RIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY L I S H E D BY T H E A M E R I C A N C H E M I C A L S O C I E T Y W A L T E R J. M U R P H Y , E D I T O R
Seven Months of American Occupation of Germany HE chaos existing in Germany a t the war’s end
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and for several months thereafter is understandable, but more than seven months have elapsed since V-E Day and conditions gr’ow *worse and more alarming. Every returning officer with whom we have talked says the situation is deteriorating rapidly, and these statements are fully corroborated by the stories of numerous newspaper reporters and columnists who have toured the Continent in recent weeks. Of even greater significance is the regort of Byron Price to the President following a ten-week survey of Germany. Mr. Price is a widely known newspaper man, was the Associated Press Editor for several years prior to our entry into the war, and during the recent conflict was director of censorship. The Editors of INDUSTRIALAND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY know and appreciate the fine work done by Mr. Price on censorship and have complete confidence in his ability to render a factual statement of conditions in Germany. We cannot, of course, print Mr. Price’s full report to President Truman, but the following excerpts go to the core of the situation: The entire basic structure of military government, including the Potsdam declaration, should be re-examined in the light of experience and new conditions. The United States must decide whether we mean to finish the job completely, and provide the tools, the determination, and the funds requisite to that purpose, or withdraw‘. We must decide whether we are going to permit starvation, with attendant epidemics and disorders, in the American zone, or ship the food t o prevent it. We must decide whether obstructions raised by the French Government, which have deadlocked the four-power Control Council at Berlin, are to be permitted to defeat the underlying purposes of Allied policy. We have reached the stage where we must determine much more specifically what we are going to do about minor hirelings of the Nazi party and its satellite agencies, and how far we are going in destroying the industrial structure of Germany.
Not of least importance, it must be decided how fast and how far the Government is to go on changing from military to civilian control in Germany.
Really competent civilian administrative personnel and advice must be provided from within the present governmental establishment at Washington if any such changeover is to have a chance of succeeding. The urgency of these decisions is deepened not only by the continuing four-power deadlock at Berlin, but by the approach of winter. The next few months will be critical months. They will determine whether the American Government, in its first large-scale attempt a t governing a conquered people, is to succeed, or fail, or abandon the effort. Time will clearly show, we believe, that the partition of Germany into four sections, each administered by one of the major Allies, was a tragic mistake and may lead to a third world war. Obviously the Control Council in Berlin, made up of representatives of Great Britain, France, Soviet Russia, and the United States is not a t present functioning properly and probably never will operate satisfactorily. Each of the four powers concerned with the administration of Germany has viewed this task differently from the very beginning, and these divergent viewpoints will widen still farther as time passes. There is little hope that these differencescan be resolved in Berlin, and a uniform and coordinated plan adopted and followed. In the American zone of occupation the state of chaos is much more pronounced than in the other three sectors. This results from a lack of full-hearted acceptance of one over-all plan by the several agencies charged with the responsibility of administering our area. In the final analysis Washington must be held accountable, for it is President Truman’s responsibility to say whether the Germans as a people and as human beinge are to be eradicated completely or are to be rendered the assistance that is necessary to catalyze self-help and to bring about an understanding of and a desire for American democracy. If the former is our avowed in-
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INDUSTRIAL A N D E N G I N E E R I N G CHEMISTRY
