A GERMAN VIEWS THE OCCUPATION
Boeker, Alexander
A German Views the Occupation Part 1 — Aims and Methods Bu Alexander Boeker Alexander boeker hat devoted mosi of his life to scholarly activities. Born in Germany, he wet educated at...
...and to do the utmost to make their country economically self-sustaining and able to live without American subsidies...
...Where unable to take a direct hand in the shaping of policy, they exercize great influence by duping well-meaning hut soft-headed "liberals" into following their line on Germany, emphasizing that this was the policy devised by Franklin Roosevelt...
...So doe> the equally critical report of the Con gressional Watchdog Committee Thi dismantling list to this day contain: several dozen plants producing vita mining machinery, at a time whet ECA is spending millions of dollars t ship mining equipment to the Ruhi Plants making steel pipe are being dis mantled at a time when the oil indus try all over the world is gravel...
...No wonder the Morgenthau Plan is dying hard...
...Boeker hat written several articles in the past for The Ami Leader, the most recent being "The Internationalized Ruhr...
...1) Restitutions should be stopped at once, since all identifiable Nazi loot must by now have been traced and returned...
...If, on the other hand, the occupying powers continue to treat Germany as a source of raw materials rather than of finished goods, and as an object of legalized plunder rather than a partner in reconstruction, they will not only earn no credit for their aid and their constructive efforts, but will convince the German people that the Communists are right when they tell them that they have nothing to lose but their exploiters by turning East and joining the Soviet bloc...
...furnished by Germany...
...Almost always has it entailed some measure of corruption on both sides...
...It has no power over "restitution" cases...
...In 1933 he attended Oxford as a Rhode* scholar, after which he returned to Germany, only to Ue* shortly alter from the Nazi...
...It is in their implementation that a wide margin of disagreement exists...
...Since then there have been many noteworthy changes in United States policy, beginning with the Stuttgart speech of former Secretary of State Byrnes in September, 1946, crystallizing in the new directive to General Clay, issued in the summer of 1947, and culminating in the inclusion of Western Germany in the Marshall Plan...
...The argument that this would encourage the Russians to do likewise seems pointless, since this has been Soviet policy anyway for the past three years...
...Allied policies must be moulded accordingly, and Germans will judge it in that light...
...1948...
...Present American policy towards Germany might be summed up under three headings: Making Germany safe Cgainst both Communism and Nazism and encouraging the development of democratic institutions...
...It is therefore not surprising that few people, Allied or German, regard the occupation of Germany since 1945 as a great success...
...And above all, it is the persistence of earlier and different policies which has so far retarded progress in the desired direction...
...having highest priority as producers o railroad equipment, are also slated fo dismantling, although Military Gov eminent is making strenuous efforts t get the German transportation systcn restored...
...A small body of Swiss and Swedish experts might well determine and interpret this standard of living index, This program, if adopted, would enable the German people to repair at least some of the frightful damage which the war caused in their own and in neighboring countries...
...They have reHMtettne recovery of Germany and of *lt Europe alike...
...Tin- gre-a' bulk of goods thus bought by Germans was properly paid for...
...Levels of industry should be abolished and the recent London agreement to establish an International Authority of the Ruhr should be umended to provide that under no circumstances should German workers be compelled to maintain a standard of living lower than the average standard prevailing in the countries that make up the control authority...
...Furthermore, there are valuable pieces otjnachinery to be had free as "reparations'' or "restitutions" or "multilateral deliveries" or by way of "deblocniage," whatever the new name for expropriation may be...
...Whether ihis will turn out to be the case is a different matter...
...Such a state of affairs is bad enough in the relationship of two" sovereign States, lint in the case of Germany the occupy, ing powers arc1 the do facto Govcrir ment...
...ECA, under the Mutual Aid Agreements, may .recommend a halt in dismantling only of plants earmarked for "reparations...
...There are few instances in history where it has not tended to embitter rather than to improve the relationship between the occupying nation and the occupied...
...wfUCttkAR DESTRUCTIVE tendenJfL/ap&kiA by sentiments of revenge god by the greed of competition, are prevalent also in the foreign trade policies of JEIA, the bizonal Joint Export Import Agency, and in the decartelization policy pursued by the three Western Military Governments, fhev have already caused widespread l&Jfering in Germany and have cost %e American taxpayer many hundreds <m millions of dollars...
...More important, thousands of vested interests have been created all over the world, most notably in Britain and France-, through the prospect of Germany's prolonged economic prostration...
...The proponents of the latter are not only fighting a highly successful rearguard action, but are still, from time to time, winning notable gains...
...As long as it remains an Allied aim...
...3) There has been, and still is, a tendency among Allied policy-makers to view the German situation not in the light of facts, but of preconceived notions and theories...
...There should be a general bookkeeping to assess the total number of plants and machinery taken out of Germany since the beginning of the occupation...
...yet iii sight...
...There has, of course, always been a flourishing trade botueer Germany and her neighbors...
...It would be a great mistake, however, to believe that the Marshall concept of economic reconstruction and integration had finally won out over the negative policies usually referred to as the Morgenthau Plan...
...The Germans, whatever their other virtues and vices may be, are a frank and straightforward people...
...Fellow travelers and Communists everywhere are subtly working for economic chaos in Europe which they know they can most successfully achieve through the destruction of Germany's productive power...
...The directive . contained a whole catalogue of purely negative terms and ideas and explicitly instructed Military Government to "prohibit and prevent" production in a long and comprehensive list of industries...
...in 1943...
...helping Germany become an economically healthy anil cooperative member of a European common wealth...
...Moreover, there i* no bookkeeping as to restitution removals...
