Crimes and Mercies (40 page)

44
De Zayas,
Nemesis at Potsdam
, p. xxv.

45
Figures published by the Polish government, reported in the Minutes of the CFM, April 9 1947. In Murphy Papers, September 1947.

46
 
Theodor Schieder (ed.),
Documents on the Expulsions of the
Germans from Eastern Central Europe
, Vol IV, p. 128.

47
See population trees in Stolper, op. cit., pp. 26–30. About 56 per cent of the German population in 1946 were females. In populations undamaged by war, females slightly outnumber males.

The number of men between 20 and 50 was 9.6 million in 1950, or about 20 per cent of the population. Since young men normally die at a very low rate in peacetime, it is reasonable to conclude that over 80 per cent of the deaths occurred among women, children and old men.

48
The figure was actually far higher. See Appendix 2.

49
The highest estimates for the three wartime causes is given in Martin Sorge,
The Other Price of Hitler’s War
, around 4,600,000. Other authorities place the figure much lower, e.g.

around 2.3 million in John Ellis,
World War Two: A Statistical
Survey
. The death rate for Germans including prisoners and expellees during this period was around 29 per thousand per year, while in other areas ravaged by the German attacks, such as Hungary and Poland, the rate was less than half that.

50
See Appendix 2.

51
Patterson to Marshall, 13 June 1947, Patterson Papers, Library of Congress.

52
Heinrich von Treitschke,
History of Germany in the Nineteenth
Century
, Vol. I, quoted in Stolper, op. cit., p. 231.

53
See Hoover,
An American Epic
, Vol IV.

54
During the war approximately 3.8 million Germans died in the armed forces, another 500,000 in air raids and about 300,000 in Hitler’s concentration camps. Sorge, op. cit., p. 67.

55
Peter Hoffmann,
The History of the German Resistance
, p. 16.

These are overall figures including imprisonment based only on suspicion, and imprisonments based on judicial process. Some police arrest figures that probably include some imprisonments in the latter category appear in Detlev J. K. Peukert,
Inside Nazi
Germany
.

56
James Taylor and Warren Shaw,
A Dictionary of the Third Reich
, p. 78.

57
The Dulles and Roosevelt quotes are from Peter Grose,
Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), pp. 202–3.

58
 
Niemoller was later used by the British to propagandize or reeducate German prisoners in the UK.

59
Patricia Meehan,
The Unnecessary War
, p. 376.

60
 
Hansard
, Series 5, Vol. 402, 2 August 1944, col. 1487. Quoted in Peter Hoffmann, ‘The Question of Western Allied Co-operation with the German Anti-Nazi Conspiracy, 1938– 1944’ in
The
Historical Journal
, No. 34, 1991, pp. 463–4.

61
Foreign Office Papers 371/39062, C 9896. Quoted in Martin Gilbert,
The Road to Victory
, p. 868.

62
I am indebted to Professor Pierre van den Berghe of Seattle for this passage about the German communist and socialist resistance.

63
Interview with Dr Raabe, March 1992.

64
Interview with Robert Kreider, in North Newton, Kansas, September 1994. Kreider was the MCC representative on CRA-LOG (Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Operate in Germany).

65
Hoover,
An American Epic
, op. cit., pp. 101, 116; and
The
Columbia Encyclopedia
.

66
The quotation is from a speech by Senator Capehart, 5 February 1946, in the CRS, p. 876.

67
The author has encountered several cases of such suppression. In about 1987, Otto Schmitt of Güldental began excavating on farmer Otto Tullius’s land to find traces of prisoners formerly held there in a camp run first by the Americans and later by the French. Schmitt was ordered by the police to stop under threat of a fine of 250,000 Deutschmarks. Interviews with Otto Tullius and Otto Schmitt, Bretzenheim, June 1991, and letters from Otto Schmitt.

In Rheinberg, a young farmer, Martin Adams, together with his father worked the land of the former US prison camp, discovering human bones ‘probably from the prison camp era’.

According to Lotte Börgmann of Rheinberg and the town archivist H. Janssen, the police said that the bones had been buried in ‘the old Jewish cemetery’ at that location. Both Mrs Börgmann and Herr Janssen have said that the ‘old Jewish cemetery’ was nowhere near the camp. Martin Adams and his father ended up reburying the bones. In this and other instances, the news of the discovery of the bones was sent to the official German tracing agency WASt (a.k.a. Die Deutsche Dienstelle)
in Berlin. The author has been unable to discover from the agency evidence of any further investigations. Apparently the news was reburied. At Lambach in Austria, recent discoveries of bones have provoked a controversy over their origins which may be a cover-up of POW deaths in US camps nearby.

