WE ARE BLUNDERING INTO FAILURE IN GERMANY
BEALS, CARLETON
We Are Blundering Into Failure In Germany By CARLETON BEALS OUT of the veil of secrecy which shrouds all parts of the vast Soviet empire—so enormously expanded during this war and still...
...They are, so to speak, trapped and surrounded, deep in the heart of Europe...
...We are going to have our hands plenty full merely trying to make a half-way decent producing system for Germany and thereby for Europe...
...It is not in the American temperament long to run a slave colony...
...and in any case the American zone is peculiarly dependent upon the diplomatic, political and economic decisions taken by the other powers...
...Today the members of the Free German Committees have paid dividends to Soviet occupation...
...Unless what is left of Europe, what is accessible to American trade, can be rapidly restored, the prospects are dismal...
...In the American zone, the order is no fraternization...
...Berlin time changed to Moscow time...
...To provide the elements of civilized survival, the present rump zone would actually have to export twice as much industrial production as it did before the war...
...Germany has made some of the greatest contributions of all time to human happiness and civilization : in music, in philosophy, in literature, in science...
...German emigres, fugitives from Hitler's tyranny, all over the world, were incorporated into this committee...
...Those talents were perverted, distorted, and used for evil ends by the Hitler regime...
...That demonstration, which could not have taken place under Hitler, which probably could not occur in the Soviet zone, was a fine compliment to the American way of life...
...ONE thing more: Before the war, our greatest market was Europe...
...To starve it will mean the use of continued Hitler-esque brutality...
...Long ago, when the German armies were still on Soviet soil, the Russians had an organized plan...
...And the present American occupation policy will further destroy it...
...Of late they have been supported by high members of the Army, the State Department, the War Mobilizer's Office, and by Bernard Baruch...
...It is the most mountainous, least self-Bupporting part of Germany either industrially or agriculturally...
...These included dozens of generals and on down to ordinary soldiers...
...In case of another war before occupation ends— &£&augfe this ia unthinkable—the American forces could be wiped out, through inability properly to protect them...
...Some music revival is projected, but under American directors...
...Item No...
...Until American correspondents and American officials can travel freely through the Soviet zone, everything must be taken with a grain of salt...
...Members of the Free German Committee were given relative liberty...
...A new life is beginning...
...I find it singular that in war-battered Cologne, 5,000 Germans felt free enough to demonstrate against the improper utilization of Nazi officials by the American Army...
...What are some of the reports coming out of the 2 spheres of Germany...
...As it is, at the moment, more than 20 million people in the Anglo-American zones, are estimated to be homeless...
...That it will be filled in due time no sensible man can doubt...
...We have created—on paper—an international league with a lofty preamble...
...We Are Blundering Into Failure In Germany By CARLETON BEALS OUT of the veil of secrecy which shrouds all parts of the vast Soviet empire—so enormously expanded during this war and still expanding—come new sources of information from the Russian-occupied zone of Eu rope...
...In the Soviet zone, known Nazis just "seem to disappear...
...Our troops must cross through the British zone or through France...
...In the Soviet zone, all industries are being rapidly restored to operation...
...This is the short-range prospect...
...Standard gauge railways changed to Soviet extra-wide gauge...
...Moscow's seizure of all eastern Europe has been justified on the ground that with the collapse of the German economic system and of the German republic, a power vacuum was created that had to be filled...
...The universal guilt doctrine, with constant preachments, tends to permit Nazis to escape punishment and makes them, in fact, eligible for public office...
...The present Anglo-American policy is creating still another vacuum...
...In the American zone, an early rigid curfew exists, and all assemblage is forbidden...
...The only question at issue is a workable peace and one which will preserve in the world as many of the cultural and human values as possible which we Americans cherish...
...Sufficient food for the Winter is not available for heating even the dwellings which remain...
...German newspapers, staffed by Germans, in Berlin, Vienna, and the provinces, and the Berlin radio, entirely manned by Germans, sound a new note...
...A German woman broadcasts: "Now we know what lies the Goeb-bels propaganda told about the Red Army...
...The Soviet German zone is being linked economically with the great Soviet hinterland, with free exchange of products...
...POLITICS...
...Never was the use of market pounds (the equivalent of Nazi aski marks) so greatly used as a trade weapon as now...
...HOW much credence can be placed on the reports from the Soviet zone of occupation...
...2. Great Britain, through economic necessity, is being driven to increasing its empire trade controls and forward economic exclusivism...
...RELATION TO THE OCCUPYING COUNTRY...
...Even then they were carefully selecting dependable Germans from among the war prisoners, who were allowed to join the Free German Committee...
...IT is high time that we concerned ourselves with a workable economic solution for Germany and Europe, rather than with emotional and demagogic appeals...
...Such a trend unless checked—and it is scarcely likely to be checked by brutal methods—inevitably will bring about an Anschluss, a union of all Germany with the Soviet zone and its return to the comity of nations as a part of, or a satellite of, the Moscow league of nations, which was automatically recognized at San Francisco by the seating of 3 Soviet republics...
...How our great statesmen ever permitted us to be euchered into this uncomfortable position is one of the mysteries of our juvenile playing of power polities...
...The Russian Army has been instructed to cooperate with the German population in restoring life to normal as rapidly as possible...
...They can flourish only through encouragement to the democratic forces of Germany, through an abandonment of our present Nazi-borrowed doctrine of universal war guilt, and by helping free Germans to help themselves...
...The German people are going to turn to those who have some hope to offer them...
...The Red Army has appealed to German artists and professionals to assist in rapidly rebuilding German cultural and intellectual life...
...In the American zone, the Army announced Germany must feed itself from existing stocks after the needs of the army of occupation have been met...