...to contributa the fullest share in the European Recovery Program...
...They cannot afford to have theif policies continuously out of focus...
...There are export markets to be captured which Germany used to supply, and there are large surpluses of finished goods, unsaleable elsewhere, to be dumped on the German economy at handsome prices, charged as a mortgage- on Germany's future export balances or paid for by the long suffering American taxpayer...
...MILITARY OCCUPATION of n country, though often a temporary necessity, is at best a questionable instrument of policy...
...German estimates suggest that until last summer 51 percent of the machinery taken out of Germany bj the- Allies was dismantled under thi title "reparations...
...Legitimate reparations claims not yet met should be satisfied out of current German production...
...IT IS HARDLY an accident that British machinery exports to Europe have increased since 1939 in the same ratio in which German exports have diminished...
...of "restitution...
...This has been, and continues to be, grist for the mills of all the enemies of democracy in Germany, on both the right and the left...
...AIMS AND METHODS of the rice•ligation of Germany of course have undergone great changes since 1915...
...There- are patents to be expropriated, trade marks to be exploited, raw materials to be extorted fjom the German economy at prices far below those prevailing on the world market...
...They will respect their occupiers only if they either start practicing what they preach, or cease preaching what they don't practice...
...Here then are some suggestions to remedy this situation...
...To some extent this is the understandable result of war-engendered emotions...
...Above all, they have given the average German the feeling •th*t AHfe'd talk about permitting Germany la recover economically and to Ejr*lter iwoper place in the family of httions is so much hypocrisy^ that 'America and her Allies are helping to (feed Germany with one hand only to %e able the better to rob her with the •other...
...Hardly less disastrous is the polic...
...That would mean that the equivalent of about 1,00 medium sized factories had ahead' been "restituted...
...The French Government, as a concession to German protestations, agreed that any object certified by its French seller as having been sold voluntarily may be retained in Germany...
...Much mac-Inner) was produced from raw material...
...handicapped by the shortage of thi very commodity...
...4) The list of prohibited industries should be revised and should be confined strictly to armaments and munitions plants...
...Originally designed ti provide for the return of Nazi loot ti formerly occupied countries, thispnlicj has been so expanded as to make at properly acquired by German nationals in Nazi occupied countries subject to confiscation...
...LOOKING AS A GERMAN at the occupation of my country, I feel that the objectives of American policy in Germany are in jeopardy unless three attitudes of the occupying powers are considerably overhauled: 1) Destructive policies, which have dominated especially the economic field dining the first three years of occupation, must be brought to u speedy end and must be replaced by a wholly constructive program, if the seeds of a new totalitarianism of despair are not to be planted...
...Unemployed Hamburg dock workers and bankrupt shipping men grimly reflected that British progress just about equaled their own decline...
...2) There has been far too much discrepancy between Allied words and Allied deeds...
...Tiny are likely to undergo further changes in the next three years...
...Twenty-two plant...
...Last summer the British Information Library in Hamburg displayed pictures and statistics to show the rise of British shipbuilding and shipping since the end of hostilities...
...Where it cannot be found, substitutes are confiscated...
...Yet, the occupation of Germany, like that of Japan, is in a different category from other occupations of modern history in that it was conceived to be of such duration as to be almost semi-permanent...
...and preventing the settlement of disputes among the European family by force of arms...
...He hat recently returned from an extensive trip to Germany, having lectured at various universities...
...And the end is no...
...3) Dismantling of factories should be stopped completely...
...Such machinery is now being tracked clown and returned to its country of origin...
...It is also caused by faulty Intelligence and by genuine- ignorance on the part of all too many policy-making officials...
...2) Control over foreign trade should be turned over to exclusive German control, with the Allies exercising supervision, so as to exclude the possibility of foreign competitive business interests using JEIA to stifle German exports rather than to further them...
...The dismantling of factories, or parts of factories-an anachronism in the light of the- Marshall Plan still continues...
...It would be fatal for the Allies to overlook the fact that Germany's food resources after all were traditionally in the East and that, if the coal of the Ruhr and Saar arc denied to the German economy, that of Silesia can be had—at a price...
...Born in Germany, he wet educated at the Universities of Munich, Koenigsberg and Berlin...
...With these broad objectives few Germans would quarrel...
...An eminent author and editor, Mr...
...THE DESTRUCTIVE ASPECTS of the occupation were the direct result of the scuttling of the Atlantic Charter and of the chain of tragic wartimedecisions that started with unconditional surrender at Casablanca and led via Teheran and Yalta to Potsdam, They found their classical expression in "Directive JC 1067" to General Eisenhower, issued in April 1945, in which the General was told to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany or designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy...
...Continuation of the program can only mean looting in reverse...
...to raise their own standard of living and thereby that of their neighbors...
...Hoffmann's expected recommendations for a stop in the dismantling program...
...The snag is that any Frenchman signing such an affidavit automatically becomes subject to prosecution as a collaborator, "Restitution" was to have ended a long time ago, but for some unexplained reason it is still being continued...
...published on March 20...
...and that after all the Soviets 'are not so far off when they claim that Western Germany is being made a field of Unlimited "capitalistic exploitation...
...He came to the United Stale*, where lie was appointed at a teaching fellow at Harvard, from which he obtained a Ph.D...
...In fact, it has lately been intensified, as a means of bypassing Mr...
...It is incumbent upon Germans to point out what the consequences of these policies Bre likely to be and to make suggestions...
...F.xport reports critical of the program, such as the Collison Report and the Wolf Report on' the Germai steel industry, both written last autumn remain secret and unpublished...
...Yet it is from the mistakes of the past that we must shape our policies...
Vol. 32 • March 1949 • No. 12
