Evening star., 1944-11-15
To Control Germany

Though apparently less drastic
than the so-called Morgenthau plan
which President Roosevelt Is said
to have shelved-the proposals for
the control OF Germany put forward
by the Kilgore subcommittee Of the
Senate Military Affairs Committee
are stringent enough to raise at
least some doubt as to their prac-
ticability. They would not reduce
the Reich to a strictly agricultural
land, but they would deindustrialize
1t to q point that would almost GER
tainly have far-reaching and per-
haps harmful long-term effect on
the economy Of Western Europe.
The Kilgore. groups main recon-
mendation Is to dismantle and re-
move to lands devastated by the
Nazis not merely Germany's entire
direct munitions industry but all
primary indirect munitions indus
tries, including the metallurgical
and chemical industries" A corol-
larry recommendation advocates the
punishment of 10000 OF the lead
ing imperialist-minded German in
dustrialists" for their part In plot
ting with Hitler and deliberately
preparing the way for the program
of aggression and conquest that has
inflicted so much agony and de-
struction upon the world during the
past five years.
There can be no doubt, of course,
that Germany, together with it's
criminal leaders, must be made to
pay for the evil 1t has caused and
that the most thoroughgoing meas
ures must be taken to keep 1t from
cutting loose again in another IS or
80 years. The test of any plan to
achieve this end, however, is not in
its "softness" or in its hardness"
but in whether or not 1t is best cal
culated to promote the security and
well-being of Europe and the world
through the long future. On this
basis, II 1t can be demonstrated that
a Carthaginian peace will be the
wisest kind of peace, then that is the
kind OF peace the Reich should have.
But by the same token, If it can be
demonstrated that such = peace
would be self-defeating. then 1t
would seem only common sense for
the victors to follow a less drastic
course.
On the strength of arguments ad-
vanced to date, proposals like those
of the Kilgore subcommittee do not
appear to be particularly impressive.
Like the United States, Germany,
after all, grew to be an industrial
state primarily because its geog-
raphy and its natural resources
made the development more or less
inevitable. Accordingly. to try to
control it merely by dismantling its
factories for re-erection in other
lands-lands in Central Europe, for
instance. lacking any direct outlets
to the sea or deficient in the primary
sources Of energy-seems hardly to
offer a promising prospect. On the
contrary, as pointed out recently by
the heads of five of the most distin-
guished American engineering so
cities, such program might gravely
injure the economy of the world.
Without thus endangering other
nations, according to this group, the
Reich can be rigidly controlled by
being forbidden to produce synthetic
oil, by being deprived of most of its
capacity to manufacture nitrogen,
by drastic cut in its steel output
potential, and by the removal of its
aircraft plants and equipment.
Perhaps the Kilgore subcommittee
will yet be able to argue convincingly
for its recommendations, but at the
moment they seem rather on the
doubtful side. We shall be wise to
remember, in any case. that they
are merely proposals and that what
ever American plan is finally decided
upon will not be the last word on
the subject For there will also be
a British plan and Russian plan
and a French plan as well, and all
these will have to be refined and
synthesized into a single Allied plan
before reasonable solution to the
German problem can be reached.