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GRUESOME HARVEST The Costly Attempt To Exterminate The People of Germany By Ralph Franklin Keeling How We Played into
Russia's Hands General Eisenhower told a press conference in
London that the Russians "like to laugh." Well they
might, in view of the way we have played into their
hands and fallen for their subterfuges. Things have come to such a pass that we have
seriously been told we must not criticize the
Russians or their government; yet those who said so
have felt perfectly free to criticize everything
American and have made no corresponding effort to
stop Soviet blasts at us. In March, 1945, GI's in Germany were actually
placed under oflicial orders not to make
unflattering remarks about the Reds.[1]
Typical of our un-American efforts to throttle
critics was AMG censorship in April, 1946, of a
letter by a Catholic Bishop calling attention to
Russian abuses of Germans through forced labor and
expulsions. We prohibited the reading of the letter
in churches, because it might offend
Russia.[2] Social Democrats and other
German political parties have not been allowed to
criticize the Communist party, lest Russia take
offense. We must realize that there is something
seriously wrong with nations, as with people, who
cannot stand criticism, who try to place themselves
beyond reproach, and that something is equally
wrong with people who truckle to them. Russia deserves not only criticism but
condemnation. Stalin in 1939 told the Communist
Party of Russia it must beware of us, for we would
send our "spies, murderers, and wreckers" into the
Soviet Union. The facts are that the Soviet Union
has sent its spies, murderers, and wreckers into
this country, as in all others, where they have
infiltrated into our government, occupying hundreds
of key positions, sitting in our inner councils,
and even helping mold our foreign policy. It must make the Russians chortle up their
sleeves the way we coddle these insidious fifth
columnists. In contrast, the Reds shoot on
suspicion anyone they catch in Russia who they
think might represent outside influences. In the Canadian spy trial it was established
both by direct testimony and documentary proof that
"the dissolution of the Communist International was
probably the greatest farce of the Communists in
recent years," and that "only the name was
liquidated with the object of reassuring public
opinion in the democratic countries. Actually, the
Comintern exists and continues its work." Communist
insiders were warned by their higher-ups with
regard to Britain and the United States: "Yesterday
they were allies, today they are neighbors,
tomorrow they will be our enemies." It was also
brought out that "in Russia there is a great deal
of propaganda carried on by conversation of the
propagandists and even in the press. It is all done
to train people to think they must fight another
war, that maybe it will be our final
war."[3] In Germany we have permitted the Comintern to
place its agents in AMG and the local German
government apparatus we have erected. Newspapermen
in our zone tend to lean toward communism, mostly
because former anti-Nazi talent was first cleared
for press work by German emigres with leftist
leanings hired by AMG to do the
screening.[4] In May, 1946, it was revealed that the State
Department with the aid of the FBI had purged
itself of hundreds of pro-Soviet
employees.[5] Some time later Mr. Byrnes,
head of the department, when asked why certain
others had not been let out, despite their having
been identified, replied that it would be
inadvisable to do so while we are involved in a
serious diplomatic struggle with the Soviet
Union.[6] His excuse was a tacit admission that he
recognized that the men are agents of the Soviet
Government, and that the Kremlin might get upset if
we turned the rotters out. There is no valid reason why we should treat
Russia and her fifth column any differently from
the way we treated Nazi Germany and its fifth
column. The only important difference between the
two in terms of their threat against our national
tranquility and safety is that the Soviet fifth
column is far stronger and more deeply entrenched
than the Nazi one ever was. If it was right for us
to crack down on the Nazis here the way we did,
without regard to Hitler's feelings, it is right
that we should crack down with equal firmness and
effectiveness on the Communists in our midst,
without regard to Stalin's feelings, for all of
them would be potential traitors and saboteurs if
we should get into serious trouble with Russia. One of the most costly consequences of Soviet
penetration of our State Department has been our
acceptance of wily Russian proposals at Yalta and
Potsdam. These include: division of Germany into
zones, each to be occupied by a different power;
the Allied Control Council, with the clause calling
for unanimity on all decisions, with the disastrous
results already noted; requiring Germany to pay
reparations in kind; the forced labor system; the
forcible expulsions of Germans from lost German
territories, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.
