Rebuilding the continent
Title
Rebuilding the continent
Description
Letter to editor of the Times. Headlines: rebuilding the continent, future of German industry, potentialities for war. Disagrees with a Times correspondent that rebuilding of Germany's industry is essential to Europe's posterity and provides argument.
Coverage
Language
Type
Format
One newspaper cutting
Rights
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Identifier
SValentineJRM1251404v10132
Transcription
REBUILDING THE CONTINENT
FUTURE OF GERMAN INDUSTRY
POTENTIALITIES FOR WAR
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
Sir, – The plea of your Correspondent that a rebuilding of Germany’s industry is essential to Europe’s prosperity and welfare is not conclusive.
He argues that it is difficult to keep the German war potential within limits, and he supports the view with the following statements:- “. . . it is difficult to see how it could physically be done . . .” ; ”. . . European economic life would have to pay a heavy price for that . . .” ; ”. . . sooner or later the occupation of Germany must end, and the Germans be allowed to govern themselves . . .” ; ”. . . it would obviously be most short-sighted to destroy key industries for a period of, say, 10 years, and then allow – or fail to prevent – the erection of new plant when the occupying forces had left. . . .” This is all hypothetical, as it must needs be.
If, for example, the United Nations decided to occupy Germany for 30 years – which at present seems more likely – to give Upper Silesia to Poland, to include the Ruhr in the Rhineland, and to govern the whole area by an International Commission, and not to permit the rebuilding of Germany’s heavy industry, which Mr. Thyssen even at a date as early as the end of the last war thought over-expanded, all your Correspondent’s arguments fall to the ground. The suggestion to raise the industrial production of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, while being sound and desirable, can never be a solution if we allow Germany to keep its industrial power and thereby its war potential.
In his figures for the European steel production for the year 1938 your Correspondent amazingly does not include the production of the United Kingdom, with about 13,000,000 tons. If these are included, then the margin of 5,000,000 tons, mentioned by your Correspondent, which Germany had over the rest of Europe disappears. Still, there would be no more security if Poland and the Little Entente had produced 12,000,000 tons of steel instead of less than 4,000,000 tons, because those countries would still have been overrun. Germany used its industry for armaments, but does your Correspondent really suggest that with the production of 12,000,000 tons of steel Poland and the Little Entente should have done the same? This surely would have meant economic ruin, and the standard of life of their population would have had to be lowered considerably.
If, as your Correspondent suggests, Germany really is the nucleus of European welfare, and therefore has to be allowed to rebuild an industry – with whose money, I am asking? – so as to supply Europe “with all the industrial products it can get for some time to come,” and if we accept “that the Germans are much better equipped than anybody else in Europe to produce the goods which are needed,” then we shall only see a repetition of what happened in between the wars.
There can be no question that Germany must be curtailed, not only in its direct armament production, but also its heavy industry must be limited to such an extent that it is only able to satisfy normal home consumption plus an adequate share in the export markets, which for a period of at least 15 to 20 years will have to be used for reparations. Furthermore, it must also be taken into account that Germany’s heavy industry was at all times a State-subsidized industry and never stood on its own feet, and it is only justice if we ask that other European countries be protected in the future against such unfair competition.
On the question of Germany our aim can only be – first European and world security, and then German prosperity.
Yours faithfully,
JOHN BROWN, General Se[missing letters]
The Iron and Steel Trades Con[missing letters]
Swinton House, 324, Gray’s Inn
W.C.1, Jan. 31.
FUTURE OF GERMAN INDUSTRY
POTENTIALITIES FOR WAR
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
Sir, – The plea of your Correspondent that a rebuilding of Germany’s industry is essential to Europe’s prosperity and welfare is not conclusive.
He argues that it is difficult to keep the German war potential within limits, and he supports the view with the following statements:- “. . . it is difficult to see how it could physically be done . . .” ; ”. . . European economic life would have to pay a heavy price for that . . .” ; ”. . . sooner or later the occupation of Germany must end, and the Germans be allowed to govern themselves . . .” ; ”. . . it would obviously be most short-sighted to destroy key industries for a period of, say, 10 years, and then allow – or fail to prevent – the erection of new plant when the occupying forces had left. . . .” This is all hypothetical, as it must needs be.
If, for example, the United Nations decided to occupy Germany for 30 years – which at present seems more likely – to give Upper Silesia to Poland, to include the Ruhr in the Rhineland, and to govern the whole area by an International Commission, and not to permit the rebuilding of Germany’s heavy industry, which Mr. Thyssen even at a date as early as the end of the last war thought over-expanded, all your Correspondent’s arguments fall to the ground. The suggestion to raise the industrial production of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, while being sound and desirable, can never be a solution if we allow Germany to keep its industrial power and thereby its war potential.
In his figures for the European steel production for the year 1938 your Correspondent amazingly does not include the production of the United Kingdom, with about 13,000,000 tons. If these are included, then the margin of 5,000,000 tons, mentioned by your Correspondent, which Germany had over the rest of Europe disappears. Still, there would be no more security if Poland and the Little Entente had produced 12,000,000 tons of steel instead of less than 4,000,000 tons, because those countries would still have been overrun. Germany used its industry for armaments, but does your Correspondent really suggest that with the production of 12,000,000 tons of steel Poland and the Little Entente should have done the same? This surely would have meant economic ruin, and the standard of life of their population would have had to be lowered considerably.
If, as your Correspondent suggests, Germany really is the nucleus of European welfare, and therefore has to be allowed to rebuild an industry – with whose money, I am asking? – so as to supply Europe “with all the industrial products it can get for some time to come,” and if we accept “that the Germans are much better equipped than anybody else in Europe to produce the goods which are needed,” then we shall only see a repetition of what happened in between the wars.
There can be no question that Germany must be curtailed, not only in its direct armament production, but also its heavy industry must be limited to such an extent that it is only able to satisfy normal home consumption plus an adequate share in the export markets, which for a period of at least 15 to 20 years will have to be used for reparations. Furthermore, it must also be taken into account that Germany’s heavy industry was at all times a State-subsidized industry and never stood on its own feet, and it is only justice if we ask that other European countries be protected in the future against such unfair competition.
On the question of Germany our aim can only be – first European and world security, and then German prosperity.
Yours faithfully,
JOHN BROWN, General Se[missing letters]
The Iron and Steel Trades Con[missing letters]
Swinton House, 324, Gray’s Inn
W.C.1, Jan. 31.
Citation
“Rebuilding the continent,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed November 5, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/22183.
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