Berlin

ON THE WORLD TODAY

ONE full year of experience with the Germans in defeat has punctured our hope that their reeducation is feasible through efforts from the outside. The Russians, too, appear to be badly stymied in this undertaking, notwithstanding the pressure exerted by Communist political agents.

The simple fact is that there are not enough dependable teachers in Germany to undertake this work. In Russian-dominated Thuringia, nearly 9000 school teachers have been eliminated because of pro-Nazi convictions. Yet few replacements have been found. The Russians are discovering that it is far easier to maneuver on the political level — as in their persistent efforts to amalgamate the German Communists with the German Social Democrats — than it is to conduct a purged educational system from the primary grades up.

There is little doubt that post-defeat Nazi secret organizations are functioning today in the Russian zone, regardless of the risks run by their members. And certainly they are operating in the American zone. There is an obvious connection between these carriers of German Nazi infection and the obstacles which have reduced the re-education program to something perilously akin to grim jest.

Lack of suitable teachers has compelled the AMG to choose between closing the bulk of the schools and making the best of a hopeless situation. As a result, the German educational system in Bavaria, Greater Hesse, and Wiirttemberg-Baden continues to pump the essentials of the “master race" doctrine into thousands of German children.

At the higher levels, evidences of a revival of Nazi doctrines are even clearer. Thinly disguised attacks on the Allies, sardonic criticism of occupation policies, and skillful playing up of the tenets of German nationalism have been noted in recent conferences of German educators. At the Universities of Erlangen and Munich, and at other institutions, swarms of discharged young German Wehrmacht officers carry on continuous sabotage of all efforts to restore the old German liberal tradition. Every reputable American correspondent in these three provinces within the past month has cabled warnings of the Nazi revival.

This movement is not limited to the schools. It has at last begun to emerge in the realm of politics and community life. Evidence of the existence of underground Nazi organizations was presented when the AMG rounded up nearly 900 members of one group. A reign of terror is in the making.

What shall the AMG do?

The denazification program faces endless difficulties. Different interpretations, by AMG officials in different areas, of orders issued from AMG Headquarters complicate the problem further. Too many AMG officers continue to assume that wealth and social position indicate political reliability. The A M G has consistently refused to seek full assistance from anti-Nazi members of the Social Democratic Party and the trade-unions; yet these are the only heirs to liberal traditions in the Reich. The Social Democrats include potentially dangerous nationalists, but their ranks also harbor the best-informed opponents of German fascism.

By leaning heavily on German conservatives, most of whom did not hesitate to lend ardent support to Hitler, and all of whom are devotees of resurgent German nationalism, the AMG is multiplying its difficulties. The consequences promise to assume serious proportions this autumn, when the step-bystep program for political integration in the three American-controlled provinces is completed.

Unless the new Bavarian denazification Minister, Heinrich Schmitt, succeeds in carrying out his promised purge by means of the 200 special courts he is setting up for the purpose, it is possible that every one of the three provinces will be firmly in the grip of a strongly pro-Nazi German political reaction. Under the new American denazification law, Herr Schmitt has plenty of authority. But will he be permitted to use it without interference when he begins to step on the toes of influential Germans?

It is impossible, naturally, to dismiss from official jobs or officially approved assignments every German who may have had connections with Hitler’s regime. A great many of these people merely bent to the wind of necessity. Yet the fact remains that both in German industry and in German civil posts hundreds of extremely dangerous individuals with very bad records hold place with AMG approval. Not a few of them could, with ample justice, be lodged in prisoner camps. Here is a situation which points up the desirability of combing the huge documentary flies available at the Nuremberg Court for identification lists. The evidence is there. Why is it being ignored?

The mystery of Martin Treu

One of the curiosities of historical circumstance — and his case suggests some of the puzzles confronting the AMG in making decisions — is the Mayor of Nuremberg himself, Herr Martin Treu. Herr Treu was a Social Democrat in the nineteenthirties. Fired from his mayoral job by the Nazis in 1933 when he refused to raise the swastika over Nuremberg City Hall, he was given a fat pension by the local Gauleiter. He resigned thereupon from the Social Democratic Party and proceeded to assist his successor at Nuremberg City Hall.

This action made his name anathema among all Social Democrats in Bavaria. Now, at seventy-five, he enjoys the distinction of having been authorized by AMG authorities to rebuild the Social Democratic Party, though its local members despise him. Herr Treu is probably harmless; but by re-elevating him to office and charging him with his present political role, the AMG has fumbled an opportunity to gain more effective support from the district tradeunions, which form the backbone of the old Social Democratic political organization just as the British trade-unions are the basis of the British Socialist Party — and this in Nuremberg itself.

Babes in theWald

The appalling political illiteracy of many AMG officials is indicated by their outspoken hostility, in several areas of the American zone, to all rank-andfile German Social Democrats, whom they classify as “Reds.” It is significant that in this attitude they are encouraged and applauded by conspicuous and well-entrenched exponents of the most extreme German political reaction, industrial and clerical.

Full utilization by the AMG of returned German prisoners of war who have been trained in the United States for the German civil services will help enormously toward the creation of a sounder political structure in the American zone. Elementary wisdom and the experience acquired during the past year call for a better appraisal of the Social Democrats.

The political integration of the defeated Reich is still a problem for the future. General Clay in the American zone believes, however, that this question can be settled successfully by 1947, and that the creation of a central government and the framing of a new constitution for Germany may be managed before the end of 1948. The Allies could then reduce the present controls to a joint Allied commission supported by small, streamlined military units drawn from France, Britain, America, and Russia.

Meantime, what of Germany’s progress along “the road back”? Present plans provide for completion of the demilitarization of Germany by the end of this year. By January, 1947, the readjustments of German industry called for by the Potsdam Agreement are expected to be completed, leaving the Reich sufficient plants to meet all its peacetime needs.

The rigorous Morgenthau plan has been substantially modified, and in some important instances dropped entirely. But the changes agreed to by the Allied Control Commission do not give Germany the industrial facilities for making war.

Such a program, however, presupposes that much more intensive effort will be directed toward the breaking up of the huge I. G. Farben cartel organization. As late as the end of April, testimony from qualified American experts before the Senate Kilgore Committee indicated that only two of the fifty-two I. G. Farben plants in the American zone had been actually destroyed. Three others had been set aside for reparations. All the rest were running full blast.

In the light of this testimony, there appears to be some point to Molotov’s insistence that a study of the deindustrialization of Germany to date is as important as any plan to supervise and control her war potential in the future. What are those fortyseven plants producing so busily? Fertilizer?

At any rate, the continuance of Allied supervision over a period possibly lasting as long as twenty-five years, as proposed by Secretary Byrnes, is simply an insurance policy. The framing of a peace treaty for Germany must of necessity await the re-establishment of a unified Germany and a German government which can be held to account.