PRICE OF NAZI SLAVERY

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23315, 29 April 1941, Page 4

PRICE OF NAZI SLAVERY

♦ — BURDEN ON OCCUPIED COUNTRIES LEVY ON FRANCE OF £2O A HEAD LONDON, March 13. New details of the colossal burdens imposed by the Germans on the countries which, they have enslaved were given in a written reply to a Parliamentary question by Mr R A. Butler, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Mr Butler did not deal with the widespread looting of produce and livestock, but mainly with the amounts of money paid by the countries to keep the German army in occupation. The estimated total from Norway. Denmark, Belgium, Holland, and France alone is £1,050,000,000 a year—more than eight times the maximum annual demand from Germany ever contemplated under the Young Plan. France alone, with a levy of £827,000,000— equal to £2O a headpays three times more than the maximum which the Young Plan sought to take from Germany. The full text of the statement is as follows: The burden imposed on the occupied territories can be reckoned only partly in terms of money paid by the governments of the occupied countries to the German Government. The greater part of the burden consists essentially of various obligations exacted in kind.

In the first.place, the territories have to contribute directly to the cost of the army of occupation: this charge includes generous pay for the troops. The following are the estimated annual costs of occupation in the western occupied territories, the sterling equivalent being based on the rates of exchange before the occupation. The figures must be treated with reserve in the case of Holland.

Per head of Total population Norway .. £68,000.000 £-25 Denmark £26,000,000 £8 Belgium .. £75.000,000 £8 Holland .. £54,000,000 £6 France .. £827,000,000 £2O It will thus be seen that the German occupation is estimated to be costing the western occupied territories 'annually a sum in the neighbourhood of £1,050,000,000. In addition Germany receives certain amounts, estimates of which are not yet available, from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Bulgaria. Relatively Norway suffers the heaviest burden a head of population, which amounts to more than onethird of her pre-war national income. It may also bo noted that the maximum annual demand from Germany ever contemplated under the Young Plan was £125,000.000, which, even taking into account the change in the sterling price of gold since that date, amounts to less than one-third of the present French payment. Surplus of Exports

The second form of burden arising out of the German occupation is that the occupied territories are obliged to send to Germany more goods than they receive from her in return. This surplus of exports is paid for ,in blocked marks, from which no benefit is, or is likely to be, derived. Under this heading may be reckoned the value of goods requisitioned in the country by the German authorities and sent to Germany, including articles belonging to individuals, such as gold and jewellery. This second type of burden is considerably less now than it was in 1940 owing to the fact that the territories have to a large extent been denuded of readily exportable surpluses. , Even so, the total annual loss to the western occupied territories may still be estimated at about £100.090.000 a year. The estimated total burden is thus in the neighbourhood of £1,150,000.000 a year, and this does not take into account the many indirect losses caused to the territories concerned by the German occuoation for which nd estimates are available.