THE SWEDISH MARSHALL PLAN
OLBERG, PAUL
The Swedish Marshall Plan Quietly, Sweden Plays Good Samaritan to Europe By Paul Olberg New Leader Correspondent in Sweden STOCKHOLM. SWEDEN'S WIDE-RANGING activity for relief of postwar...
...Their profits, which run as high as 70 percent, revert to the German Economic Commission...
...Stakhanov Comes to Prussia Commissars Drive Workers to Speed Up Production By Guenther Weber New Leader Correspondent in Germany BERLIN...
...Since the government and this commission have great difficulty in increasing the amount of investment capital, ways must be devised to direct the flow of money back to the state...
...The "free stores" more and more help to finance the occupation government and the Socialist Unity Party...
...All they want^to know is whether you have enough spare tires to...
...Academic people, unless they are SED members, cannot secure entrance into the universities for their children...
...Or during the month the record is made, only hah% fabricated Droducts will be turned out which, naturallv...
...These shops are a means of legalizing the black market...
...In round numbers, this was the breakdown: 44,000 Norwegians, 30,000 Baits, 29,000 Danes, 25,000 Finns, 19,000 Germans, 8,000 Poles, Of this number, 87,465 were engaged in various trades and professions...
...According to official statistics there were registered in Sweden on January first 167,000 foreigners...
...Among these are Svenska Europahjaelpen (Swedish European Assistance), Roeda Korset (Red Qross), and Raedda Barnen (Children's Relief...
...get you there and back...
...In France, 200 modern two-family houses were erected without cost to the French people...
...Political groups are trying to step up industrial production by means of propagande pressure...
...In the awarding of scholarship's it goes-^v^Mrsaying that the members of ms^ommunist organizations, the Free German Youth and the Young Pioneers, have the preference...
...The Swedish people have contributed to a new housing project In Vienna, named Per Albin Town after their late Prime Minister...
...Morally rehabilitated by being placed in secure positions, they are making an important contribution to the national life...
...They are prepared for this change in advance by having their supplies of goods cut off...
...In accordance with a government decision, the Red Cross brought no less than 31,000 homeless persons into Sweden from German concentration camps...
...The figures showing that past records or achievements of other concerns have been surmounted are often flatlv fn'sifled...
...This is Germanv's version of the Stakhanovite tempo...
...The clothing of people in the street is pitifully poor...
...It symbolizes perfectly the meaning ef Sweden's Marshall Plan...
...Contrary to the practice of other nations, in Sweden the care of refugees was directly organized and financed by the government...
...Lately the expropriation of private enterprise has been extending to trade and handicrafts...
...wrmits the reaching of impressive total flBores...
...Besides the enormous material assistance contributed by the Swedish government, more or less private organizations have been making notable contributions of their own...
...Little businesseseverywhere are being taken over...
...The so-called "free stores" of the Trade .Organizations play a constantly increasing role in trade...
...Extraordinary means will be used to whip up the employees so that they will outdo themselves...
...Various assistance organizations and certain offices of the Government—such as the Alien Commission and the councils for labor administration—work together perfectly...
...The drives for financial support have been splendidly organized on a national basis...
...Throughout the entire life of this region the lines draw tighter, as indeed they must in a totalitarian country...
...An activist, of course, must be a member of the Socialist Unity Party (Communist...
...The necessary funds come from voluntary contributions...
...THIS ASSISTANCE went to 14 needy countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland, Rumania, Soviet Russia, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and Germany...
...The people you meet are under-nourished and pale...
...Those who take the lead in speed-up propaganda get the advantages when it conies ta distributing the shoes, clothes and commodities...
...So you will often see in the streets queues of customers before the socalled cooperative shops, the government shops, while the shelves of tha private merchant are empty...
...Despite constant control on the highways and in the cities, one can make his way about without great difficulty...
...After they were restored to health the refugees were given the privilege of remaining in the country...
...It is even said that the directors of the SED are considering a plan to pay wages and salaries partly in coupons which can be used only in the "free stores...
...SWEDEN'S WIDE-RANGING activity for relief of postwar suffering has been correctly characterzed as the "Swedish Marshall Plan" For this labor of construction Sweden /¦as expended not less than three billion Swedish crowns, which amounts to S125 per inhabitant...
