Germans and Dismantling
By ARNOLD BENDER
THE first militant assertions of renascent German nationalism are connected not so much with the problem of dismantling generally as with the specific issue of the dismantling by the British of the Fischer-Tropsch plants in the Ruhr. Even the steel industry dismantlings have not caused quite the same stir. The German man in the street puts this matter, and the whole German question, in simple terms: "The West plunders and the East murders." I was told this three weeks ago by a fellow passenger in a German train, and I believe the statement to be a fair sample of what the average German says and thinks. The interested parties, however, the Ruhr industry, the trade unions and the Chambers of Commerce, in talks which I had with some of their representatives and in their anti-dismantling literature, naturally employ different arguments—arguments based chiefly on economic and political grounds, while the moral issue is only lightly touched on now and then, the voice of sweet reason rather than appeals to conscience. I summarise here the Fischer-Tropsch arguments, but it must be remembered that many of these have been and are applied to the dismantling question as a whole.
The arguments on the economic side are varied and, one must admit, persuasive. It is stressed repeatedly that thc dismantling of the Fischer-Tropsch installations represents a blow to the Marshall Plan. The six Fischer-Tropsch factories in the Ruhr Basin produce, from coal, gas or coke solvents, raw materials for soap and washing agents, white spirits, textile auxiliaries, hard wax, &c., all of them necessary materials the import of which would cost Western Germany some £io,000,000 a year. The balance of payments of the Western German economy is bound to remain adverse for a number of years, and the Germans demand that all that could possibly be produced in Germany should be produced there. It is claimed that the cost of this particular item of dismantling would be wholly borne by the American tax-payer who foots the Marshall Plan bill.
Another argument is that the removal of the Fischer-Tropsch plants condemns the whole of the Ruhr coal-mining industry to permanent unprofitability. It is pointed out by the Deutsche Kohlenbergbau-Leitung Essen, the Central Office of German Coal Mine Owners, that the Germano pits work under particularly dis- advantageous conditions compared with British and American coal- mining. The average depths of the German coal-bearing strata (approximately 2,50o feet a shaft) are far greater than anywhere else in the world, and the individual scams are far less productive than in non-German mines, since they are mostly no more than three feet thick. The layman is told that, all along, it has been necessary to implement the profits from the mines with profits from coal by-prodults, and since the Fischer-Tropsch installations started working in 1936 they have come to play the most important part in this battle for ancillary revenues.
These arguments are put forward to combat any suggestion that the Fischcr-Tropsch plants are uneconomic. When the dismantling demand is made for security reasons, because the plants represent war potential, the answers are equally pertinent, though not neces- sarily equally persuasive. No one denies that a certain amount of fuel is distilled in the Fischer-Tropsch factories—to per cent, of the whole output in fact. But this fuel is of very low quality ; it can only be used for motor vehicles if lead and benzoic arc added to it, and it cannot be used for aeroplane engines at all. During the years of Germany's greatest need for motor fuel the Fischer- Tropsch plants are said to have contributed no more than two to two and a half per cent. of the total amount used. In any case steel, motor fuels, hydro-carbons and rubber are indispensable Products of every peace-time economy. Where should the line be drawn if plants manufacturing them are to be regarded as war poten- tial ? There is obvious force in this argument, which comes from the Kohlechemie Partnership, the group owning the Fischer-Tropsch Patents. They add that the Ruhr industry has no objection to the dismantling of factories which manufacture armaments only ; but they can see no justification for dismantling the Fischer-Tropsch installations even if they do produce motor fuel. It may, however, be answered that, thanks to the flexibility of the Fischer-Tropsch system, its American adaptation may be made to yield more and better-quality fuel ; so that then the plants might be regarded as dangerous from a war-potential aspect.
