LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GERMAN BALANCE SHEET
Sut,—A little more than a year ago you published under the above title an article by me summing up the first eighteen months of our occupation of Germany. I would like to attempt to bring it up to date. The situation in the British zone at present resembles that of autumn, 1946, but It is a year worse. No fundamental solution has been effected or even attempted, and meanwhile stocks have been run down to nil, more plant has become scrap and industrial man-power has further deteriorated through physical hardship and lack of prospects. At the same time, the morale of German industrialists seems to be reviving, and the will to get something done is definitely appearing ; this suggests that the stunned inertia of defeat is disappearing and the wheel has moved off the dead centre. This reviving morale might augur that, given adequate raw materials and fuel, German economy could gradually re- cover. However, since the last year of war, German basic industry and transport have had no capital repairs and maintenance to speak of— except for some first-aid patching—so that now, after three years of exposure to the elements, the rate of deterioration has increased enor- mously, which means that there is only very inadequate basic or surviving industry to back up a revival, while the condition of the railways is, probably, worse now than it was at the end of 1946. While German industrial morale is reviving, German business morals have sunk to a uniformly low level. All economic activity—such as it is—is based on private " compensation " deals, which means that orders will not be executed unless advantages in kind (outside the authorised limits of the original order) will accrue. This procedure is, of course, illegal, but everyone knows that without it nothing will get done. It makes a planned revival impossible, and is a fatal handicap to exports (which do not give " compensation").
The above applies, also, to agriculture, with the added reluctance of the German officials to coerce the farmers. The German harvest was, in fact, better than officially stated, but foodstuffs locally produced failed to reach central collecting points. The German attitude is that the Allies, through continued absence of a central German Government and control of Germany's external relations, have assumed responsibility for preventing the German people from dying of hunger, and therefore all efforts must be directed towards exaggerating food shortages and attempting to extract bigger food imports. The above conditions must be viewed against the present administrative backgound. We have handed executive power to the Germans, thus depriving ourselves of authority of direct intervention. But as the occupying power still retains ultimate responsibility, this shedding of authority, while depriving British personnel of the power to get things done, saddles them in German (and the world's) eyes with the responsibility for what goes wrong. As experienced personnel leaves, the Germans increasingly give or withhold information and co-operation as they please. The British frequently know what is going wrong and are powerless to intervene promptly and effectively. All this is bad for their morale—and the Germans know it. Also, the up to now obscure role of joint bi-zonal agencies has increased the confusion as to the ultimate authority—from which the Germans have not been slow to profit.
One cannot blame the Germans for starting to make rings round us ; they see continued administrative muddles and lack of policy, and at the same time feel that initiative and dexterity bring at least some results, whereas keeping to the rules leads nowhere. In contrast to the improve- ment in German morale, British morale—civilian and military—is un- fortunately deteriorating. The main cause is the universal and growing feeling that the British Government has not—nor ever had—a policy towards Germany, with the result that its directives have had neither consistency nor common sense based on reality, that it does not and cannot back up its personnel, whose now somewhat nebulous status of " inspectors " gives them an uncomfortable impression of impotence. Their future, too, is uncertain ; experts whose contracts have, apparently, been extended after careful selection, suddenly find themselves " axed." Furthermore, the ill-informed, unfair and even malicious attacks on C.C.G. in the Press creates at home a prejudice against employment of ex-C.C.G. personnel, with the result that something like a sauve qui peat is developing among the younger age-groups in Germany, who regarded their service there as a duty and an experience. Another factor increasing bad morale is the conditions for wives and families. The lower-paid grades cannot make ends meet, and it is not surprising, therefore, that some have made arrangements with the Germans. The cumulative consequences of all this is that there is a continual segregation of the tmfittest, just when we must increasingly rely on prestige and high morale to maintain our influence. We are now paying increasingly
dearly for the persistent refusal—in the teeth of much expert advice— to make the C.C.G. an honourable permanent branch of Government service.
One last word about politics. The Germans are realising that as Allied control is relaxing they have increasingly to fend for themselves. They have persuaded themselves that they want to be part of the West, and their fear and hate of the Russians is growing. They fear Communism because it means the creation of a police State, with all the aspects of which they are only too familiar. But they can find nothing attractive so far in Western democracy—with the result that • among the younger generation a spirit of disillusioned politico-philosophical Nihilism is growing up: a highly dangerous state of mind. It is useless for us to talk glibly of liberty, democracy, etc., and yet appear to be willing to compromise. If we are to convince the Germans that we fought and won the war to destroy their police State and make them feel its evilness, we must show conclusively that we are not afraid to enforce our convictions. Otherwise, the Germans—who are not cowards will conclude that we either do not believe in, or cannot defend, the " Four Freedoms." And that would be in their eyes a moral vindication of totalitarian philosophy.—Yours faithfully, VIATOR.
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