Dismember or Dismantle

When the Third Reich finally goes, and chaos spreads, the rigid patterns of Hitler's Europe will be in flux. In London, Moscow and Washington, men with plans under their arms are awaiting that desperate time. Some are high and worried officials, some are lowly, passionate German exiles, some are great industrialists. All mean to make the most of the turmoil.

Plan in the East. From Moscow came a cool plan to take Germany apart. The Union of Polish Patriots, speaking with the Kremlin's blessing, told Poles in Poland and the world at large that in recompense for its "backward" eastern provinces postwar Poland must include East Prussia, western Pomerania, perhaps as far as the Oder River, and highly developed, industrial Upper Silesia (see map). But, said

Moscow, the new Poland must join with Russia and Czechoslovakia to form an impregnable Slav bastion against any future German Drang nach Osten. As an after thought, Moscow let it be known that Russia might decide to keep East Prussia as far as Konigsberg for herself, might ask Poland not to plunge into Pomerania beyond Stolpmunde.

Whichever Slav nation finally receives East Prussia, Moscow clearly intends to uproot Prussian Junker dom, drive the officer caste from the Baltic shoreland, which their ancestors, the Teutonic knights, took from the Poles in the 12th and 18th Centuries. Plainly, too, the whole scheme to shove Poland westward would involve mass migrations.

Plans in the West. From London and Washington came less clear-cut proposals for curbing German military might. The nearest thing to a definite program was still the Churchill and Roosevelt statements: When the Nazis go, Prussian militarism must also go (TIME, Oct. 4). Conflicting schemes in both capitals showed that the English-speaking Allies have not yet finished discussing alternatives, perhaps are not yet sure of what Russia ultimately plans. Running through the talk of dismantling German industry and destroying German ability to make war are two principal ideas: 1) institution of far-reaching Allied controls for 10-to-15 years to block any German attempt to rebuild a war machine; 2) detachment of south Germany and perhaps bits of western Germany to match Russian plans in the east, leaving a Prussia small enough for other nations to cope with.

Any attempt at internal control of an unbroken Reich would raise large questions. Some of them: Can a German government be formed, strong enough to hold the embittered and despairing people to gether, yet docile enough to carry out Allied directives without an overwhelming and costly occupying force? Can a joint control force, representing the principal victors, maintain a united front year after year? Can separate regional occupation and control (i.e., Britain in the west, Russia in the east) be maintained without eventually splitting up the country along the demarcation lines? Outright partition would entail equally large hazards. If South Germans -- Bav rians, Wuerttembergers and Badeners -- are detached, they may develop an explosive longing to return to a common fold.

South Germany might be unable to survive on its own. Union with Austria might become a necessity. Russia might well oppose a union of Catholic Bavaria and Catholic Austria, prefer to draw Austria into a bloc with Czechoslovakia and Poland. West Germans -- Rhinelanders, Saarlanders, Westphalians of the Ruhr Valley -- might clamor to be made independent, too. (At the end of World War I there was a brief Rhineland republic.) Bismarck's unifying labors in the 19th Century and recent Nazi pressure to eradicate old boundaries within the Reich may have gone so far that all dismemberment now would fail.

Problem in Plans. Allied planners must weigh an almost unanimous Little Nation vote for dismemberment against the dangers of a Europe without a single major balance wheel west of Russia. They must calculate the safety factor of German industry divided among several independent states, each leaning outward to take part in a non-German sphere, against the increased difficulty of collecting any reparations at all from a row of little Germanics.

Finally, they must consider the wisdom of opposing Russia if the Kremlin definitely abandons its earlier talk about a strong, democratic, de-Nazified Germany in favor of simple surgery. A public contest among Allies over the postwar shape and character of Germany could be as disastrous as a wrong decision.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.