The German industrial organisations running the Fischer-Tropsch plants point out that their process is not a secret. Licences were granted by the licence-holder, the Kohlechemie l'artnership, to a number of foreign concerns—to a French and a Japanese company in February, 1936, a South African company in July, 1937, and to Standard, Shell, Texaco and Kellogg in the U.S.A. in October, 1938. As the German companies were licensed between the end of 1934 and the middle of 1937, foreign companies had the benefit of the process at the same time. They add that from 1938 onwards the Nazis placed obstacles in the way of the erection of more Fischer- Tropsch installations because they did not think them important enough for a war economy, and for the same reason did not subject the patents to their usually very severe export control.
These plants may be considered as part of reparations, and the principle of reparation is not contested anywhere. But the value of the plants when dismantled is only a fraction of their value when working. Some parts of the factories, such as buildings, foundations, underground pipe systems, cannot be moved at all ; others would be destroyed during the transfer, so that in the end, according to German calculations, of each too million marks plant value (roughly £8 million) only to million marks would be credited to the reparation account. Besides, the parts dismantled and transferred, which are built to German specifications, might be difficult to fit with the industrial norms of other countries, and the supply of spare parts could not be guaranteed. For L11 these reasons the Central Office of the German Coal Mining Industry suggests as a compromise solution the erection by the German Government of a Fischcr-Tropsch plant in the country entitled to reparation—a solution which in their view would avoid the destruction of assets so necessary for European reconstruction and would ensure a plant in full working order to the recipient country.
After listening to all that is said and after reading the extensive literature put out by the interested parties, one is surprised to dis- cover that the fact that Great Britain is acting as trustee for a number of Allied countries, and simply carrying out agreements arrived at independently of whether they prove wise, has never been taken into account. All sorts of reasons for British obstinacy with regard to dismantling have been discussed—security, economic rivalry, economic unsuitability of the installations. But never has a thought been given to the consideration that Britain is bound to honour her agreements, and if she failed might be accused by her Allies of desert- ing them and giving way to the first signs of organised German pressure. Stress is laid on the dangerous tension which may be created by the "incomprehensible" dismantlings between Germany and her future partners in a West European Union. Relations between them, it is contended, may be irreparably jeopardised. The problem concerns " not only a technical and economic dismantling but a spiritual one as well." Yet it has apparently escaped the atten- tion of people arguing like this that relations between Britain and her Allies might be just as fatally compromised if she refused, on German insistence, to execute the dismantling programme to which she is pledged.
There is another moral issue I summarise from a number of con- versations as well as leaflets. Only the country which invented the Fischer-Tropsch system, a system which will be of decisive impor- tance to the whole world, is to be prevented from ever using it again even in the most modest way. This is happening, it is said, at the same time as the U.S.A., the country with by far the greatest oil production in the world, continues to develop this same process. It is suggested that the U.S.A. intends to safeguard her future needs of motor fuel, against a time when her oil wells are exhausted, by the use of a system which the Germans invented but are not now allowed to use. It is added that dismantling provides propaganda for the Communists and the Russians. There are two Fischer-Tropsch installations in the Russian Zone which continue to be operated, though certainly not for the benefit of the East German economy.
The dangers of unemployment if the six Fischer-Tropsch installa- tions are dismantled are not overlooked either. But, whereas privately one hears of fantastic figures of unemployed, the industry itself and the trade unions state that the factories involved never employed more than approximately 5,000 hands. The unemployment probkm would therefore be local and, in view of the fact that the percentage of employment per hundred inhabitants, according to the report of the Dortmund Chamber of Commerce, is slightly higher than in 1938, the problem should not be too difficult to solve.
This summing up of the German arguments leaves out of account the personal feelings of all those in any way connected with the in- dustry—factory hand, manager and housewife. It seems unfortunately true, according to the statement made to me by one influential in- dustrialist, that their resentment at the British dismantling policy now amounts to hatred. The circles that this industrialist represented placed their hopes of future industrial co-operation on France rather than Britain. " We would gladly go to France or the U.S.A. any time if invited," he concluded, " but the most attractive invitation isEued to us from Britain now would not lure us there."
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