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GRUESOME HARVEST The Costly Attempt To Exterminate The People of Germany By Ralph Franklin Keeling It is inconsistent to show solicitude for the
welfare of Germany or the German people and at the
same time to support the Potsdam agreements,
because, as we have seen, the latter were intended
not to help Germany recover but rather to prevent
her from doing so. Potsdam was based on the
Morgenthau Plan and the Morgenthau Plan had
stipulated: "Under the circumstances" must be underscored as
meaning an absence of essential facilities. The
territorial losses and seizures; the program of
over-crowding through expulsions of millions of
eastern Germans; the wholesale enslavement of
German manpower; the liquidation of German science
and managerial, technical, and professional classes
through de-nazification; the settling of the low
level of industry decided upon, coupled with the
industrial sacking and elimination of all German
external resources - all these measures on top of
the war devastation cannot be described as anything
but a program to throw Germany and her people into
a state of collapse. But these are not the only acts of repression.
Taxes have been raised to confiscatory levels which
stifle incentives and prevent operation of the free
enterprise system. They have helped to socialize
German economy and kill the profit motive. They
have corrupted public morals for even the poor must
contrive to dodge them in order to have enough
income to buy shoes.[1] We have refused to
establish an exchange value for the German mark in
terms of other currencies, preventing privately
handled imports and exports and throwing what
little external trade there is into the hands of
the military government. And instead of trying to
work out some intelligent plan for the
resuscitation of the collapsed financial system we
have proceeded to make matters far worse by such
actions as the printing of vast sums of occupation
currency which will almost certainly help create
the 1923 inflation disaster and complete the
destruction of the German middle class.[2]
Such a result would serve the ends of Soviet
Russia, but hardly those of the other powers. It is difficult to imagine the depth of German
depression. When the United States reached the
bottom of 1932, industrial production had fallen to
60 per cent of normal. The depression was so severe
- the losses so enormous, the unemployment so
widespread - that it almost brought a
revolution. Industrial production in Germany a year after
V-E Day was 10 per cent of what used to be
normal. Production in our zone has gradually risen until
it reached a high of about 12 per cent of the old
normal, or about 20 per cent of the new permitted
levels. With the cut in rations, however, the index
began a steady decline.[3] On May 4, Brig.
Gen. William H. Draper, AMG director of economics,
reported that output in our zone was "far below
that necessary to maintain the minimum standard of
living." The report went on to give production
figures for individual industries as percentages of
capacity. Here are a few samples: chemicals 25 per
cent; electric power 20 per cent; building
materials 20 per cent; steel products 13 per cent;
ceramics 5 per cent; farm machinery 22 per cent;
electrical equipment 15 per cent; automotive and
industrial machinery 10 per cent.[4] The
following summer it was reported that less than 30
per cent of available industry in our zone was in
operation.[5] Deputy Military Governor Clay at the end of
August declared that it will take at least four
more years for Germany to recover sufficiently to
bring production up to the bare subsistence levels
set under the deindustrialization
program.[6] War destruction plus the Allied program of
repression have created thorough disorganization.
Of the plants not bombed out completely, many were
obsolete, others located in areas where residential
destruction was so complete that there was no room
for workers, or where available transportation and
communications could serve only a fraction of
production.[7] Freight carrying has been
slow and unreliable, able to meet only 70 per cent
of the low demand. Passenger service is covering
only 30 per cent of German requirements. Cars are
jammed and passengers even hang on the sides and
tops. Railroad shortages lie in rolling stock,
ships, manpower, coal, and result in part from
bottlenecks and the inevitable inefficiency of
military control.[8] Low coal production has been a key problem
resulting in part from lack of civilian goods
available to miners and their families. The AMG
official in charge said in July, 1946, that the
miners must be fed better and treated better in
other ways to get improved output. "We are going to
have to provide decent housing and we are going to
have to make consumer goods available, as an
incentive for the miners to dig. At present they
cannot even buy needle and thread with which to
patch their pants . . . There is no slowdown
conspiracy nor underground political sabotage by
the workers, it is just that they have not enough
incentive to work."[9] A high ranking British officer a few days
earlier had admitted that anti-British sentiment is
growing in the Ruhr. He said: "The Germans are just
beginning to appreciate the economic hardships