An exception was the case of Hechtsheim near Mainz, where bones uncovered during highway building were identified as Hungarian.

From the Schmitt case, it is clear that the police threat of an enormous fine is enough to deter most if not all investigators.

Chapter VII: The Victory of the Merciful (pp. 135–171)

1
Attorney General William D. Mitchell to Herbert Hoover, at page F-12 of typeset manuscript by Hoover reporting on relief activities 1939–40 and after, in FEC Papers, HIA.

2
Hoover,
An American Epic
, Vol. IV, p. 84.

3
Ibid., p. 106.

4
Ibid., p. 87.

5
Ibid., p. 116.

6
Calculation is based on world population estimate of around two billion in 1939 (this is deliberately estimated low, which means that given a higher 1939 population total, there would be more food available per capita post-war than is shown here). One per cent of production sufficient for 2 billion people equals sufficiency for 20 million. This sufficient consumption pre-war is estimated by the author to be 2,000 cpd, and shortfall for Germans at 800 cpd (1,200 vs 2,000). Thus 2,000 x 20 million cpd translates to 800 cpd for 50 million.

7
Hoover, op. cit., p. 177.

8
Patterson Papers, LC, Washington. For a succinct summary of the situation showing that others agreed with Patterson, see Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations, Report, October 1946, quoted in John C. Campbell,
The United States in World Affairs,
1945–1947
, p. 323.

9
See Hoover,
Addresses Upon the American Road
.

10
Notes made by Secretary of War Robert Patterson after Cabinet meeting 29 March 1946. Patterson Papers, LC.

11
Patterson to Truman, 20 November 1946, Patterson Papers, LC.

12
 
Patterson to Marshall, 13 June 1947, Patterson Papers, LC.

13
Mackenzie King,
Diaries
, p. 878 (14 September 1945). NAC, MG 26 J 13.

14
The Canadian price was 30 per cent below current market price in 1946. By 1947, it was predicted, the world price would go to $2.25 per bushel, 50 per cent more than Canada was charging the UK. From J. E. Farquharson,
The Western Allies and the
Politics of Food
, pp. 103–4.

15
Norman Robertson to Mackenzie King, 17 February 1946, C188701-3, King Papers, NAC.

16
Patterson to Truman, FEC Papers, Box 26, HIA.

17
Patterson to Truman, 8 July 1946, FEC Papers, Box 26, HIA.

18
In 1946, Hon. Thomas Jenkins reported in the US Congress that Hoover had already reduced the food shortfall from an estimated 11,000,000 tons to about 3,000,000 tons, which Hoover believed would fall by a further possible 1,500,000 tons. CRS, Vol. 92, Pt 4, pp. 5051–5.

19
Richard Norton Smith,
An Uncommon Man
, p. 359.

20
Hoover, from a speech in Ottawa quoted in
An American Epic
, Vol. IV, pp. 219–220. See also Gabriele Stüber,
Der Kampf gegen
den Hunger
, for figures in the British zone, pp. 285–7. For figures on TB, see Stüber, p. 297.

21
King,
Diaries
, 28 June 1946, p. 599, NAC, MG 26 J13.

22
Gabriele Stüber, quoting from NAC External; 8376 K-40, C Cypher No. 55, 9 May 1946, NAC. In
Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft
für Kanada-Studien
, p. 41.

23
Memorandum for files, 22 December 1946, Patterson Papers, LC.

24
See Bacque,
Other Losses
, Chapters 3–4.

25
Morgenthau Diary (China), Vol. 2, pp. 1529ff. For a fuller account, see Bacque,
Other Losses
, p. 83.

26
Patterson to Marshall, 13 June 1947, Patterson Papers, LC.

27
Stüber,
Der Kampf gegen den Hunger
, pp. 55ff.

28
Dr Frank D. Graham and Lt. Col. J. J. Scanlon, ‘Economic Preparation and Conduct of War Under the Nazi Regime’, 10 April 1946, Box 20, Patterson Papers, LC.