The territorial settlements and arrangements
accepted at Potsdam were all the ones pressed by
Russia; French claims were left open. The idea of a
long armistice for Germany, if not of actual
Russian origin, would certainly play into Russia's
hands.[7] Britain and the United States in the days
between Teheran and Potsdam, thanks in large
measure to Mr. Roosevelt's unfortunate "great
design" and Red influences in the administration,
were eager to borrow any Soviet idea and acclaim
any Soviet plan for Germany. Although deeply
involved in war, the brains of the Politburo found
the time to frame a program to take full advantage
of the westerners' solicitude. They have been
cashing in on it ever since, and we have been
suffering the consequences. We have even given Russia help both direct and
indirect in extending her power over eastern Europe
and half of Germany. Instead of following
Churchill's advice of attacking Germany through the
Balkans and thus warding off Russian conquest and
occupation, we sided with Russia and decided to
attack across the English Channel. As the Russians
swept into the Balkans and on into Austria and
Germany, they rode in American lend-lease trucks,
jeeps and airplanes. Since then we have supported
their brutal rule through such agencies as UNRRA.
As fast as we have shipped relief supplies into
these areas, Russia has drained out an equivalent
amount for herself and claims the credit for what
we pour in.[8] In Germany we even handed
the Russians our money plates and permitted them to
print billions of occupation marks which we were
originally supposed to make good, and possibly
still are. But all such aid, including the eleven
billion dollars in lendlease gifts has been ignored
by the Kremlin which has gone blithely on its way
opposing our most vital interests. In addition to all this, as Dorothy Thompson has
well expressed it: "Mr. Morgenthau's fantastic
concepts laid the basic 'principles' for the
Potsdam program, which played straight into Soviet
hands."[9] In other words, the Morgenthau
Plan was made to order for the Kremlin. When we came to Russia at Yalta with a so-called
peace plan which called for vengeance and
destruction of a trade competitor, she saw and
seized her opportunity to turn the whole program to
her advantage at our expense. Although the Plan promises to bring the
blessings of peace and prosperity to a troubled
world, if we had only taken the trouble to analyze
its proposals in the light of Mr. Morgenthau's own
principles as expressed in other connections on
other occasions, we should have recognized
immediately that it could only bring
catastrophe. In promoting acceptance of the Bretton Woods
Fund and Bank Plan, Mr. Morgenthau as Secretary of
the Treasury, proclaimed the thesis that
"prosperity, like peace, is indivisible." And in
promoting the loan to Britain later on he
elaborated at length on this principle. These are
his words: The contradiction between these tenets and the
deliberate impoverishment of any nation is
irreconcilable and obvious. Mr. Morgenthau advances
these ideas as universal principles, applicable to
all countries without exception. If they could
validly be used to support making sacrifices to put
one country, Britain, on its feet to bolster world
trade and prosperity, with equal force they compel
the conclusion that a program calling for permanent
impoverishment of any leading country, Germany not
excepted, would plunge the whole world into an
economic quagmire. Mr. Morgenthau is not alone, however, in thus
compromising himself with his own principles. Mr.
