Musel: Stalin may ask safeguard against third World War
Soviet Premier would bar future German armies by using enemy manpower for reconstruction
By Robert Musel, United Press staff writer
London, England –
Premier Stalin may lay before President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at their prospective meeting a plan to forestall German preparations for a third World War by recruiting Germany’s manpower to rebuild devastated Europe.
The Germans, foreseeing the possibility of defeat in this war, were reported systemically annihilating the manpower of occupied countries to handicap their recuperation in the post-war years and give Germany a head start in preparing for another war within 10-15 years.
Sources usually familiar with Soviet policy predicted that Marshal Stalin was preparing to propose a staggering demand on the Reich’s manpower to accomplish the double purpose of rebuilding Europe and keeping the war timber of the future out of Germany.
In occupied Europe, an area almost half the size of the United States must be rebuilt. The Germans themselves have stated that an organization one million strong would require several decades to restore occupied Russia alone, and the Soviets probably envision even a greater reconstruction army.
By transporting potential German soldiers out of the Reich for such reconstruction, informants said, any attempt to organize a powerful, though illegal, army inside Germany would be thwarted and the youth would be exposed to other regimes that might help counteract the indoctrinated Hitler ideology.
These sources said that it was no coincidence that the American and British correspondents were taken to the scene of the Babi Yar slaughter of tens of thousands of Russians during their recent tour of Kiev.
The Babi Yar massacre was symptomatic of the planned annihilation of manpower which the Germans have practiced with increasing desperation throughout Europe as the hopelessness of their cause has become apparent, informants maintained.