The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1945. HELP FOR GERMANY?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 237, 6 October 1945, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1945. HELP FOR GERMANY?

TN his task as commander of the occupation forces in the British zone of Germany—which makes him the ruler of all persons in that zone— Field-Marshal Montgomery is showing day by day the blend of realism and foresight which guided him to victory on the long, hard road from El Alamein to Berlin. His tolerant wisdom, combined with the firm determination that in future the Germans shall play the game according to his rules, is to be seen in the first great steps in the re-education of the Germans under his control. His actions underline the importance of his recent statement that the difficulties which face the Allied Nations in keeping Germanj r going through the coming winter cannot be overestimated. He has reminded the victors that unless coal supplies can be rapidly increased and transport reorganised the economic collapse of Germany, followed by famine and pestilence, is inevitable. The only solution, he says, lies in the import into Germany of foodstuffs, the import of which has so far been forbidden because of the even more serious shortages created by the Germans themselves in their neighbouring States. But when he adds that the calorific value of the present German ration is little, more than half of life's essential demands he makes it clear that there is a grave danger of epidemics comparable with that which spread towards the end cf the last great war. Such epidemics recognise no frontiers; they can be more devastating than war itself. Though methods of control are infinitely better than they were in 1918, Field-Marshal Montgomery's warning loses none of its force.

Not only the Germans will suffer if his fears are even partially realised. There are still many hundred thousands of "displaced persons" in Germany, slaves from the border States who have not yet been able to make their way home, and in shortage or epidemic the sufferings of these unfortunates would be greater than those of the Germans themselves, because they have no one to speak on their behalf. Again, central Europe and the Balkans are not economically self-sufficient. They are largely primary-producing States, and during the past half-century Germany has kept them economically subservient by underselling them to defeat any attempts to establish their own manufacturing centres and by denying them the coal and iron necessary for their operation. These manufactures are now more than ever necessary to the border States, and until these can manufacture for themselves it is essential that they obtain some part of Germany's output. There is no other area which can supply them. Thus even if an epidemic in Germany did not spread her neighbours would suffer if her output of peacetime goods and machinery fell away. Reparations in kind, which the Allies will demand from Germany, cannot be paid by a famine and disease-stricken nation. Therefore, it is not in the Allied interests, as it is equally opposed to every instinct of humanity, that millions of the people of Germany should perish by starvation and disease if that can reasonably be prevented.

Field : Marshal Montgomery says that he does not want to "pamper" the Germans —he has proved that often enough at the mouth of his guns but though they brought disaster on themselves he foresees that they may still continue to spread it if all help is denied them. Unrra, though it has given some assistance to liberated Italy, can have no hand in German rehabilitation, and it is therefore on the advice of such leaders as Montgomery that action by the "Big Three" depends. Any such help would, of course, have to be paid for, and rendered in such a way that it could not be regarded by Nazi followers in Germany as representing any weakness, or any sign of weakening, by the Allies. It would be a preliminary to the later complete destruction of all Germany's war potential, including total and irrevocable disarmament and the levelling of all armament factories, followed, perhaps, by a decade of German employment in the reconstruction of all that the nation has destroyed throughout Europe.

Field-Marshal Montgomery's suggestion of immediate help has not been made without full appreciation of its implications. He has made the people of Germany realise that he is their master—the only rule by which their respect can be won and maintained. When he suggests an immediate helping hand to Germany it is certain that he will not slacken in his determination so to guide the future of his arch-enemy that it will- never again have the opportunity to loose its ambitions upon humankind.