Bernard Baruch, well known adviser of Presidents,
has also been at one and the same time a
one-worlder and an implacable advocate of
converting Germany into a poor house. As the war
was drawing to its close in the European theater,
Mr. Baruch, who loves to address his audiences as
"Fellow citizens of the world," was in London where
he granted an interview to a Victor Lasky, a Stars
and Stripes staff writer. In explaining his
presence in the British capital, Baruch said,
according to Lasky: This was Mr. Baruch's way of saying that he was
abroad to see to it that Germany was permanently
eliminated as a competitor in world trade. Baruch failed to explain the nature of the "big
stick" he was holding over the big boys, but the
following June, before the Senate Military Affairs
Committee, he made very clear what he wanted done
with the Reich. He said it was not enough merely to
demand an "economically weak" Germany, that the
program of weakening Germany must be "sufficiently
specific - industry by industry - so that all the
occupying nations know they have agreed to the same
thing." First of all, he said, reparations should
be paid in German labor, instead of rebuilding the
country's industry so it could pay reparations
through exports from current production. Germany's
"war making potential must be eliminated. Many of
her plants must be shifted east and west to
friendly countries; all heavy industries destroyed;
the Junker estates broken up; her exports strictly
controlled; German assets and business
organizations all over the world rooted out." This program of impoverishment and that of Mr.
Morgenthau are, of course, very similar. Mr. Baruch
candidly admits that his aim is to destroy Germany
as a trade competitor; Mr. Morgenthau's program
tacitly contains the same objective. People were
appalled when it was said that the elder
Rockefeller burned down the refineries of
competitors he could not otherwise destroy. How
much more revolting are these proposals to destroy
the economy of a whole nation for a similar
purpose! Conservative leaders who use their
influence in this manner furnish a basis for
effective criticism of capitalistic morality, or
lack of it, and weaken the basis for defense of the
profit system. Since, according to the one world
thesis, prosperity "must be shared by all if any
are to enjoy it," and "all must share in it or in
time all will lose it," the Morgenthau-Baruch Plan
would impoverish not only Germany, but Europe, and
the whole world, not excluding the United States,
and therefore presumably Messrs. Baruch and
Morgenthau as well. The Morgenthau-Baruch proposals have been the
official policy of our Government, which at the
same time is committed to one-world principles. As
a result, our leading officials, in their efforts
to uphold these mutually exclusive theories, have
been forced, like Mr. Morgenthau, into absurd
self-contradiction. For example, Mr. Truman, while
advocating impoverishment of Germany along
Morgenthau-Baruch lines, said at Soldiers Field in
Chicago: Later he said in the same speech: By continuing our policy of creating economic
distress in Germany, we would therefore create a
fertile breeding ground for communism. Here Mr.
Truman admits as much. In his speech in Stuttgart, Mr. Byrnes
contradicted himself in similar fashion, for he
tried to justify the original program of
deindustrialization and denazification, which means
holding Germany in poverty, and at the same time
said: Before we can win the respect of the world and
get on the right road leading to real world
prosperity and well-being, we must eradicate the
whole Morgenthau and Potsdam contamination from our
thinking and official policies. We must take seriously the recognized fact that
Germany is the heart of Europe on which the
economic life of that Continent depends, and that
when we make that heart stop beating all Europe
must die. We must realize, too, that any reduction
of the German standard of living would only lower
the standards of other European countries, that to
bring them all to the same mean level would bring
universal impoverishment that would cancel out the
progress of centuries. Despite his one-world principles expressed
elsewhere, Mr. Morgenthau in his book, GERMANY IS
OUR PROBLEM, writes: He factiously argues that "a strong Europe is
better than a strong Germany," as though the two
were opposed, and insists that weakening Germany
and reducing her foreign trade will add to European
prosperity. He says: In short, where Germany is concerned, Mr.
Morgenthau finds foreign trade quite unimportant
either for the Reich or for the countries trading
with her; however, when other countries are
involved, foreign trade takes on unique
importance. In a statement submitted to the Small Business
Committee of the Senate, April 20, 1945, Mr.
Morgenthau said: On Feb. 26, 1945, he told the Detroit Economic
Club, while urging building up our exports of
automobiles to a million cars a year: Such statements show that Mr. Morgenthau
himself, if he will only think things through, must
repudiate his proposals to impoverish the Reich and
destroy its trade with the rest of the world, or
give up one-world principles. Britain's experience testifies eloquently to the
importance of Germany to European economy. At first
she fell under the influence of those advocating
German impoverishment, ostensibly to prevent
another war but actually to remove the Reich as a
trade competitor and possibly turn it into a market
for the very products it had formerly exported. But
when she saw that Germany was facing complete
disaster, and pulling Europe down with her, she
partly reversed her position, to prevent what
"approximated closely to cutting off one's nose to
spite one's face." For, after all, she had to
realize that destruction of Germany to prevent
German exports from competing with hers would also
mean loss of a large German demand for British
goods. As Prime Minister Attlee told the U. S.
