Evening star., 1944-02-13

Supposing that the National Associa-
ton of Manufacturers, the United States
Chamber of Commerce and the Ameri-
can Farm Bureau Federation were COM
PEELED to reverse themselves and change
from groups bringing pressure to bear
upon Government into agencies of the
Government bringing pressure to bear
upon industry, trade and agriculture?
That is precisely what happened in
the Third Reich. according to report
on How Nazi Germany Has Controlled
Business" which has lately been pub
lished by the Brookings Institution.
Just as Hitler retained private owner
ship and private management in busi-
ness enterprise, but enslaved them for
state purposes, so he held his hand
from the destruction of chambers of
commerce and trade associations, but
forced them to serve Nazi ends by re-
crientating the direction of the pressure
which they exercised.
This is merely one example cited by
the Brookings pamphlet in barring the
technique by which Hitler has been able
to pose as champion of the capitalist
system against collectivism, while at
the same time reducing individual en-
terprise to a hollow shell So far from
standing as bulwark of law and order,
and as an executive arm of big busi-
ness" the report shows that National
Socialism "has built up and successfully
operates a method of regimenting busi-
ness which in scope and intensity is such
as the world has never SEEM
The study, written by DR.. Ludwig
Hamburger, native Of Berlin, may be
taken as warning, sober and fully
documented, to any interests in the
United States which may have been led
to incline toward the totalitarian phi
losophy. That such an admonition may
be timely is indicated by passage from
a recent address which was delivered
before the National Association of Man.
president of General Electric and execu-
tive vice chairman of the War Produc-
ton Board.
Warns Against Reaction.
In this stronghold of industrial con-
servatism, Wilson had the courage to
utter the following message: Il tell you
frankly that 1 am deeply alarmed today
over the possibility that a rightwing
reaction may draw some sections of
capital so far away from our traditions
as to imperil the entire structure of
American life as we know it."
Though National Socialism has rep
resented itself as the protector of the
German business community and the
interests of investors, the report de-
clares that ut has progressively mar
rowed the area in which business can
make its own decisions. Without as
suming the burden of actual ownership
and operation, the Government has so
curbed and directed the conduct of
business that the men in charge of pri-
vate enterprise are deprived of all real
freedom of action.
THE position of the businessman as
owner and manager of property has
ostensibly been upheld. But under the
extreme regulation that has emerged,
business finds itself in a position not
essentially different from what it would
be if the Nazis had Communicated and
nationalized it,"
The Nazis have kept the businessman
on the job, it is stated on another page,
and the old civil, commercial and indus
trial codes are still on the statute books.
"It was possible for them to pay lip
service to private ownership as pillar
and cornerstone of society, while in
fact they were reducing it to a mean
ingless legal concept. In world haunt
ed by fear of communism, they were
professedly conservative. The Nazi
regime has borrowed from and revital-
lied the most important methods of