CONTROL OF GERMANY

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 September 1944, Page 5

CONTROL OF GERMANY

U.S.A, TREASURER’S PLAN ADMINISTRATION SPLIT NEW YORK, September 24. i: The Roosevelt Cabinet Committee on German peace policy has been split wide open over the plan of the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Morgenthau) for the complete destruction of Germany as a modern industrial State and the conversion of it into a country of small farms,” says the Washington correspondent of the Associated Press. “Mr. Morgenthau’s plan is reported to have Mr. Roosevelt’s approval, but is opposed by the other Committee members, the Secretary of State (Mr. Cordell Hull) and the Secretary of War (Mr. Stimson). “The dispute has so disrupted the Treasury, War and State Departments’ work on detailed arrangements for post-war Germany, that threePower planning by Britain, the United States, and Russia, is virtually stalled. Mr. Stimson and Mr. Hull did not attend the Quebec Conference, but Mr. Morgenthau is reported to have returned believing that Mr. Churchill supported his proposals. “Mr. Stalin’s plans respecting Germany are not known in Washington, but Mr. Morgenthau’s plan is based ■on three assumptions. First, Russia wants East Prussia and most of Silesia will go to Poland to offset Poland’s loss of eastern territory to Russia. Second, Russia wants German labour battalions put to work on Russian reconstruction. Third, Russia is not interested in prolonged military occupation of Germany, and would be willing to have Britain, the United States and some other Allies do the job.” Mr. Morgenthau’s plan is reported to provide for the following measures: (1) The removal from Germany to devastated countries of whatever industrial machinery they require, and the destruction of the rest ol" Germany’s industry. (2) The permanent.closing of the German mines. (3) The cession to France of the Saar and Western German industrial areas, the cession to Poland of whatever eastern area of Germany Russia wants handled that way. (4) The dissolution of large German land holdings into small farms which would enable the 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 people remaining in Germany to exist largely on an agricultural basis.

(5) Refusal by other countries to render any assistance, economic or otherwise, to the German people so they will be forced to make their own way as best as possible from the wreckage of their war on Europe. (6) Prolonged control of Germany by an Allied or United Nations military mission. (7) No outright reparations, since a German agricultural State with little or no commerce could not pay them.

The principal War and State Department criticism of the plan is that it will not work because Germany occupies a key position in European economy. . Until Mr. Morgenthau’s plan won Presidential approval the tentative plan was that Germany should be permitted to function as an industrial State* after her surrender, but under Allied military and economic controls denying her any opportunity of becoming a great war-mak-ing State. The London correspondent ol the “New York Times” says an exceptionally well-informed diplomatic source said that American policy was inclined towards removing the capital of Germany from Berlin as a step towards the drastic decentralisation of Germany. General stringency is the key note of American policy towards Germany so far enunciated here unofficially.