an equivalent value of food,
coal, potash, zinc, timber, day products, petroleum
products, and such other commodities as may be
agreed upon," presumably to be taken from her zone.
President Truman said of the arrangement: "It is a
means of maintaining a balanced economy in Germany
and providing the usual exchange of goods between
the eastern part and the western." In other words,
one section of German economy must give up to
Russia 15 per cent of the flesh to be stripped from
its bones in order to receive sustenance from
another section - a most remarkable form of
economic cannibalism. The value of Germany's bombed and battered plant
and equipment remaining at the end of the war has
been officially estimated at between 5 and 10
billion dollars, of which 45 per cent was located
in the Russian zone where Russia was given a free
hand. Under the "level of industry plan" 40 per
cent of this was to be available for removal as
reparation or destroyed. Total reparation,
therefore, could not be more than 2 to 4 billions,
and if Russia were to adhere to the general plan in
her zone her total share from all Germany could not
exceed 2.4 billion dollars. At first Russia went along amicably with the
program and, according to some reports, apparently
took far less than the 40 per cent allowable from
her own zone. In March, 1946, the head of the local
Thuringian government told correspondents permitted
to visit there on a conducted tour that Russia has
dismantled less than 100 out of Thuringia's 5,200
industries.[12] A later report had it that
out of 6,272 industries in the province only 310
had been dismantled, of which 80 had been able to
get under way again. Neither gave the relative size
of the establishments seized. If the plants taken
were of average size, they constituted only 2 to 5
per cent of the total. Early in the summer of 1946
the United States estimated that actual removals
from the Russian zone amounted to between 500 and
750 million dollars, exclusive of war booty,
restitution for destroyed or stolen Russian goods,
or occupation costs.[13] This was still
less than the allowance. Considering how thoroughly
she stripped such regions as Manchuria and northern
Iran before evacuating her troops, her early
restraint in her German zone, if true, would
suggest an ulterior motive. What this motive might be is indicated by the
fact, also according to reports, that over 90 per
cent of the plants in her zone were in operation,
with from 80 to 100 per cent of their output going
to Russia as occupation costs or reparation. For
example, at one plant with an output of 20 million
razors, the German market was to receive 3 million;
the rest was to go to the Soviet Union. Persistent
rumors, moreover, told of large German munitions
plants operating day and night in the zone
producing munitions and implements of war for the
Soviet Union. Meanwhile reparations shipments from the western
zones had gotten under way in April. The first
shipment was six shiploads carrying the physical
assets of the Deschimag shipyard, Germany's
largest, valued at $4,800,000. Soon to follow were
20 carloads of machinery and tools valued at
$5,000,000, representing half of the assets of the
country's largest ball bearing plant. Other early
shipments included the Gendorf unit of the Anorgana
Chemical works, valued at $10,000,000 and the vast
Daimler-Benz underground aircraft engine plant near
Oberingheim. By May, according to Reparations Commissioner
Edwin W. Pauley, the U.S. zone had earmarked 144
plants for removal to Russia, of which 35 or 40
were actually shipped, before we suddenly halted
further shipments on the ground that we must do so
to protect the economic interests of our zone until
interzonal economic unity had been achieved, in
harmony with Potsdam. Shortly before this, however,
the western powers had failed to get the Russians
to agree on how much inspection a four power
commission would be allowed to do in all four
zones, including the Russian. The idea has
originated in the Paris conference of Foreign
Ministers to allay interzonal suspicions and to
give each occupying power a clearcut picture of
disarmament in other zones. Britain has hinted that
she wanted to check rumors that munitions were
being turned out in the Russian zone; Russia had
retorted with the direct accusation that Britain
had not disbanded large units of the captured
German army and wanted to investigate. Whatever the reasons, we stopped further
shipments of reparations from our zone. And then
the storm broke loose. Russia apparently reversed her whole attitude
toward Germany. In June at Paris Molotov declared
it ridiculous to try to destroy Germany, called for
a strong, centralized and economically balanced
Reich with the Ruhr and Saar attached, specifically
asked for higher steel and coal production levels
than those Russia had previously agreed upon,
saying, "The Reich must be permitted more steel,
greater industry and foreign trade," and added,
"The Soviet Government insists that reparations
from Germany to the amount of ten billion dollars
be exacted without fail." His object was clear:
Russia now wanted a Germany able and required to
pay large reparations so heavy that socialization
would become mandatory, with "Anschluss" with the
Union of Socialist Soviet Republics to follow. Meanwhile, Russia was stripping her zone to the
bone, implying that it was necessary to do so to
guarantee a continued flow of reparations to the
Soviet Union. Many of Germany's greatest producers
of civilian goods were dismantled and shipped
eastward. Among them were the two largest shoe
factories (Lingel and Tack); the largest sugar
refineries in the great beet-sugar region; the
largest grain processing mills in Europe, at Barby
near Magdeburg; the great Bemberg Silk Mills,
famous before the war for their hosiery and
lingerie, and the Zeiss Optical Works at Jena. All
secondary rail lines were torn up and all electric
locomotives removed from the zone. But many of the confiscated plants were left in
Germany where they could be operated by Germans for
Russia's benefit. She installed Russian or
Communist foremen and placed Russians or Communists
on the Boards of Directors. In this fashion she
acquired complete ownership and control of 200 of
Germany's key industries comprising the zone's real
economic wealth and employing 1,300,000 workers - a
third of the zone's working population. Examples of
the industries seized are all of the I.G. Farben
Industrie plants in Saxony, including the famous
Leuna chemical factories at Merseburg, Bitterfeld,
and Wollin; the Reich's only important copper
works, the Mansfield Co., in Saxony; the machine
works of Krupp Gruson at Magdeburg; the Brabag
Brown Coal and Gasoline Co., near Gera in
Thuringia; the Polysius machine works at Dessau;
and many of the most important iron ore plants,
machine tool factories, coal mine companies, potash
mines, and electrical plants. America, which from the beginning had been the
most zealous in carrying out de-industrialization
in its own zone, made no protest to Russia until it
was learned that two establishments owned by
American concerns, the United Shoe Machinery Co.
