THE PARTITION OF GERMANY
By M. J. BONN
WHATEVER the outcome of the Paris Conference is, it cannot restore the economic unity of Germany. The Potsdam Con- ference has destroyed it beyond diplomatic repair by cutting off one-fifth of the country for the benefit of Russia and Poland—East
Prussia, West Prussia, the two Silesias, Eastern Brandenburg, and the larger part of Pomerania. Most of the eight to ten million inhabitants who survived were driven across the Oder-Neisse line. On August znd, 1945, Old Prussia, the Prussia of Frederick the Great, ceased to exist. A remnant, consisting of what had been Swedish Pomerania and of Western Brandenburg, was put under Soviet tutelage. The Mark Brandenburg, the cradle of Prussia, is a Soviet bailiwick ; Berlin, an hour's drive trom the Polish border, has become a frontier post. The rump has been partitioned in four occupational zones, each to be administered under a common plan by an Allied commander. For reparation purposes the zones have been grouped into two halves—an Eastern zone from which Russia can take whatever she likes and the three combined Western zones set aside for the reparation claims of the non-Russo-Polish Allies. This temporary partition provides for a flow of goods from the Eastern zone to Russia and similarly from the Western zones to the West. No customs barrier is to divide the two reparation zones, and the same economic policies are to prevail in each of the occupation zones in mining, agriculture, wages, central taxation, transportation and currency banking. These policies are to be deter- mined by the Control Council, composed of the commanders of the four zones. Its decisions have to be unanimous, and can always be blocked by a' single veto. As unity depends on unanimity, it is potential only. So far each occupation zone is being run as a separate unit. Goods and people do not pass freely from one to the other. Such movements as are taking place are arranged by Allied commanders.
The Western zones are to contribute to Russia's share, in order to bring it up to 5o per cent. of all reparations. Her territorial gains in Poland, the Baltic, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Finland and Germany, which under the Soviet system include the vesting of all private property in the State, were not taken account of, nor was the wholesale looting in the Eastern provinces before they were ceded to Poland. Under the disarmament scheme Germany's industrial potential must be reduced by destruction or removals. Ten per cent. of the Western zone's removable surplus industrial capital equipment not needed for Germany's peace economy was to be supplied to Russia. She on her part was to send foodstuffs and raw materials, either from her zone or through her zone to the Western zones, for which she would receive another 15 per cent. of removable surplus capital equipment. This 25 per cent. (to plus 15) of capital goods were to be moved to Russia within two and a-half years after the Potsdam Agreement, whilst return payment of foodstuffs and raw materials was to be spread over five and a-half years. The total surplus equipment was to be determined by February znd by the Control Council, removals from each zone being subject to approval of zone commanders. Agreement was reached only late in March, when provisional production limits on German industries were imposed. Removals to Russia of all things movable from the Russian- Polish zone have taken place on a large scale, but little or no inter- course across the reparation-frontier has been achieved. The line is rapidly hardening, not so much into a customs barrier as into a Mason and Dixon line, which separates two social systems. The United States has organised barter exchange between the several zones, outside reparation commitments. Its efforts demonstrate very clearly the lack of economic unity even in the limited sphere of inter-zonal trade. Even under war conditions in the United States the Governor of Massachusetts would not negotiate trade agreements with the Governor of Alabama for the exchange of cod against raw cotton.
The Potsdam Agreement ignored the central fact--that Soviet and Western economics are basically irreconcilable. This does not pre- clude co-operation ; it certainly does not mean war. Even in the days of vehement religious fanaticism, co-operation between hostile re- ligious groups was frequent. But it is an insurmountable obstacle to the economic unity of Germany. Soviet Germany and Western Germany cannot form a single body economic. One cannot expect the Russians to discourage Communism in their zone. Even if they were not fanatical universalists, devoted to the spread of the Marxist gospel, pure opportunism would make them encourage a pro-Russian party. They have already let it cut up large estates amongst the proletariat. However desirable land-reform may be, it should not have been improvised at a time when the inevitable temporary reduction of agricultural output imperils a starving world. The Western Powers, on the other hand, can scarcely favour the growth of Communism in regions adjacent to their own lands.
Economic intercourse and economic unity are not identical. Trade has often united countries whose economic structures were organised on conflicting principles. Its re-establishment between the Eastern and Western zones of Germany would not re-unite a country which has been cut into two. There are, and will remain, two Germanys. Russia, being greatly under-developed, is bound to make the best use of the resources of her zone and to turn it away from the West. The Western Allies can do nothing to make her restore an economic unity which is not in her interest. They can withhold, even within the four corners of the Potsdam agreement, the 25 per cent. surplus equipment they are supposed to remove. They can argue that the hasty agrarian reforms in the Russian zone, which may well be the prelude to collectivisation and the dumping of eight to ten million deportees on the West, have completely upset the social balance in their zones. These changes make necessary the riptention of a very much larger industrial potential for the needs of German peace economy than the one agreed upon. Whilst the Potsdam Agreement stipulated that enough must be left to the German people to enable it " to subsist without external assistance," the British may have to burden their taxpayers with £8o,000,000 to prevent starvation. The Russians may be induced to speed up supplies ; they may consent to the creation of a Central German Agency in Berlin, knowing very well that this Agency can only carry out decisions passed unanimously by the Control Council. The only bribe which would tempt Russia to fall outwardly into line would be direct participation in the administration of the Ruhr. This would put her in a position to interfere with every effort for making the Western zone a socially contented region. It would be folly to buy " unity " at this price.
It is clearly not in the interest of the Soviets to contribute to the creation of an economically united Germany not run on their own principles. They would not even care for a United Soviet Germany, since it might assume the leadership of world Communism. From their political point of view, they are justified in developing a German-speaking Soviet Republic in their own zone, to act as a promised land for the rest of Germany and to form a Western Soviet bulwark against a restless Poland. As the Western Allies cannot now undo the partition of Germany, they might as well recognise it and develop Western Germany in order to make its people look forward to peaceful co-operation with its Western neighbours rather than to liberation through, and to union with, its Eastern compatriots. There would be thus two Germanys—as there occasionally have been in the past. With Austria there will be even three. It is probably not history's last word, though it is clearly the end of an epoch. It marks the flowing back of the Germanic tide almost to the low-water mark whence it rose a thousand years ago. It involves the pushing back of the political frontiers of Europe—temporarily at least—to its geographical centre. But the end of an epoch is usually the beginning of another, even though history moves in curves rather than in cycles.
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