RECIPE FOR THE NEXT WAR
Hanighen, Frank C.
Recipe For The Next War By FRANK C. HANIGHEN (Editor of Human Events, for which this article was written.) THE Morgenthau plan for the destruction of Germany as an industrial state has, by its...
...It will take the most restrained and intelligent statecraft to unscramble them in a manner which must not penalize the victims of German aggression, but which must punish the Nazi leadership which is responsible...
...The pattern of the partition of Germany is said to prevail: some of its eastern territory to go to Russia and Poland...
...some in the West to the Western Allies...
...only the center to remain German...
...Can this really be called a recipe for peace ?" The repercussions of such a situation would certainly have serious results for the rest of Europe...
...The nature of the terms imposed on Germany will decide that issue...
...The present woeful condition of liberated Italy is in part due to the fact that it is cut off from the rest of the Continent from which it derived many of its raw materials...
...It is not generally realized that the Nazis in the past four years have forced many of the technical and material activities—plants, transportation, farming, banking, credit, etc.—on the Continent into a centralized machine for war purposes...
...Finally, on top of this complex administrative structure are the 25 "economic regions" of which six are wholly in Prussia, while others cover parts of Prussia and other states...
...A real international outlook demands that the planners should draw the obvious lesson from all the evidences of European interdependence and set their compass for the only harbor which promises enduring peace —the economic and cooperative unification of Europe...
...One-third of the capacity of the present electric-power stations would remain outside the new frontiers, and many in the center region would have to shut down for lack of coal...
...There is reason to believe that the spirit of the Morgenthau plan has not been definitely shelved—partly because Government planners cannot agree upon an alternative blue-print...
...This industry, under the plan of partition, would be almost entirely deprived of raw materials...
...Fleischman describes how the Nazi Government, while leaving intact the superficial federal structure of the Reich, changed its administrative nature—first by appointing Reich governors for the states, then by incorporating state ministries into the Reich government, and finally in 1939 by making the agencies of the states into agencies of the Reich...
...As for Germany's economic system, territorial dissection may prove as dangerous as the Morgenthau plan...
...Dr...
...The argument of a "hard," versus a "soft" peace is utterly unrealistic...
...nor can the synthetic oil and textile industries...
...Such important raw materials as bauxite and copper must be imported...
...The Example Of Vienna An estimated 45 million people live in this central area today...
...But the partition would take away about 97 per cent of the coal supply, which comes mainly from the Ruhr and Silesia...
...Regional administration of food and industrial products, regional regulation of labor and rationing coincide with these economic areas...
...Germany might then become what Vienna was in the intervening years—a place of mass unemployment, mass undernourishment, and perpetual political tension...
...THE Morgenthau plan for the destruction of Germany as an industrial state has, by its very fanaticism, produced a sobering reaction...
...Tomorrow, if the planners follow their present course, they will Balkanize all of Central Europe that is not incorporated into the Soviet Union...
...To live within these frontiers, that population would have to manufacture and export as never before...
...As a matter of fact, the integration of European economies has greatly increased since the war began...
...Germany, in short, would lose about one-third of its territory, but only about 16 per cent of its population...
...This unreal settlement," remarks the London Economist, "would destroy most of the manufacturing capacity and would turn it (Germany) into an agricultural country, burdened with an enormous industrial population...
...The presidents of the five national engineering societies condemned it, saying that it would penalize "not only the owners of the materials destroyed, but the world as a whole...
...Plants all over Europe have been re-tooled to meet German technical standards...
...In the chorus of rejection which greeted the plan, a theme of common sense predominated...
...These plants have been linked with centralized organizations for supplying raw materials and for distribution of finished products...
...Any peace will prove severe for Germany, in view of its present ravaged condition...
...In 1942 these became "Reich defense regions," administratively used as subdivisions for regional economic chambers, housing, labor mobilization, and price administration...
...Methods which Rome applied to Carthage will not work today...
...The effects of this plan, in short, would be those of the Morgenthau plan...
...Mass unemployment and starvation in Europe would only make that continent the world's breeding ground of wars and revolutions...
...The economic conditions in Italy have intensified social antagonisms, with resultant unrest dangerous to any orderly political solution of Italian problems—a portent of what can happen generally in a Western Europe in which the planners do not recognize the necessity for economic cooperation...
...Exact details of the contemplated partition have not appeared, but it seems that the Allies propose to separate East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, and Brandenburg from the eastern area of the Reich, and the Ruhr and Rhineland from the western area—leaving only the intervening territory as the new Germany...
...Now, within this central area lie such big industrial centers as Berlin, Augsburg, Magdeburg, Dresden, Leipzig, Hamburg, Nuremberg, and Munich...
...But, as Dr...
...For instance, some writers on the subject demand the destruction of Prussia, as a prerequisite of settlement with Germany, because Prussia has a larger area and more inhabitants than all the other German states combined...
...Fleischman...
...Julius Fleischman has pointed out in a timely article in the Washington Post, "It does not seem to be sufficiently known that the dismemberment of Prussia was already carried out by the Nazi Government to such an extent that only an empty shell remains...
...For many years, the immediate causes of war sprang from the pauperized conditions of southeastern Europe...
...But it is assumed that this number would rise to 57 millions as a result of a shift of German populations from the lost provinces...
...Otherwise, a "hard" peace for Germany—whatever transient emotional satisfaction it may provide—is all too likely to work out as a "hard" peace for Europe...
...It will be easier to restore orderly government and remove the Nazi office-holders if existing administrative subdivisions are maintained as much as possible," remarks Dr...
...The real issue is whether or not we shall construct the foundation whereon the prosperity necessary for enduring peace in Europe may be built up...
...In short, the plain fact is that the Nazis have scrambled the eggs...
...Without coal, the iron and steel industry cannot function on any scale...
...It follows that orderly government may not be restored if the contemplated dissection cuts through these administrative nerves and ganglia...
...Even a cursory glance at the administrative and economic organization of contemporary Germany shows that chaos would result from this sort of irresponsible surgery...
...It is one of the ironies of the times that so few who pride themselves on having an international viewpoint seem in any way aware of the economic interdependence of Western Europe, including Germany...
...Chaos Of Dismemberment The framers of such plans seem unable to realize that territorial dismemberment of a highly integrated and complicated economy like that of Germany would prove hardly less destructive than removal of its industry...
...It contains most of the engineering works of the country...
...Meanwhile the Nazi party established 32 Gatie, or Nazi party regions of Germany proper, cutting across many of the lines of the larger states...
...Thus Germany has become' something like a unitary state without any actual dissolution of Prussia or the other states...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 47