and the Corn Products Refining Co., had been among
those seized. We then offered the suggestion that
Allied owned property should be exempted from
seizure and added the pious thought that plants
producing civilian goods should be kept in Germany.
Our note went unanswered. It is known, however,
that Russia has invented numerous excuses to give
her seizures apparent legality, among them being
the contention that plants with international
backing are abandoned property and that the owners,
most of whom have fled or been liquidated, were war
profiteers. Since Britain had come forward with a scheme to
nationalize the Ruhr and other industries in her
zone, potentially worth billions of dollars, in a
manner that would place title to much of it in her
own hands as "custodian" without one cent of
compensation to the former owners, she had lost all
moral ground on which to base a protest against the
Russian action. Nor could the French object, in
view of their avaricious, vengeful treatment of
their own zone, where looting has been just as
thorough as in the Russian, but far less
intelligent; where, for example, they demand most
of the crops to be harvested and at the same time
requisition draft animals in July just when most
needed to help gather the harvest. Although America went about the business of
dismantling and dynamiting German plants with more
fervor than was at first exhibited in any other
zone, our motive was quite different from the
motives of our allies. Russia is anxious to get as
much loot as possible from Germany and yet to make
it produce abundantly for Russia to help make her
new five year plan successful, and ultimately to
absorb the Reich into the Soviet Union. France is
ravenous for loot, has been anxious to destroy
Germany forever and to annex as much of her
territory as possible. Britain has found uses for
large amounts of German booty, wants to get rid of
Germany as a trade competitor, while retaining her
as a market for British goods. The United States
has no use for German plant and equipment as booty,
and has often said so. We consider our own abundant
production equipment superior. Apart from one or
two special cases, our primary interest in German
assets has been in those located outside Germany,
to eliminate German competition in world trade. We
are willing to permit the German people to subsist
on their own little plot of land, if they can, but
we are determined that they never again shall
engage in foreign commerce on an important scale.
In partnership with Britain we have carried out a
systematic campaign to root out all German contacts
and assets located abroad and have put our own
traders in their place. Known as the "replacement program," the campaign
is closely related to the "safehaven" program which
calls for the forcible elimination of all
accumulations of German capital abroad. The following extracts from testimony by
assistant Secretary of State William L. Clayton
before the "Kilgore Committee" of the U.S. Senate,
June 25, 1945, tell the story: "THE SAFEHAVEN PROGRAM" Accordingly, we have confiscated nearly a
billion dollars of property in this country
believed by our Justice Department to be owned by
Germans, although held in the name of citizens of
neutral countries such as Sweden and Switzerland.
Attorney General Clark says the Justice Department
contends these holdings now belong to the United
States Government. The external operation of the program has been
illustrated by our forcing Switzerland, Sweden,
Spain and other countries to hand over their German
owned assets. Sweden, for example, held German
wealth valued at 104 million dollars. At the same
time we held 200 million dollars of Swedish assets
which we had "blocked," that is, cut off from
Swedish control during the war. We used these
blocked funds as a club to compel Sweden to turn
the assets over to us. After long negotiations, she
finally did deliver 77 million dollars worth of the
German resources and we in turn unblocked the 200
million dollars in Swedish funds in America. After
obtaining the funds we confiscated them and divided
the loot with Britain and France. We were able to obtain half of the 200 to 250
million dollars worth of German assets held in
Switzerland and pried loose over 100 million
dollars worth of German assets from Spain. We have
used and are using every weapon and pressure at our
command to root out and confiscate German assets
all over the world, and in the process, as Mr.
Clayton testified, have dealt a death blow to
German foreign trade. That we officially recognize that the program
will also destroy Germany and exterminate the
German people was made perfectly clear by Mr.
Clayton in his testimony before the Kilgore
Committee. Dr. Schimmel, chief investigator, had
inquired of the Under-Secretary of State if it were
not true that the Germans had made their successful
penetration of South American trade for the purpose
of acquiring superior information facilities. Mr.
Clayton replied: Taking their foreign trade away from them, and
making it impossible for them to export
manufactured goods, the program advocated by Mr.
Clayton and embodied in the Potsdam agreements, was
tantamount, therefore, to pronouncing the death
sentence on the German people. Reference Notes: |