Congress, "We cannot have prosperity at home with
hell abroad." The German prostration has been felt everywhere.
Sweden has officially expressed concern over the
fact that she has been unable to carry on any of
her accustomed trade with the Reich, with damaging
consequences to herself as well as to
Germany.[13] Holland, too, has been hard
hit, having to export food and fuel while the
homeland does without. Dutch farmers used to
exchange food products for German fertilizer, which
they can obtain now only at high prices from high
cost producers. Holland used to get fees for
transmitting goods between Germany and other
countries; now this trade and its profit are gone
with the suppression of German commerce. Germany
and Holland used to exchange the things each made
best in its own country. This put German machinery,
tools, and instruments in Dutch plants, on Dutch
farms and railroads. Now this equipment cannot be
replaced or even repaired due to stoppage of
manufacture in the Reich. As one observer puts
it: In London, "Food ministers of 17 European
countries," says an Associated Press dispatch,
"turned to defeated Germany as a possible source of
coal and fertilizer, both sorely needed to avoid
famine."[15] Showing deep concern, The London Economist
says: The Chicago Sun said editorially: Of course this was said in defense of a loan to
Britain, but the same logic would apply as well to
Germany, once one of our best customers. Mr. Byrnes said at Paris: At Stuttgart he admitted, as had Molotov at
Paris, that Germany is the industrial workshop of
Europe. To repeat, we are having to face the fact that
we cannot continue with our original policies
toward Germany and hope to have anything but
impoverishment of Germany, and, as a consequence,
of Europe, and the world. Mr. Morgenthau, whose ideas on the subject
correspond to the official opinion of the United
Nations, rests his entire case for turning Germany
into a poorhouse on the thesis that German lust for
war was the sole cause of both World Wars. "Desire
for war," he writes in bis book, "has been as
firmly planned in the German as desire for freedom
in the American." Sheer will to war, accompanied by
a plot to conquer the world, he says, has been
intensively cultivated in the German people for
nearly two hundred years and would probably require
another two hundred years to eradicate. Hence, he
argues, the only way to stop Germany from again
disturbing the peace of the world at her first
opportunity is to prevent the opportunity, and this
can be done best by permanently weakening her to a
point where she cannot, even though she would, wage
war.[18] The justice of his whole program, and therefore
of Potsdam, must stand or fall on this premise. If
there is any doubt as to its validity or
completeness, there must be equal doubt as to the
justice of his plan. Without attempting to exhaust the subject we
offer the following evidence which does tend to
raise doubt concerning the accuracy of the premise,
and therefore equal doubt as to the justice of our
treatment of the German people. Let us again consult Mr. Morgenthau on other
occasions. On March 7, 1945, he told the House
Committee on Banking and Currency: Economic dislocation is hardly the same thing as
the perversity of German nature or "will to
war." Three months later, Mr. Morgenthau told the
Senate Banking and Currency Committee: Lack of prosperity and hope of economic
betterment and international monetary and financial
problems were therefore at least partly to blame
for the recent war, according to Mr. Morgenthau
himself, not merely German lust for war, argued in
his book. He told the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce: Mr. Vinson, successor to Mr. Morgenthau as
Secretary of the Treasury, gave his version of the
causes of war in these words: "We have the political, social, and economic
problems among nations that twice in our
generation rocked us into war. The resolution of
these problems is necessary for prolonged
prosperity and for lasting peace."[22] Solving such problems to prevent war is a far
cry from our original policy of trying to maintain
peace by turning Germany into a goat pasture. Herbert E. Gasten, Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury, in a published speech said: And on another occasion he said: That most wars, including the last one, have
been caused by economic disruption and consequent
"foul growths," to borrow a phrase from the late
Lord Keynes, is a truism which no informed person
will deny. Such dislocations and their results are
not the same as human beings; human beings are the
victims. Therefore, it is wrong to blame people for
the forces which compel their behavior. When people
fall into a trap where their very existence is
threatened, they will fight their way out if there
is any possibility to do so. They will fight, even
though it might appear suicidal to do so. For most
people prefer to die fighting than to die supinely.