...More and more, trade and manufacturing in the East Zone is being carried on with the methods characteristic of Soviet Russia...
...Thus these institutions will become more and more a means of taxing the people anil directing the stream of surplus/capital back into the hands of the government...
...Show windows remain vacant...
...In the East Zone all the propaganda is now centered on this Hennecke movement...
...On the Russian side the investigation by the German police is careful but fair and honest...
...Private concerns are alloted materials only if their production is needed to fill out the quota planned for an entire industry...
...Employed foreigners enjoy all of the privileges uf Sweden's modern social services...
...Worthy of mention is the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Fund which, set up after the tragic death of the UN mediator in Palestine, was enthusiastically supported...
...A considerable number of the refugees have become naturalized citizens...
...This means that a supreme effort will be made during that month to set a production record...
...Swedish European Relief is a voluntary organization which unites the energies of 37 great parties and societies, including Social Democratic groups, trade unions, cooperatives, the Red Cross, Children's Relief, church guilds, chambers of commerce and manufacturers' associations...
...four hundred of them have been given employment as research workers in various fields...
...No one was forced to leave...
...This purpose is especially aimed at in the schools...
...Amorfg these refugees, the intellectual workers have not been overlooked...
...often, serve as standards for sfttina their rate of nnv or...
...Contests will be started between different concerns and between workers in the same concern...
...This figure bei limes more imposing when one recalls that the initial appropriation for the Marshall Plan itself involved an expenditure of only $35 per inhabitant of the United States...
...Then the figures of this month will be used as a quota for future months...
...TO FACILITATE THE FLOW of money to the banks an order has been issued to the effect that no business concern may keep more than 200 marks in its cash-box...
...Lately, in fact, the policy seems to be to deny the private businessman raw materials altogether...
...From 1946 to 1949, 53,000,000 crowns were collected...
...month...
...Most of them were weak, sick and helpless...
...ANY ACCOUNT of Sweden's Mar shall Plan must stress that country's refugee policy...
...Theachievement records set under such circumstances nre then used to evaluate the work of emnlovees and mav...
...Without discrimination, they were placed alongside native workers on the country's production lines...
...ENTERING GERMANY'S Eastern Zone is not too difficult now...
...For example, the month of March is a so-called "Hennecke...
...They were all made welcome as guests of the Swedish state, and were fed, nursed and furnished with clothes and money...
...All forms of relief were offered, with special attention given to feeding children, building nursing-homes and furnishing medicines...
...On every factory are great posters, often illuminated, about the contest to break records during the Hennecke month and demanding .allout effort in the interest of the twoyear plan...
...All government-owned enterprises are forbidden to deal with private business unless it is absolutely necessary...
...New government regulations require eight years of uninterrupted residence in the country as a condition for naturalization...
...In addition there were contributions of clothes and shoes to the value of 75,000,000 crowns...
...even, disrharaina them...
...In order to enforce this order, the banks have the right to inspect the books of business concerns and take possession of surplus funds...
...THE POLITICAL POLICY of the Eastern Zone may be called a stomach policy...
...There has been little change in East Zone living conditions since my visit last summer...
...Although the East Germans have regular ration cards, it is impossible to buy cloth without special permits...
...The activist who works hardest gets most advantages...
...The debasement of the citizens is being systematically pursued...
...Sweden'a aid to Europeans will come to an end in 1949 with a final drive for funds which, according to plan, is to bring in one crown per person per month...
...All able to work were given the right to seek andoccupy jobs...
...On the Ame/ican side of the line officials are more concerned with a traveler's equipment than with his official papers...
...Fortunately, the prosperous condition due to the great demand for goods added to the success of this policy...
...The food ration is bare...
...Resolutions by workers to participate in such contests are, of course, always "unanimously" adopted...
...This project, which lies in the industrial section of the city of Caen, bears the name of the former leader of the Swedish labor movement, Branting...
...In all the great cities, especially in Leipzig, the eternally shouting loudspeakers and the newspapers and radio broadcasts keep dinning this message into the ears of the populace...
...In fact, their prices are often higher than the West Zone's old black market rates...
...All considered - the mclusiveneSs of the program, the generous physical relief, the making available of jobs*and citizenship—it is no exaggeration to say that Swedish policy with reference to the refugees is the most humane in the world...
...People's shoes are worn and torn...
Vol. 32 • June 1949 • No. 23
