Youngstown Vindicator (July 13, 1945)
ON THE RECORD —
The Big Three’s problem in Germany
By Dorothy Thompson
President Truman is on his way to Potsdam to meet Prime Minister Churchill, Clement R. Attlee and Premier Stalin, and a preparatory meeting is going on in Berlin among the military leaders of the four occupation forces.
President Truman is attending his first international conference under conditions far more difficult than any which confronted President Roosevelt. For a coalition in war has one simple aim: to crush the enemy. A coalition in peace, over the body of the defeated enemy, introduces an illimitable number of conflicting arms. Interests arise again, ideologies conflict, motives clash, and greed and revenge raise their ugly heads.
In a short conference it is obviously impossible to settle all the affairs of the world. It is generally agreed that the agenda will embrace both European and Asiatic issues, and probably the Near East and the Mediterranean. But the place of the meeting stresses Germany – from which I have just come home.
Urges unified policy
It will be impossible physically to organize Germany, except in the framework of an overall and commonly supported policy. Transportation is not divided into zones nor even contained within Germany. You cannot travel from Paris to Prague except by way of Germany. A railway system cannot be disintegrated into pieces to satisfy army corps.
The same is true of a postal and telegraph system. There is no way of confining radio to zones. No wavelengths can be stopped in Baden, Hannover, or Potsdam. And here, immediately, a political problem arises – what is to be said on the radio? What political ideas, if any, are to be promoted?
In the British and American zones, no political activity is permitted. The present British and American military governments have no parallel in history. They are making an attempt to govern through German anti-Nazi personalities, but without any active political ideas. The assumption, apparently is that an anti-Nazi will be loyal to the Allies in the absence of any notion of what is going to happen to his country, to Europe, or to his economy. In the modern world, no colonies have been governed on such assumptions, which reduce government to mere technique, devoid of higher purpose.
Russia allows politics
But, accepting this as a theoretical possibility, it obviously can work only if all parts of Germany are governed in the same manner. But in the Russian zone, there is already active party life. Three parties are permitted: Communist, Social Democrats, and one which apparently aims to catch up the more conservative elements, called “the Christian Democratic Union.”
These have newspapers published and written by Germans whose purpose is to give information and form and canalize opinion, whereas in our zone a feeble press, written mostly by Americans, is confined wholly to laconic information, and carries no editorials.
Obviously that zone which first releases political action has a head start.
As far as I could ascertain the four occupying powers have decided not to partition Germany west of the Oder. But the structure of the Allied Control Council in Berlin will, in my opinion, not permit a unified administration of the remainder of the Reich.
All decisions must be made unanimously by the four commanders. Each has a veto power. They must govern unanimously by decree, without a constitution to which to refer. I think we can safely predict that under such conditions, decisions will be postponed and the country will be run by the bureaucracy.
But if, at the same time, the four armies, except for such unanimous directives, are each supreme in a different zone, four different bureaucracies will pursue four different policies.
The other suggestion – that Berlin be governed by the four commanders serving n rotation – is hair-raising. How long is each to serve? If each is to be replaced every few months, no authority can be created, for the Germans will speculate on every successor. If each is to serve for a year or more, then the first will set the policy which his successor must follow – or create a revolution.
The only workable thing that can possibly be done is mutually to pick a central, strictly provisional government of Germans as widely comprehensive as possible, and give it authority under the control of the four, until conditions permit a genuinely representative government to be formed by popular procedures.
Even under a rule of force, reason must prevail, if any order is to prevail.