The Wilmington morning star., 1945-02-03
Washington Calling
BY MARQUIS CHILDS

miles separating the Russian and allied armies
and major crisis of the war seemingly near,
vital decisions concerning the occupation of
Germany have not yet been reached
I have just had brief insight into the mud
die confusion and delay that have apparently
made it impossible to formulate the American
position. 1t is, and use the word deliberate
ly. frightening. The end result can only be dis
illusion and worse.
The real danger of our losing the victory,
it seems to me, lies not in the grand alliance
falling apart. 1t is that fumbling and fuddlng
in occupied Germany may provide a perfect
setting for the resurgence of Fascism.
| 1t is difficult in brief space to give pic
ture of what has happened, or rather, what
has not happened but in this and the following
column an attempt will be made.
| 1t begins with President Roosevelt assign
ing to the military the authority and donina-
ton in the first two phases of occupation FOL
lowing the surrender of Germany. 1t is in
evitable that the first phase be military, since
| it comedies with the conquests. The second
phase is to cover the period between military
occupation and dissolution of supreme head
quarters of the allied expeditonary force. The
third phase is to be that of tripartite control,
although whether this is to be carried out on
the basis of separate zones or through one
central government will apparently be de-
termined-because of the way in which the
tr1parute government is set up-Only N the
actual test of occupation.
Authority Through SHAEF
Authority is to be exercised in the first two
phases through SHAEF. To do the job, the
U. S. Army has established here in England a
sp -clal staff planning center which is known
as the United States government control cou-
Gil Here handbooks for the German occupa-
ton have been worked out and special mill
tary personnel trained.
ic o,,11, -
agencies planning for the future of Germany
The others are SHAEF itselg, which is an al
lied body and the European Advisory COM
mission, on which are British, Russian. Amer
lean and now French delegates. These three
groups have too often issued either conflicting
QrectlVeS or none at ALL
Controlling Germany in line with the plan
that now seems to have the right of way is
certain to be an extremely complicated task
1t means making sure that German industry
cannot be used to start preparation for war
all over again. 1t means industrial disarma-
ment that will still give the German people
chance to live inside the very complex
economy of Europe.
1t is here that the big question mark as to
the effect of military domination in the first
two phases enters in. The strong possibility
is that the first decisions will set the pattern,
VIII. Oh can scarcely be changed in the later
of opinion between the Americans and the Brit,
ish. The latter say the second phase should be
very short, it not eliminated altogether, to
make way for the tripartite administration.
SHAEF on the other hand, takes the view
that the second phase is likely to be prolonged.
It would be hard to exaggerate the COM
plexty of the questions involved SHAEF, for
example, has had to review the whole prob
lem of the destination of German exports under
controlled economy.
Little or no provision has been made for the
cooperation of U. S. civilian agencies in the
occupation. This means that men with the
| technical background necessary to carry out
the complicated phases of the task must al
most necessarily go into I'm form If they are
to participate. They then become subject to the
chain of command and their expert knowl-
edge may be vetoed at half dozen points
Few top men would be willing to accept respon-
sibility under such circumstances.
| 1t is not that the military has grabbed author
| ity, or even necessarily wanted it. In a sense
it was forced on them. After all. for many
months military authorities have been trying
without success to unload responsibility for
southern Italy.
| But having had to accept responsibility.
they guarding it jealousy, suspicious Of
| attempts by civilians to participate. The mil
| itary, confronted with this grave responsible
| ity, will try to do Workmanlike technical job.
The military manual says that no Nazis will
be retained in policy positions, but
policy-making is not defined. Correspondents
back from the front say that conquered Aach-
en- is being run, under American Occupation,
by two Nazi industrialsts.
Under such situation, the Nazi under
ground could appeal most effectively to the
German masses, and to Impoverished Europe
as we'll Thew could say: These Americans