GEN. CLAY REPORTS
Silver, George
Gen. Clay Reports DECISION IN GERMANY, by Gen. Lucius D. .Clay. Doubleday. 522 pp. $4.50. Reviewed by George Silver THERE IS already an imposing accumulation of literature on postwar Germany...
...Here was an able soldier who learned from experiences in the field and grew with them...
...It will be for us to explore if this were a task for a soldier, if this were a field to have been so totally left to the decisions of one man...
...our contribution to peace and the future of Europe would have been of., greater promise...
...The task of economic and social reconstruction in Germany would have been a staggering challenge even if it had been undertaken under the most favorable of circumstances, i.e., with complete cooperation, goodwill, and lack of selfish design on the part of all the occupying powers...
...Of necessity "a personal report," as this book is, must also contain a great deal of explanation and justification for our accomplishments, and lack of them in Germany...
...It will also give the reader a rewarding feeling that in so trying and explosive a situation this country was represented by a soldier who with all his shortcomings in background captained a risky course with firmness, reserve, and a steady nerve, with a strong appreciation for the realities...
...Here is the most inclusive story told so far of the facts and issues which required solution in the most complex single task ever faced by our country beyond its borders...
...In this array of reports Decision in Germany will take its place as a basic historical primer...
...This book is bound to have a salutary effect, for more than any other that has appeared to date it should give one humility in face of so complex a challenge and invite the scholar, statesman, and social scientist to probe the field for the many questions that remain unanswered...
...It is tragic that this country failed to bring to the challenging task of democratization in Germany the imagination, resources, and detachment with which we approached problems of science, production, and organization, which confront in moments of decision...
...If we had spent one-tenth of that amount of energy resources and know-how on social reconstruction...
...Our policy in Germany proceeded on the assumption that all the Allies can live and work in concert after the war just as they fought together in the face of a common enemy...
...a confused and uninformed public opinion...
...That such circumstances are non-existent where the Kremlin is a partner, was obvious even to the most elementary student of the Soviet regime...
...a military addled with a task for which it was neither suited nor prepared...
...This volume tells with admirable calmness and authenticity how the best of our intentions turned out to have been based on wishful thinking...
...Clay's performance in Germany had all the positive and negative aspects which constituted our political and social situation at home: a government unaccustomed to an international role into which it was thrust...
...Clay gives us the full panorama of events and issues which led up to the present stage where today Germany embodies, on a partial scale, the conflicts that plague the whole world—order and chaos, democracy and totalitarianism...
...In the field of social reconstruction this book tells more of decisions and solutions postponed rather than of solid accomplishment...
...Moreover, this volume provides a portrait of the man who not only wrote it but who—more by circumstance than by design—actually made Decision in Germany...
...We have done a magnificent jo| in the economic rehabilitation Germany...
...It seems to be a fair generalization by way of an estimate that Gen...
...Reviewed by George Silver THERE IS already an imposing accumulation of literature on postwar Germany which attempts to explain and analyze events following the Nazi collapse...
...nothing of lasting value could have been attempted without it...
Vol. 14 • April 1950 • No. 4
