WITNESS TO HISTORY
Michael Walsh
CHAPTER 21
THE VULTURES DESCEND
"The sacking of Germany after her unconditional surrender will go down in history as one of the most monstrous acts of modern times. Its excess beggars description and its magnitude defies condemnation." - Ralph F. Keeling, Gruesome Harvest; 1947. Institute of American Economics
THE REMOVAL OF POLITICAL CHOICE
As with all totalitarian states including those elected by popular demand, as in Germany's case, a high proportion of the intelligentsia and professional classes, belonged through desire or necessity to the party apparatus. In Germany's case the figure was 7,500,000.
Promotion, even the holding of a responsible position was often dependent upon being a Party member. Not too dissimilar to the situation in Britain where some positions of influence, the upper echelons of the civil service and certain privileged occupations are almost exclusive to masons, those from a 'higher social class' or certain public school background.
At Potsdam the victors, including the Soviet Union believe it or not, were declaring that all 'discrimination on the grounds of political opinion shall be abolished'. They then proceeded to deny the civil rights of the German nation by permanently dissolving the German Workers National Socialist Party (NSDAP) which had attracted more popular support than any other political party in history.
Furthermore, the victors intention was to 'ban all of its affiliated organizations, many of which were not overtly political, ban the dissemination of its ideals, and call for the severe punishment of its supporters for no other reason than their support for the philosophy of National Socialism.'
The Bolsheviks call it a purge; the elimination of political opposition. The allies called it de-nazification. A rose by any other name, but the de-nazification program was put into place and organised by the notorious and corpulent Communist stooge, Heinrich Schmitt.
Accordingly, 3 million Germans in the U.S. Zone were effected, likewise 80,000 returned prisoners and 10,000 public servants. As in Cambodia, Vietnam and elsewhere; doctors, lawyers, business people; the driving force of the nation were put to work in pick and shovel gangs. The intention was to further humiliate the vanquished and again, to ape Stalin by getting rid of the 'officer class'.
"IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD WE HAVE ADOPTED THE COMMUNIST VIEW OF JUSTICE." - Barons, October 1946
"Penalties for being Nazis ranged from death, life imprisonment, imprisonment with hard labor up to ten years, 'sanctions', loss of citizenship, the right to vote, debarment from public office, loss of personal rights such as car or home ownership, demotion, sackings, confiscation of property, and employment only for ordinary (menial) labor." - Edward P. Morgan, Berlin, March 5th 1946, Chicago Daily News
Interestingly enough, the de-nazification procedures were so harsh that Ralph Keeling of the American Institute of Economics pointed out that,
"When we first arrived the Germans were strongly anti-Communist; they have since started fleeing our zone and entering the Russian where they are welcomed into the Communist Party and even into the Red Army, in whose ranks they may someday be able to get their revenge on us." - Ralph Franklin Keeling. Gruesome Harvest, Institute of American Economics
Whilst the Western allies did everything possible to alienate the German population, the Russians were taking all the steps necessary to 'wed the Red Army with the defeated Wehrmacht and Waffen S.S."
"When the officers cross the zones frontiers they are nominally 'arrested', placed in quarantine camps, and invited to enlist. Upon acceptance, they are given preferential treatment. In other words, the union of the Red and Nazi armies has begun." - Hal Foust, Berlin, March 29th 1946. Chicago Sun Foreign Service
"One refrain echoed from Stalin. 'We need the whole of Germany'." - Daniel Melnikov; Stalin's inner circle. Sunday Times. 28th February 1995
LOOTING AND PILLAGE
The looting of everything German proceeded. Every house and every apartment was entered, searched, and stripped of everything at once valuable and moveable - jewelry, silverware, works of art, clothing, household appliances, money. Stores, shops and warehouses were ransacked. Farms were deprived of their farm animals, machinery, seed stocks, fodder, wine, food stocks. Telephones were removed, telegraph equipment dismantled. Cars, trucks, even fire engines were seized.
The Russians and the British, and the Americans too found themselves knee-deep in booty, loot, and the remnants of a standard of living that most could only dream about William HG. Stoneman, Chicago Daily News Foreign Correspondent, stationed with the U.S. Army, wrote in May, 1945 of:
".... great stocks of food have been left to the reckless inroads of looters. Millions of dollars worth of rare things varying from intricate Zeiss lenses to butter and cheese and costly automobiles are being destroyed because the Army has not organized a system of recovery of valuable enemy material. (the term 'recovery' is a euphemism for looting).