29
F. S. V. Donnison,
Civil Affairs and Military Government
, p. 340.

30
A. E. Grasett to Chief of Staff, W. B. Smith, 8 June 1945. Smith Papers, Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

31
John C. Campbell,
The United States in World Affairs
, p. 323.

32
 
The National Food Situation, pamphlet of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, US Department of Agriculture, January 1946, FEC Papers, Box 9, HIA. Also résumé of meeting chaired by Dr FitzGerald, a Director, US Department of Agriculture, in his office, to give details to reporters of world food situation, 20 February 1946. Résumé in FEC Papers, HIA.

33
World Food Situation 1946, US Department of Agriculture, Washington DC. In FEC Papers, Box 25, HIA.

34
UN Report, Washington, 26 December 1946. Copy in FEC Papers, HIA.

35
USDA pamphlet and résumé.

36
Patterson to Byrnes, 27 December 1944. Also part-manuscript and notes of proposed book by Patterson, never published. These documents were declassified for this book in 1992.

37
Hoover, Introduction to
Food, Relief, Famine and the Economic
Front in World War Two
, FEC Papers, HIA.

38
Foreign Office Paper, 9 July 1947, microfilmed in NAC, Ottawa at 8376-K-40C, PRO, London. Murphy estimated ‘about 1,700 cpd’.

39
Grasett to Chief of Staff (General W. B. Smith), 8 June 1945. Box 37, W. B. Smith Collection, Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA.

40
Foreign Office Paper, 9 July 1947, File 8376-K-40C, Vol. XXX; also M. S. Szymczak,
Our Stake in German Economic Recovery
, Federal Reserve Bulletin, July 1947, p. 681. Copy found by author in FEC Papers, Box 2, HIA; also Hoover,
The President’s
Economic Mission to Germany and Austria
, op. cit. General Clay said (
Decision in Germany
, p. 265, quoted in Balfour, op. cit., p. 14) that the pre-war production in the western zones would have provided only 1,100 cpd. If he meant 1,100 cpd for the pre-war population, this figure was not correct. This is shown by the production actually achieved under much worse circumstances in 1945, according to Hoover.

41
Foreign Office Paper, 9 July 1947, File 8376-K-40C, Vol. XXX.

42
CFM Papers, 61-62 File, Box 61, HIA.

43
See Michael Balfour and John Mair,
Four-power Control in
Germany and Austria
.

44
See Balfour and Mair, op. cit., and Donnison, op. cit.

45
Szymczak, op. cit, p. 684, and Donnison, op. cit., among others.

46
Balfour and Mair, op. cit., pp. 12ff.

47
 
Szymczak, op. cit., p. 685.

48
Hoover,
An American Epic
, Vol. IV, p. 241.

49
F. Roy Willis,
The French in Germany
, p. 124. John Gimbel points out that General Marshall misled, or lied to, Molotov when he stated that the US reparations amounted to only about $275 million of which most was external assets. Direct ‘removals’ from within Germany were only about $10,000,000, Marshall said. Gimbel comments: ‘Any evaluation approaching the truth would undoubtedly have been embarrassing to Marshall … for it would have revealed how distorted, misleading and propagandistic the statement released in Moscow had been.’ According to Gimbel the US took about $5 billion and the British the same. The sum of $10 billion in today’s terms, allowing for inflation and the growth of the economies involved, would be far above $200 billion. John Gimbel,
Science,
Technology and Reparations
, Chapter 8.

50
Interview with Peter and Elfrieda Dyck, September 1994.

51
ICRC President (Interim) Max Huber, to State, 30 August 1945. In 800.142/9-2745, State Department Archives, Washington.

52
Huber, op. cit. Thousands of train-car loads were returned. See also letter of E. L. Maag, ICRC Delegate to Canada, to Minister for External Affairs, Ottawa, 17 April 1945, in RG 25 Vol. 3400 621MZ40C, NAC.

53
Stüber,
Der Kampf gegen den Hunger
, p. 442.

54
Malcolm Proudfoot,
European Refugees
, Table 40. There is a conflict between Proudfoot and official British army reports of refugees at that date, for which see Chapter V. The difference between the British report and Proudfoot is 400,000, but it is not clear how much of the difference can be attributed to the year 1946, which is the year in question here.

55
Donnison, op. cit., p. 335; civilians in Westphalia had 1,040 cpd in 1945; see
Report on Economic Conditions in Germany
, especially the Bizone, for 1948, by Dr. W. Tomberg; in RG 25, Vol. 3807, NAC. Also Stüber, op. cit., p. 810.