imposed upon them by allied policy. It is natural
there should be a stiffening of the German attitude
toward this policy, and that the British should
receive the brunt of this stiffening since the
reparation program takes more from the British zone
than from other parts of Germany." He pointed out
that the miners lack incentive due to the absence
of food and other necessities and added: "In a
vicious economic cycle we do not have consumer
goods because manufacturing plants lack the coal to
make them. Therefore we must have more coal for
production."[10] Bottlenecks and shortages permeate the whole
German economy as the inevitable consequence of war
destruction and the production prohibitions
enforced under the level of industry plan. In July,
1946, for example, it was reported that the metal
shortage had halted the production of plows, while
the supply of horseshoes and nails was about
exhausted. The number of motor trucks in Berlin,
with its 3,000,000 inhabitants and area five times
that of Chicago, was down to 8,000. Solder was not
available even for mending pots and pans. Shoe
cobblers were using old portfolios, dice boxes,
helmet liners, any piece of salvage leather they
could find to repair shoes. Although 50,000 school
children were out of shoes, the supply of shoe
nails was about exhausted. Because of lack of
permanganate of potash, caused by dismantlement of
I.G. Farben plants, the manufacture of saccharine,
vitally needed on account of the sugar famine as
well as by diabetics, was threatened. Manufacture
of adhesive tape, muslin, bandages, and surgical
dressings was halted in Thuringia because cotton
mills appropriated by the Russians would not
furnish raw materials. Cement production, sorely
needed for reconstruction, was low because of
dismantlements and shortage of machinery and
tools.[11] Reports reveal that such
industries as rug, fabric, cutlery, toy, and
musical instrument factories, fortunate to have
survived the war, lack fuel and raw
materials.[12] Current German production has been far less than
enough to supply current minimum needs of the
populace. For the first year, it was possible to
draw on reserve supplies left over from
pre-surrender days and spared in the looting and
destruction even of vast leftover food stores by
the armies of the victors.[13] But these
reserves were gradually exhausted, leaving a dark
prospect for the future. Clothes wore out and could
not be replaced, due to the virtual nonexistence of
textiles for civilian use. In consequence, as one
report put it: Desperation for money to buy food on the black
markets to supplement the starvation rations, has
led the Germans to sell their assets, disposing
first of what they need the least. Their rings have
gone, then watches, bracelets, that other pair of
shoes, dresses, jackets, suits. As one Berlin
reporter put it: Associated Press bulletin from Hereford,
Germany, dated September 9, 1946 reads: A little later an arrangement was made for
miners to work Sundays, so that the average family
of four in the merged American and British zone
could have fuel this winter equivalent in heating
value of a little over half a ton of hard coal for
a six months period.[17] A month later the
unions voted not to work on Sundays. In the face of this grim prospect, the best that
could be hoped for in the way of food by the
population living on the very edge of starvation,
suffering from famine edema, swelling of joints,
and all the other terrors of gradual starvation, as
stated before, was an increase in rations to the
"grim and dangerous" 1,500 calorie level throughout
the 1946-47 winter. In June, 1946, Col. H.B.
Hester, in charge of the American military
government food branch, predicted a disastrous
famine in Germany the next winter unless the ration
level was raised by October.[18] His report
followed another by Col. W.L. Wilson, chief of
public health and welfare, that the condition of
the conquered people was sinking rapidly under the
present ration.[19] In the French zone 5,000 have died weekly of
starvation.[20] In mid-summer of 1946, in
Berlin, 19,000 very serious tuberculosis cases for
whom no beds were available were reported
officially by American authorities. The Senate of
Hamburg issued an appeal to England and the entire
world to send food and medicines to "avert terrible
epidemics and mass deaths." Hamburg motormen and
conductors were imperiling safety of public
transport by "fainting from hunger" and dropping at
their posts from long undernourishment and weakness
while on duty. The Medical Council of Cologne
informed the British military authorities that the
population there "is facing catastrophe" unless
food was quickly provided, adding that "resistance
to infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis, is
vanishing." Authorities in the Rhineland sent an
appeal from Düsseldorf to the British military
government to "close the murderous food gap," in
order to check rapidly spreading disease and
epidemics caused by hunger." A medical authority
said: With this frightful prospect it will behoove
relief organizations to operate at maximum capacity
if millions of lives are to be saved. Big Four officials have laid all the blame for
Germany's distress on the war and zonal separation.
