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Henry Morgenthau, The German Character
Five chapters from Morgenthau’s book, Germany is our Problem, here published with an introductory note by Ellopos. Emphasis, in bold or italic letters, by Ellopos. Complete book in print.
52 Pages
Page 32
The loss of heavy industry would decrease German imports of agricultural products, and in value this was always more important to Europe than the buying of German heavy industry. But the net amount of food for Europeans to eat will be bigger than ever, for the rest of Europe will feed itself instead of feeding Germany. Many of Germany's displaced industrial workers will go on the land and improve the frequently inefficient and archaic German farming methods. The 1937 imports of agricultural products from Europe were unusually high for Germany and reached a total of $360,000,000—the equivalent of about three per cent of the American people's food bill for that year.
Whether Germany keeps heavy industry or not, this standard of imports could not be maintained now and would not be reached for a great many years. For one thing, some of the imported food was taken as part of a plan for making other countries dependent on the Reich. More was stockpiled for war. In neither case was it needed to feed the German people. Even if Germany is permitted to keep heavy industry, she could not produce foreign exchange to buy this food without help. The Allies would have to give up reparations and actually grant Germany a priority for machinery and materials for her export industries ahead of the needs of liberated nations. If we treat our friends fairly, Germany will have little food except what she can raise herself. This does not mean that the other countries of Europe will not sell food. They may well sell more than ever before.
The big suppliers of Germany in 1937 were Denmark to the extent of $50,000,000; the Netherlands, Italy and Rumania with more than $40,000,000 each; Yugoslavia and Hungary, about $35,000,000 each. They accounted for about two-thirds of Germany's agricultural imports from Europe. Yet all of these countries except perhaps Denmark and Holland need food for their own people far more than they need exports. Increased industrialization, which they might be able to achieve when freed from German bondage, would permit Yugoslavs, Rumanians, Hungarians and Italians to eat better. They would find a market for real surplus crops in the factory towns of other countries. Denmark and Holland, particularly the latter, would also have bigger home markets and might find buyers in such countries as France, England, and Czechoslovakia.
Cf. H. Arendt: totalitarianism reduces men to impersonal natural forces * German philosophers in support of Nazism * Beethoven and Mauthausen * The Superior Race of Germans * Kalergi, European Spirit must Precede Europe's Political Unification * La Construction de l'Europe selon Jean Monnet * Plan Fouchet * Mitterrand and Kohl urge European Political Union * Il Manifesto di Ventotene