"They (front line troops) are rough and ready about enemy property. They naturally take what they want if it looks interesting . . . but what front line troops take is nothing compared to the damage caused by wanton vandalism.
"Today we have two more examples of this business, that would bring tears to the eyes of anybody who has appreciation of material values."
He went on to describe, scattered everywhere, millions of dollars worth of plundered goods. The troops simply couldn't carry everything that they could steal so they vandalized it and left it to rot.
It is estimated that the value of looted properties by the allied armies ran into hundreds of millions of dollars and 'deprived the German civilian population the comforts and necessities so sorely needed'.
THE MUGGERS FALL OUT WHEN THE U.S. SELLS THEIR STOLEN PROPERTY
Such was the whirlwind of looting by all the invading armies that the Russians complained that,
"American officials have stolen equipment from plants in a zone earmarked for shipment to Russia on reparations account and sold it to foreign countries at a profit."
It was decided to organize the destruction of the German economy to the levels of 1932, when before Hitler's election a third of the population was out of work.
LOOTED
'Bought' . . . again, a euphemism for seizure. Between two and four billion dollars worth of German property exchanged for worthless military currency . . . by order.
"As to crimes against property, the explanation is obvious. No effective steps were taken to discourage looting by the invading armies during the war. Officers and men alike committed this crime and for much the most part went unpunished. It was tolerated under such euphemism as 'souvenir collecting'. . . the fault of course, lies with the high command which permitted the abuse." - Chicago Sunday Tribune, November 18th 1945
Over 200 art masterpieces were looted and are still held by the Americans.
LOOTING BMW's FACTORY:
"The British seem to be everywhere when there is any scientific or industrial information to be gleaned. Commander Seiller selected several items to take back to Paris in the C-47. Slight argument with the British about taking anything anywhere except to England. Settled by rolling up an American Army truck and loading in the items required." - The Diaries of Charles A. Lindbergh, p.953. Harcourt Brace Javanovich, N.Y. 1970
MANUFACTURE PROHIBITED
The production of shipbuilding, manufacture and operation of aircraft, ball and taper roller bearings, all heavy machine tools, heavy materials, aluminum, magnesium, beryllium, vanadium, radio active materials, hydrogen peroxide, synthetic oils, gasoline, ammonia.
MANUFACTURE CONTROLLED (RIGIDLY)
All exports and imports
"Foreign trade in the ordinary sense has been impossible." - Ralph F. Keeling, Gruesome Harvest, Institute of American Economics
RESTRICTED
Domestic industries, mechanical engineering (by two thirds), synthetic textiles, chemical production (reduced to 45% of old levels), steel production limited to 5,800,000 tons a year whereas previously it was 54,000,000 tons a year.
PROHIBITED OR RIGIDLY CONTROLLED
German science (by direct prohibition and sackings of scientists), public and private scientific bodies, research and experimental institutions, laboratories, etc., connected with economic activities, chemical research.
"In other words, German science has been destroyed, and with it German ability to compete commercially with the war victors." - Ralph F. Keeling, Gruesome Harvest, Institute of American Economics
SCIENTISTS KIDNAPPED
"We even managed to kidnap a large number from the western Russian zone when we retired to let the Russians take over... in consequence we now have at our disposal hundreds of ex-German scientists who no doubt constitute one of our most profitable acquisitions taken from the fallen Reich." - Ralph Franklin Keeling, Gruesome Harvest, Institute of American Economics
"We intend to secure the full disclosure of all existing German technology and invention for the benefit of the United Nations. This government and other governments with which Germany has been at war have reduced to their control inventions and designs both patented and un-patented which were owned and controlled by German nationals at the outbreak of war." - Assistant Secretary of State, William L. Clayton, June 1945
SEIZURE OF ALL GERMAN PROPERTY
"Reparations shall be effected by the transfer of existing resources and territories, e.g. . . . by transfer of German territory and Germany private rights in industrial property situated in such territory to invading countries . . .
