Evening star., 1945-07-23
Letters to The Star
Discusses German Assets Abroad
as DANCER to Peace !

To the Editor OF The Star:
Actual experience in pre-Hitler Ger
many with concealment devices her
industrialists even then resorted to
prompts me to question whether we
know how to deal with these devices.
Any one who has any insight at all into
what the United Nations are up against
in trying to render the real masters Of
Germany impotent to stage another
war for world domination must have
the "creeps" when he reads about some
of the measures being relied upon to
bring this about.
The war has shown, II it needed
proof, that industrial strength, which
means the power to turn out armament
and supplies, is the essence Of military
power in this machine age. Our Foreign
Economic Administrator, Leo r. Crow
ley, well says in his report to Senator
Kilgore's War Mobilization Committee:
ITO prevent Germany from possessing
the means of waging third world war
we must disarm her economically and
industrially as well as militarily."
At another point he says: zone Of
the most important bases for German
aggression consists Of the properties
owned or controlled by Germans which
are located outside the physical borders
Of the country"
Big TAX Ahead.
Awareness of what we face, however,
does not insure that we understand
how to go about the job. especially
when the job Is split up among various
loosely co-ordinated Government de-
partments. For example, we read in
another dispatch that: "The State
Department is recruiting applicants
through the United States Civil Service
Commission for service in Germany.
The positions open, call for men with
accounting, economics or business ad-
ministration training and /or experience,
to go to Germany and audit and
examine the books and files of German
banks, insurance companies, corpora
tions, ETC."
know from what actually saw In
making survey of one sizeable German
industry in 1880, that training in Amer
lean methods of accounting or business
administration or in economics, even
capped with considerable practical ex-
perience, never will equip man to
unravel the mazes of German book
keeping which are but a part of the
techniques of concealment perfected by
German industrialists through years Of
practice in beating the reparations re-
quirements Of World War I, not to
mention the ordinary German tax laws.
Not only do they keep double sets of
books but the intricacies of subsidiaries
of subsidiaries of subsidiaries, scattered
all over Germany. each with foreign
afnliates in Switzerland, Italy, Holland,
Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, Ru-
mania, Turkey and/or the Americas,
ETC., and deposits kept in the names OF
agents or merely by numbers in these
countries, makes it impossible for any
one not at the core of the scheming
throughout its development ever to get
to the bottom of the mess.
Key Men" Needed.
That can be done only by finding and
securing the guidance of persons who
had the run of the story" as it was
being written. There are key men left
in Germany who could and would serve
IN this work. In the vast electrical
industry for instance, such q man would
shortcut the investigation, not by
months but by years and would make
the findings solid instead of sketchy.
The question naturally arises whether
such men could be relied upon when
they had had enough to do with the
edge. There probably are not many
trustworthy guides, but when one under
stands the conditions that led to those
situations and how some since have
suffered at the hands of those who in
spired them, 1t Is conceivable that the
necessary aid could be found in leading
industries. Without such aid, the riddles
never will be solved and justice never
can be done toward many who have
been defrauded.
The secretary Of German trade
association told me in 1890 that there
was not an honest businessman left in
Germany and that there could not be
because, If he really were honest, in mis-
observance Of the laws, his taxes would
wipe him out He blamed the repara-
tions claims for this condition but
whatever the cause, 1t was an open
secret that stealing was general and
upon this foundation Hitler built his
Nazi program.
My point Is that Germany cannot be
disarmed economically If We do not find
most of her foreign holdings and that
such specialists as the State Depart
ment is seeking to entrust this work to
will hardly be able to do the job by
themselves.
WILLIAM H. INGERSOLL,
Objects to Sugar for Spain
To the Editor Of The Star:
Isn't there any one in the know why"