Such behavior may be wrong, but it is the way
people have behaved for many thousands of years,
and the chances are they will continue to do
so. The British themselves have often found
conditions during peace more unbearable than war.
Whenever the balance of power is upset in Europe so
that the continent starts to fall under the
domination of some one of its powers, Britain
considers the situation a threat to her very
existence and goes to war to preserve herself. One
of the best and most authoritative analyses of the
matter appeared in the September, 1943, issue of
the semi-official British publication, "The
Nineteenth Century and After," by the editor, Mr.
F. A. Voight. The following are pertinent
excerpts: This explains in terms very different from Mr.
Morgenthau's the underlying cause of the two world
wars. It explains Britain' s interest in the
Potsdam agreements, including de-industrialization
and de-nazification, and the exigencies behind
Britain's present opposition to Russia, which again
threatens to upset the European balance, just as
Germany did. It disputes the thesis that the German
people and their perversities were solely
responsible for the war and should be punished
accordingly. It also clarifies a good many otherwise
unexplainable episodes connected with the war and
its outbreak. It shows why Britain went to war
ostensibly to oppose aggression, but applied the
policy only to Germany, and not to Russia when she
attacked Poland in full partnership with Germany.
It explains the reason for the secret protocol
attached to her declaration guaranteeing British
and French aid to Poland, which qualified and
limited the guarantee to German aggression
and none other. The portion of this treaty that was
made public at the time, gave the impression that
the guarantee stood on moral ground, against any
and all aggression. The published part stated: Although the language is somewhat involved, the
meaning is clear, that defense against aggression
was the prime consideration and what England would
fight for. The German attack against Poland was
considered a high international wrong. But when
Russia also attacked and Britain failed to oppose
this aggression which was also a brutal stab in the
back, but continued the war against Germany alone,
it became clear to many observers that something
more was present in the situation than readily met
the eye. There was a secret rider attached to the
treaty which has since been made public and which
stipulates that "The expression, a European
power, employed in the agreement is to be
understood as Germany."[26] In other words, Britain was taking advantage of
the situation to go to war against Germany because
the Reich had become too strong and had upset the
European balance. To correct the fundamental
trouble, from Britain's point of view, Germany,
after her defeat, must be weakened as a protective
measure. No morality enters into the matter, only
considerations of power politics and British
survival. Lord Lothian, ihen British ambassador to the
United States, said in March, 1938, at the time of
the Austrian crisis: In his column, April 23, 1944, Karl Von Wiegand
wrote: A month earlier, according to the Associated
Press: And a month after the conflict started Pravda
said: Professor Harry Elmer Barnes in reply to the
charge of bellicosity of the German people
says: This conclusion is forced by such findings as
those in Professor Quincy Wright's "A Study of War"
wherein it is shown that in the period from 1480 to
1940 there were 278 wars involving European
countries, whose percentage participation was as
follows: Likewise Pitirim Sorokin, in Vol. III, Part II
of his SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DYNAMICS, shows that
from the twelfth century to 1925 the percentage of
years in which leading European powers have been at
war is as follows (p. 352): Sorokin concludes, therefore, "that Germany has
had the smallest and Spain the largest per cent of
years at war." Of leading modern European states
England, France, and Russia thus show nearly twice
the bellicosity displayed by the "war-loving"
Germans. Prof. Barnes goes on: Incitement to war is a terrible thing.
Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production,
told the Chamber of Commerce of America in London,
June 20, 1944, as reported by the United Press: It is now established that to avoid war with the
United States, Germany ordered its submarines not
to retaliate in any way when attacked by U.S.
forces under orders from Washington. In clear
violation of international law our vessels in the
Atlantic were ordered two months before Pearl
Harbor to shell all Axis craft encountered. At the
time, Admiral Stark had sent a message to Admiral
Kimmel that "we are at war" in the Atlantic. Two months after Pearl Harbor, Prime Minister
Churchill told the House of Commons: Our lend-lease program had been squeezed through
Congress by the narrowest of margins as a "peace
measure." Senator Glass had given away its real
purpose, however, when he said he favored loaning
Great Britain all the war equipment we could spare
"to wipe Germany off the face of the
map.[34] He had the courage to say what was
on the mind of many a figure in Washington and
elswhere. Hitler has been condemned as a violator of
international pacts and agreements; yet when we
sent destroyers to Britain long before Pearl Harbor
and later on permitted many of our vessels to be
commandeered by British officers we violated
Section 3 of Article V of the Act of June 15, 1917,
which provides that during a war in which the
United States is a neutral nation, it shall be
unlawful to send out of the jurisdiction of the
United States any vessel built, armed, or equipped
as a vessel of war with any intent or with
reasonable cause to believe that it shall be used
by any belligerent nation. We also violated the
Hague Convention which forbids a neutral nation to
supply any war materials whatever to any
belligerent country. There is no need to pursue the argument further.
We have shown that good grounds exist for doubting
in some degree, at least, the charge that the
German people, because of their perverse natures,
and their will and lust for war, were the sole
culprits in the late conflict. There is equal room,
therefore, for doubting the Justice of the Potsdam
program to cripple Germany and condemn its people
to perpetual poverty, and equally sound moral
grounds for the repudiation of that program. The victors in every war think they are right
and the defeated wrong. The late war has offered no
exception. By continuing to condemn the defeated in
this war as a race of criminals and punishing them
accordingly, as we at first set out to do, we would
be setting a most dangerous precedent, one which
our children might have good reason to regret. For
if we should ever lose a war we could only expect
similar treatment. It is manifestly unjust to blame and punish the
people of any country for the acts of their
leaders, especially where the people have been
brought under the heel of a dictatorship which
under heavy penalty compels conformity to the
leaders edicts and orders. The truth is that the people of no nation in
modern history, including ourselves, have ever
enjoyed an important voice in the making of the
great decisions either of going to war or of
framing the peace arrangements. This is one of the
greatest facts we must face. America cannot
possibly add amelioration to the sordid game of
power politics which has plunged the nations of the
world into one terrible war after another, until
the people do assert themselves and insist upon the
injection of justice into the peace
arrangements. But before this can be accomplished they must
break the bonds of false propaganda. This
propaganda flows from two major levels, a higher
and a lower. Britain's pose as upholder of
righteousness while actually engaged in
manipulating the balance of power system
exemplifies the upper level. This type of
propaganda is poignantly described by the late John
Maynard Keynes in THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE
PEACE: This was written about World War I, but it
applies as well to the second. Another Englishman,
the great Disraeli, said: British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin told the
truth about the propaganda of the lower level when
he said at the London Conference of Foreign
Ministers, February 10, 1946: That such propaganda has played an enormous part
in fomenting most wars cannot be doubted. It
deceives and bewilders the public, inflaming it and
strengthening its innate prejudices which
civilizing processes ordinanarily hold to tolerable
proportions. People can accurately judge only those
things which come within the purview of their
direct experience or which they are allowed to view
from all angles by educational processes. When the
mediums upon which the people rely to bring them
their foreign news, color and emasculate the facts,
or even manufacture them out of whole cloth, as
they sometimes do, there is no possibility for the