"by the removal and distribution among devastated countries of industrial plants and equipment . . . by forced German labor outside Germany, * and by confiscation of all German assets of any character whatsoever outside of Germany." - Henry Morgenthau
* Forced labor outside Germany is of course, the export of slaves.
Germany, one of the world's richest countries had been mugged and then made to compensate the nations that had carried out the attack.
THE HAGUE CONVENTION: "Private property cannot be confiscated."
It is always interesting to note that whereas Hitler's Germany often stands accused of breaking pacts and agreements, which in fact it did not; the Treaty of Versailles, the Hague Convention, the Geneva Conventions, the Locarno Agreements, the Rhine Pact, were all repeatedly flouted by the allied and Soviet signatories.
"Flagrant Big Four violations not only create the injustices the laws were established t prevent but incriminate the victors of World War Two, for the very actions for which they so strongly and justly blamed Hitler." - Ralph Franklin Keeling, Gruesome Harvest, The Institute of American Economics
WAR COMPENSATION
"At Potsdam Russia was apportioned the lion's share of reparations. She was to receive her own zone (East Germany/East Berlin) plus 25% from other zones."
The value of Germany's bombed and battered plant was put at between 5 and 10 billion dollars; half of it was in the Russian zone and was hers 'by right of conquest'. It was agreed that 40% of it could be removed to the USSR. Three-hundred and ten plants were dismantled and accordingly removed.
LOOTING TO THE WEST
"Six shiploads carrying the physical assets of the Deschmag Shipyard, Germany's largest shipbuilding company and valued at $4,800,000. Twenty car loads of machinery and tools valued at $5,000,000, representing half of Germany's largest ball-bearing plant, the Gendorf Amorgana Chemical works valued at $10,000,000, and the vast Daimler-Benz underground aircraft engine plant."
LOOTING: TO THE EAST
"By May, according to Reparations Commissioner, Edwin W. Pauley, the United States had earmarked 144 plants for removal to Russia.
"Many of Germany's greatest producers of civilian goods were dismantled and shipped eastwards. Among them were the two largest factories, the largest sugar refineries, the largest grain processing mills in Europe, the great Bemberg silk mills famous for their hosiery and lingerie, and the Zeiss Optical works at Jena.
"All secondary rail lines were torn up and all electric locomotives removed."
"Two hundred key plants were placed under direct Russian control, with the German work force of 1,300,000 on subsistence wages, the profits going to the USSR."
Looted: I.G Farben Industries, Leuna Chemical Plants, the Reich's only copper works, the machine works of Krupp Gruson, Brabag Brown Coaland Gasoline Co, the Polysius Machine Works at Dessau; machine tool factories, coal and mine companies, potash mines, electrical plants.
Such was the looting rapacity that the Russians stole from under their noses two American-owned concerns, The United Shoe Machine Company and the Corn Products Refining Company. The Americans never did retrieve them.
DYNAMITING
"... America went about the business of dismantling and dynamiting German plants with more fervour than was at first exhibited in any other zone....
"Russia is as keen to get as much loot as possible to help make her Five Year Plan successful, and ultimately to absorb the Reich into the Soviet Union.
"France is ravenous for loot, has been anxious to destroy Germany forever, wants to get rid of Germany as a trade competitor, while retaining her as a market for British goods," - Ralph Franklin Keeling, Gruesome Harvest, Institute of American Economics
THE 'SAFE HAVEN PROGRAM'
"To seize all German properties and capital accumulations abroad. All German assets abroad, financial and capital, including those in the United States and South America, to be confiscated. German nationals in South America to be picked up and sent to Europe as slaves." - Ralph Franklin Keeling, Gruesome Harvest
A billion dollars worth of German property in the United States was seized, although much of it was held in the names of neutral nations. Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, and other countries, forced to hand over to the United States, all German assets, investments and properties. ($104,000,000 involved with a further $200,000,000 from German assets held in Sweden.
"Taking their foreign trade away from them, and making it impossible for them to export manufactured goods was tantamount, therefore, to pronouncing the death sentence on the German people." - Ralph F. Keeling, Gruesome Harvest
[Note - JP: See our Resources section for information on how to order Keeling's book: Gruesome Harvest; and Doug Reed's book: Controversy of Zion]
Next -- Chapter 22 -- To The Victors Go The Slaves