tention, i t nould be a merciful act to s h o t the millions of men, v, omen, and children in our area and then leave, admitting, of course, that n e are not much better morall) or spiritual11 than the gang of murderers who ran Germany arid tried to conquer the n o ~ l d . Those M ho oppose the \lorgenthau and similar plans frequent!) are dccused of seeking a soft peace for Cerman). Sooner or later it 17 ill and must da\T n on us that there is a distinct difference betn een Germany, the nation of .the past half century, and Germans, some seventy million human beings. EUYOPP v, as and will in the future, if it is to sur\-ive, be dependent upon the industrial producti\ ity of the Germans, \\ holesale and indiscriminate destruction of hat remains of German plants and faccories--in other words, a Scorched-earth policy of administr ation--\r ill depriT e not only the Germans of the necessities of life but also the millions of victims of the Yazi regime. A diseased Europe will plague the rest of the world. Europe, including German nationals, must be made self-sustaining nith a decent standard of living. Otherwise the sacrifices in blood, sweat, and tears of the recent conflict will have been made in vain. iire we in German) to seek vengeance or to spread the gospel of democracy and to prove its workability even under the ramst ad\Terse and discouraging conditions? Let us have, not a hard peace or a soft peace, but an enlightened peace. Those n-hq have seen the dcstruction visited on Germany know that sile cannot become a military threat again for a long time unless it be through the use of atomic power. This is, of course, a distinct possibility and one that should be guarded against, but it is difficult to imagine German production facilities again becoming a potential war machine if we supervise and control them intelligently. This mean9 that we must get our Army out from under the task of governing Germany at the earliest possible moment. Its personnel is not trained for such purposes, indeed. it is rapidly deterioriating to the point where it cannot any longer be effecth e. We must provide intelligent civilian governmental agencies, staffed, a$ Byron Price points out, vith competent personnel, We must be prepared to remain in Germany €or a t least two generations. N e must have highly trained, scientific intelligcnce groups who can supervise and control German production based on a policy of perrmtting a decent living standard, but no more than that M hile there remains the slightest threat that German nationalistic feeling is likely to desire a third try a tj M d d domination. Finally we should tell the Germans just what our plans are and what we expect in the way of cooperation from them. A sullen nation, one with no hope and no knowledge of what is to be their fate other than starvation and death, will quick13 become a cancerous gro\3th that can lead only to undermining the whole of Europe and probably the rest of the world in time.
Vol. 38, No. 1
V-e as scientists have a special interest in the policies formulated by the Administration for governing Germany, an interest quite asidc from the moral and humanitarian angles of the problem. \Tit11 conditions going from bad to worse in Germany, an) plans that we have for continuing the stud) of German scientific ad] dnces made during the v a r \T ill be seriouslh handicapped if the country is in a constant state of turmoil and is disease ridden, and if its citizens ale openly hostile to our investigators. 11-e no\% knon that international agreements made by President TI uman’s predecessor prevent us from moving out of our section of Germany the scientific documents in our possession there, and all these \-aluable data will have to be reviewed by us in the document centers at Frankfort, Heidelburg, and elsewhere in the American occupation zone. We also know that, unless this information is obtained and made available in the next two years, the effort nil1 produce little of value to American industry. The scientific and industrial data so far taken out of German) b j our intelligence teams are far from complete. We have obtained considerable data on the chemistry of many products and processes, but little on the engineering side. This can be found dnly by painstaking review of German scientific documents and by careful plant inspections b>-highly skilled American chemical engineers. There is still a third possibility that should be explored-to bring to this country some of the leading German chemists and engineers and to put them to work publishipg and applying their scientific discoveries. To date discussions and attempts to formulate plans to bring such individuals t o this country have resulted in no plan that is acceptable to the State Department. In the meantime, many of the top-notch chemists and engineers of Germany are going to England and Russia. It is undesirable, of course, to import German chemists by the thousands; we do not need or want them here, but a little realistic thinking soon indicates the desirability of bringing a few key personnel to this country to implement our present knowledge of German chemical advances of the past decade. We have men in this country, like H. Mark of Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and others who are in a position to advise us on the scientific background of German scientists. It should be possible to bring a small number to the United States and t o place them in colleges, universities, and government research agencies. If such a plan was formulated, it is possible that the State Department would agree to it. Certainly the time has arrived when the President and his close adyisers should re-examine the plans for governing Germany. It is equally important that the American public maintain a high degree of interest in the German situation. Thousands upon thousands of our boJs gave their lives there for specific principles. It is up to us to see that these principles are maintained in our administration of Germany.