In their view Potsdam would afford the best
possible solution to all difficulties if only zonal
division could be corrected. German territory west of the Oder-Neisse line
was divided into four zones to be occupied and
administered by the military forces of Russia,
Great Britain, the United States, and France. Russia's zone, comprising the eastern
half of Prussia west of the Oder-Neisse river line
is the best balanced of the four zones. In addition
to containing some 45 per cent of Germany's
manufacturing during the war, it produced more than
enough food for its own consumption and mines brown
coal and other minerals. Other sections of the
Reich had been heavily dependent upon it for many
key raw materials and manufactures. Stripped as it
has been, it nevertheless supplies Russia with a
sizable flow of goods taken as reparation. Britain's zone comprises the western half
of Prussia. Within it is the Ruhr District which
contains the continent's most valuable natural
resources, especially large deposits of high grade
coal close to Europe's best iron ores, and lies in
the midst of Europe's densest concentration of
population in a region served by excellent rail and
water transportation. Molotov rightly called it
"Europe's workshop." Despite intensive cultivation
the zone suffers a heavy food deficit, and even
coal production has been at a low ebb since V-E
Day. Administration costs are 320 million dollars a
year above revenues. The American zone lies in the central and
southern sections of the Reich. Most of it is
mountainous and largely scenic. It is not and
cannot become self-sufficient in food production
and is highly dependent upon various imports. It
perfectly illustrates the essential interdependence
of all sections of German economy. All of its hard
coal requirements must be imported from the Ruhr or
Saar regions, and 83 per cent of the steel required
by its many manufacturing establishments must come
from the outside. Lack of coal has forced partial
or total closing of many industries; for example,
the pharmaceutical industry, which needs coal tar;
the tire business, which needs buna made from coal;
and various fabricating, processing and finishing
establishments. Because of the steel shortage, the
largest tin can manufacturer in Bavaria closed so
that some 10 million tins badly needed to put up
the 1946 crop of peas, beans, and fruit, were not
made. Large numbers are unemployed and
administration is costing the American taxpayers
200 million dollars a year. France's zone consists mostly of
provincial fragments of former Germany bordering on
France and contains no complete political or
economic entities. Its chief asset is the Saar
Basin, rich in coal and steel. Although intensively
cultivated, the zone is not self-sufficient in
food, because of heavy specialization in vineyards
and orchards. It must import its potatoes from
Bavaria, for example, and other zones rely upon its
food specialties. One of the outstanding facts about Germany is
the dependence of each section, and now each zone,
upon all the others - for food, steel, coal,
timber, and other essentials. The peace settlements
did not anticipate economic separation of Germany's
highly interdependent regions. Since the zones were
set up strictly for administrative purposes and
were not supposed to exert any divisive influence
upon Germany economy, zonal boundary lines were
laid out promiscuously across political and
economic subdivisions. The belief that the zones
would remain one thing and German economy another
is clearly shown in the early statements and
declarations of policy. Potsdam directs that "during the period of
occupation Germany shall be treated as an
economic unit," and an earlier Big Four
statement on control machinery for Germany decrees
that: This demand for results made impossible by the
conditions laid down simultaneously has been about
as effective as commanding the sun to stand
still. Insisted upon by Russia the requirement that
Control Council decisions "shall be unanimous" has
in practice barred "agreed decisions on the chief
questions affecting Germany as a whole," and has
brought anything but uniformity of zonal action. It
has killed Control Council effectiveness just as
the veto power also insisted upon by Russia has
destroyed the effectiveness of the Security Council
of the United Nations Organization. France has been particularly obstructive in
Control Council voting. Although British and
American delegations insisted upon inclusion of
France in the Four Power control and occupation of
the Reich, France has never signed the Potsdam
agreements. In consequence she is not bound by the
agreements, yet is able to veto their
execution.[22] She has frankly admitted her
opposition to German unification and, for her own
presumed self-protection and territorial
aggrandizement, has demanded that Germany be
Balkanized and destroyed as a power factor of
Europe. To achieve this end she had obdurately
insisted, as mentioned before, that the whole of
western Germany be broken off and either
internationalized or added to France. Upon taking
her place among the Big Four, she served notice
that until these demands were met, she would veto
all Control Council decisions aiming to treat the
Reich as an economic unit and thereafter lived up
to her promise - even to such a fine point as
rejecting a national postage stamp. France has been by no means alone in blocking
unified economic administration. Russia has been
almost as obstructive and would probably have been
more so had France not been so obliging. Even
Britain and the United States have not hesitated to
balk whenever it appeared selfishly advantageous
for them to do so. In the absence of "agreed decisions" calling for
uniform action in all zones, the Reich has become
divided into four economically deficient and
unbalanced "air tight" compartments, each
administered exclusively by its occupying power as
though it were a colony or protectorate. More
difficult to surmount than those of independent
states, zonal boundaries form such barriers to
interzonal intercourse that what little trade
occurs must be barter deals arranged by special
treaty. [23] Although such economic dismemberment would alone
guarantee economic disorganitation, it cannot
rightly be made to serve as a scape-goat for all
the sins of Potsdam, nor for the British and
American zonal deficits. Even in the absence of
zonal separation the other harsh and repressive
measures ordered at Potsdam would assure German
economic paralysis. Disregarding this manifest fact, many officials
find it convenient to lay all the blame on the
zonal barriers and to argue that if they could be
eliminated Potsdam would be transformed from a
dismal failure into a dazzling success. The thesis
may enable them to avoid admitting the colossal
blunder Potsdam really is, but it also serves as a
bar to taking the steps necessary to meet the
trouble fundamentally. Put forward as a general panacea for all German
administrative ills, economic anschluss of
as many zones as possible has become the chief
objective of our zonal authorities. In the attempt
to break down French and Russian objections, they
offered to divide the Reich into a number of
federated states and to guarantee German
disarmament for 25 or even 40 years. After this
proposal was rejected on the ground that it was
wholly inadequate and would lead to war, they
offered to merge the American zone economically
"with one, two, or three other zones."[24]
In making the offer, AMG Commander in Chief,
General McNarney, observed: Although Russia and France turned down the
offer, Britain accepted and the task of effecting
economic unification of the British and American
zones was undertaken. Even if such an economic merger can be made
effective in the absence of political unification,
which is doubtful, it is but one short step in a
long way that must be traveled before substantial
permanent amelioration of Germany's plight can be
attained. On the other hand, the merger partitions
the Reich between East and West and intensifies and
embitters the conflict between the two. Reference Notes: |