public to get the truth. Its collective judgment,
the accuracy of which is the base upon which
democratic processes rest, cannot, in consequence,
be reliable; on the contrary, if its judgment is
misled and its passions inflamed properly for the
purpose, it will inevitably support mad adventures,
unjust interventions, and other tragic missteps in
international affairs. Thus, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a
month before war broke out, sadly observed: Americans, as well as the British, were flooded
with misleading, inflamatory propaganda on the eve
of the war. Only a few calm, informed observers
were able, apparently, to see through it. In a
letter to Hugh W. Long & Co., an executive of
Roosevelt & Son of Pine Street, wrote six
months before we were plunged into war: Perhaps the most poisonous of all the propaganda
themes circulated in this country in full page
newspaper ads and elsewhere was the purported
statement of Adolph Hitler that he was going to
come over here some day and finish off "decadent
Yankeedom." The passage was dressed up to look like
a direct quotation and was placed over the name of
Adolph Hitler. Every effort was made to give the
impression that it came from Mein Kampf; whereas,
it was something Herman Rauschnigg had said Hitler
had said - the unsupported testimony of one man, a
refugee. Such a proposition is quite at variance with
what Hitler actually wrote in Mein Kampf where he
decries Germany's vulnerability on account of her
exposed borders and the small extent of her
national territory and extolls the United States on
account of "its vast space, which is equivalent to
the site of a Continent" and its "incomparable
inner strength.". . . "The gigantic North American
State," he says, "with the enormous resources of
its soil, is much more invulnerable than the
encircled German Reich." Again he says: Yet, how firmly propaganda had fixed the public
impression that Mein Kampf offered a program for
world conquest is brought out in the following
excerpt taken from the transcript of the question
period following an address given by Ambassador
John Cudahy before the Chicago Council of Foreign
Relations a month and a half before Pearl
Harbor. There never was any actual evidence that world
conquest was contemplated. General Marshall, Army
Chief of Staff, in his biennial report released in
October, 1945, stated that valuation by the War
Department General Staff of interrogations of
ranking members of the German high command had
"failed to disclose any over-all German strategic
plan to conquer the world."[40] The Allied program to reeducate the Germans is a
case of one deluded group trying to disillusion
another. Our conviction that the Germans have been
filled with poisonous propaganda is quite correct
and our impulse to extirpate the effects of that
propaganda is a good one. However, we cannot
accomplish our purpose when so many of our own
ideas are false, and especially when the Germans
know from direct experience that they are false. To
be successful, a teacher must enjoy the respect of
those he attempts to teach. He must win that
respect through the demonstrated superiority of his
knowledge and understanding. Part of what we are
trying to teach the Germans is true and could have
a most salutary effect on the German outlook, if
only we could get the Germans to listen with
respect and sympathy. But too much of what we try
to make them believe the Germans know to be untrue,
and this knowledge on their part causes them to
lose their respect for us and to turn a deaf ear to
everything we say. Our reeducation program should begin at home. If
we could only overcome the effects of our own
illusions born of propaganda and ignorance arising
from lack of intimate knowledge of European
affairs, if we could only possess ourselves of the
facts and then face them courageously, we not only
could reeducate the Germans but could eliminate
many erroneous and tragically dangerous features of
our German program. Unless we do revise our own
ideas and the program to which those ideas have
given birth, we are in danger of losing Germany,
Europe, and everything for which we fought this
costly war. It is hoped that this book will help
point the way to truth and therefore to our future
success. Our experience in Europe has already taught us
some bitter lessons and has forced us to ameliorate
in some degree the harsh and brutal program which
we set about to force upon our defeated enemy. But
we have much more to learn and must make many more
changes in our policy before we can hope for the
success of our German adventure. With these facts
in mind we offer the following suggestions. Rush emergency food supplies to Germany. Raise
the base diet to 2,200 calories per person per day
immediately, and to 2,500 calories during the
winter. Permit the Central Red Cross to function.