...Item 3. The war has greatly destroyed the rest of Europe as a market...
...But far worse than that, it will mean the further disintegration of western European culture...
...However, this much can be said: The Soviets are earnestly trying to win the friendship of the German masses...
...CIVIC STATUS...
...Curiously enough it is a note of hope...
...They cannot flourish under an alien policeman's club...
...PEOPLE...
...Branches today exist in England, Scandinavia, France, all Latin America, and in veiled form in the United States...
...The nonsensical nature of the American zone puts us on the spot and will provide plenty of extra headaches...
...THE destruction of all German industry is ardently desired by certain British industrialists and Tories because of the backward and inefficient character of much of British industry...
...Ditto all supplies...
...The Soviets have permitted the reestablishment of pre-war parties, such as the Social Democrats, the Catholic Centrists, etc...
...These catch-words merely connoted an emotional and propaganda approach to a serious problem...
...During May and June, the great city of Frankfort had a ration of only 750 calories, or less than the semi-starvation minimum set by our Army, in fact less than the ration in some German punishment camps...
...In the American zone all Germans are considered guilty, i. e. war criminals...
...A U. S. Army poll of German civilians in the American occupational zone reveals that already they consider Soviet occupation preferable...
...Such a workable solution is the American pragmatic way, rather than an emotionalized, a dogmatic, a theoretical, and a police-man's club way, which would merely be the other face of Hitlerism...
...FOOD The Berlin radio and papers report new ration cards with a higher ration for German workers than Hitler provided his beloved Germans...
...in practice, in occupied Germany, we are doing little to show we believe in any of the noble principles that league is supposed to further...
...they are attempting to set up a self-sustaining system, and one which will contribute to the rebuilding and the strengthening of the Soviet Union itself...
...In short, if the present blind occupational policy is continued to its logical conclusion and thereby a dangerous new vacuum is created, Americans are going to wake up the day after tomorrow to discover that the hope of "60,-000,000 jobs" or anywhere near full employment is a pipe-dream...
...Doctors, scientists, and others who joined the Nazis to escape imprisonment or in order to remain undisturbed to continue their professions are not classified as Nazis...
...In the American zone cultural manifestations are mostly frowned upon...
...They were given ample tame over the radio...
...ENTERTAINMENT...
...Movies, halls, theaters, cafes, concert palaces are open...
...All possible resources of the zone are to be utilized...
...The Soviet Union has been treating Austria not as a conquered country, but as a liberated land...
...In the American zone, no political expression is allowed, except arbitrary gatherings under the chairmanship of an American officer...
...But the whole world will be enriched if they can be allowed once more to flourish in a free society...
...The American zone makes no sense geographically, economically, politically, or militarily...
...They have been utilized for administration, policing, publicity, and their world-wide branches provide a powerful support for Soviet diplomacy everywhere, in many ways a more effective one than the more doctrinaire and tumble-bug Communist parties...
...This is unadulterated Hitler doctrine...
...In short we urgently need a policy instead of back-stage mystery, sour catchwords, and a spirit of blind retaliation...
...The question is no longer one of a hard or a soft peace...
...It can't link up with anything...
...It is high-time that we ditched the collective guilt theory, that we cut out our harsh, childish, and smug sermonizing, that we abandon ideas of a scorched earth policy and carpet-bag rule...
...But not by bread alone are men fed...
...Various sensible plans have been presented for effectively preventing the rearming of Germany, without creating misery, chaos, and universal communism in the heart of Europe...
...INDUSTRY...
...Doubtless much of the picture—though many of the above facts have been verified by chance travelers—is window-dressing...
...They are supported by a group of hate-broadcasters in the United States...
...we have started on the way towards a better order...
...We all see rolling past us Red Army trucks carrying food to the Berlin population...
...This is supposed to show the Germans their guilt...
...An American GI may not even speak to a German adult...
...The integration of all eastern Europe, under one formula or another, with the Soviet Union, means (a) that the Soviet Union now has within its borders nearly all strategic materials, except tin and rubber, previously lacking...
...When in Cologne 5,000 persons protested against Army appointment of Nazis to govern the city, the Nazis were not removed but the people were forcibly dispersed...
...Our goal should be a healthy and democratic Germany and a healthy Europe...
...It was also a healthy symptom of the desire of many Germans for justice, democracy, and freedom...
...CULTURE...
...The Soviet zone is insured a vast mass market...
...Doubtless the Germans chosen to man the newspapers and radio stations are Communists...
...Unless we can concert with the occupants of the other zones, a workable producing system, we shall have to continue to starve or feed the region...
...they appeared in public with high Soviet officials...
...This gives the Germans plenty of time to hate the Americans...
...Such a contingency is very unlikely, but should have been considered...
...They were allowed paper for publications and leaflets, a privilege denied our own Office of War Information...
...The Soviet idea of liberation is not too comfortable a one, but apparently it offers more hope to the mass of Austrians than the American system of war-guilt, industry-destruction, and non-democratic manner of administration...
...b) that the closed trading system will permit consolidation, hence ever greater self-sufficiency rather than providing a large market...
...To feed it will be to put an eternal chain about our own necks...
...The long-range prospect for the American zone is not bright either...
...In the American zone, the announced program is to destroy all possible remaining industry, even though industry was much worse paralyzed by heavy bombing...
...More likely it is to prevent GI's from discovering there are good and decent Germans...
...Many big-shot Nazis still live in relative comfort, while petty offenders are being hanged...
...This may not be democracy as Americans know it, but it represents more democracy than is at present being practiced in the American zone...
...The fact is that the dense population of the American zone—cut off from the farming regions, the breadbasket of Germany, which lie in Soviet hands—cannot sustain itself above a semi-starvation level by agriculture and industry together, even at normal levels...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 29
