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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 33
Actually, even if Germany ceases to be a purchaser of anything at all, an entirely different group of countries from those who sold most to her would have to make the bigger readjustments. They are countries that are facing pretty staggering readjustments anyway.
In 1937, five eastern European countries did rely upon Germany for a very large part of their exports, both food and other materials. Bulgaria sold 43 per cent of her total exports to the Reich; Turkey, 36 per cent; Latvia, 35 per cent; Greece, 31 per cent; Estonia, 30 per cent. The percentages were high; the actual amounts relatively small. A very few industries in these countries would enable them to absorb locally all they sold to Germany. A few more industries in other neighboring countries would enable them to expand their exports over the 1937 figure.
The end of heavy industry in Germany will permit transfer of factories to the very places where they would have been located in the first place if access to raw materials, markets, labor and power had been the really decisive factors in European development. The shift could be all the easier because many German heavy industrial plants have been destroyed in the war. It could have been easier still had our own leaders not permitted a partial revival of these factories. Surely, it would be far more reasonable to rebuild them outside the Reich's borders than within. Holland, for example, should make electrical equipment and metal products instead of being merely a port through which German exports were routed. France should make steel herself from her own iron ore, using German coke as she always has. Britain may find a reviving market for her coal. Chemical industries might spring up all over Europe. The bauxite of southeastern Europe and Danube power give the clue to the location of the future light metals plants. Norway, Holland and other maritime states could easily fill the gap left by the German shipyards—and not with submarines either.
While the exact location of new industries will depend upon all sorts of unpredictable factors, the change in the industrial map of Europe will be profound. The continent will be able to use its raw materials, labor, potential power and other industrial assets to best advantage. It can become much stronger and more prosperous without German heavy industry to shackle its progress.
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