Remove all limitations to private relief. Organize
great drives under the sponsorship of Government,
if possible, to provide clothing, fuel, medicines,
and other necessities now lacking. Free all German war prisoners, return them to
Germany, and provide them with the tools needed so
they can work in Germany to feed and otherwise
provide for the German people, and thereby remove a
heavy burden from our shoulders. Give all prisoners
full union wages for work exacted from them since
V-E-Day, to enable them to reestablish themselves
and provide for their surviving dependents. Return all German lands and restore the Reich's
1937 borders. Hold plebiscites in all other
territories heavily populated by Germans in 1937,
Danzig and Austria included, to determine, in
harmony with the Atlantic Charter, under what flag
these peoples wish to live. To relieve the present unbearable population
pressure, encourage all countries with low
population densities, such as the United States,
Canada, Latin America, Australia, and Africa to
lower the bars and permit the excess German
population to emigrate. Extend all possible aid to rebuild German
cities, restore essential public services, and
create decent housing facilities. Remove all limitations to industrial production
and encourage highest possible output (except
munitions), in harmony with the thesis that
"prosperity, like peace, is indivisible." Encourage German foreign trade in order to
enable the Germans to maintain themselves as soon
as possible. Place a value on the mark in terms of
other currencies to make private German foreign
trade possible. Permit production and operation of
commercial airships and ocean-going vessels. Rehabilitate national finances and forestall
inflation by stabilizing the currency. Contract
existing currency by calling in outstanding marks
and exchanging them for new marks on some such
basis as five old for one new, and make all debts
and contracts payable in the new marks at the same
ratio in place of the old. Let experts decide the
exact ratio needed for this operation which will
aim to bring the price level down to that of 1937.
Thereafter changes in the total supply of means of
payment should be made to correspond to changes in
national capacity to produce. Lower taxes to revive incentives and the profit
motive. Remove all limitations on scientific research
and invention, with prohibitions continued only in
the fields of atomic fission, poison gas, and
weapons of war. Draw up a peace treaty with Germany and
officially end the war. Allow the Germans to set up a unified, central
Government of their own choosing, in harmony with
the Atlantic Charter, with only such external
controls as those mentioned below. Encourage the
Germans to frame a Constitution for themselves,
with all parties advocating dictatorship or
revolution barred from the Constitutional
Convention. Thereupon, withdraw all occupation troops,
remove the military governments, and abolish all
zones. Continue disarmament permanently, however,
and prohibit production of munitions and all
weapons of war. To enforce United Nations controls
install a system of observation and surprise
inspection by roving patrols, permitted to inspect
any and all records and activities, and backed by
the military might of the United States and other
United Nations. Violators to be tried before German
courts by Allied prosecutors, with verdicts subject
to appeal and retrial, if necessary, before Allied
tribunals. Insist on abolition of all discrimination in
favor of displaced persons and others, and make all
persons in Germany equal before the law. Withdraw the reeducation program as gracefully
and soon as possible. Replace the general anti-Nazi
decrees with specific laws forbidding propagation
and advocacy of certain clearly defined and
specified ideas or activities, making these
prohibitions apply to all alike, including
Communists, so that if a certain principle
previously advocated by the Nazis and outlawed as
socially dangerous, happens also to be advocated by
the Communists, the suppression will apply to
Communists and all others alike, and not just to
former Nazis as at present. Abolish all other
edicts establishing political discrimination and
give former Nazis a chance to reestablish
themselves as productive, respectable, law abiding
citizens with full rights. Abolish all censorship
and facilitate intercourse between the Germans and
the outside world. Permit Germans to travel freely
to other countries and citizens of other countries
to visit Germany as they wish. Only by such an example of wisdom and humanity,
can we teach the Germans effectively the advantages
of our way of life. By advancing such a program and
pressing for its acceptance by our allies, we could
instantly win the support and sympathy of virtually
all Germans. Russia's designs on Germany would be
frustrated, war between East and West would be
unnecessary, the world would be spared another
tragic holocaust. Reference Notes: |