Temperature Down

The fever chart of Big Power relations looked better last week. In Germany especially, distrust subsided. The conquerors were learning more about one another. They seldom liked what they learned, but unpleasant knowledge was less harmful than febrile suspicion.

Steel and Friendship. U.S. Economist Calvin Hoover's recent recommendation that Germany be allowed to keep much of her heavy industry had an unexpected effect. When the U.S. press denounced the Hoover report, the Russians realized the extent of U.S. sentiment for a "hard" peace. In the subsequent efforts to set a temporary level for annual German steel production, the Russians and Americans finally agreed on eight million tons; the British held out for twelve million. The row brought the U.S. and Russian representatives on the Allied Control Council closer together than they had been in weeks. The British were unhappy, but the net effect on Big Three relations was all to the good.

Other factors helped. Since the dismissal of General George S. Patton in Bavaria, U.S. authorities had greatly speeded up denazification. They had also moved to increase German participation in German rule, a step which the Russians considered intelligent. Soon all local and county government would be in German hands, under strict U.S. supervision. The Russians were still way ahead in the revival of German political life, but the Americans were catching up.

Early in 1946, town and village elections would be held in the U.S. zone, and U.S. troops withdrawn to three state capitals, Stuttgart, Munich, Frankfurt am Main.

Whether the Germans were ready for self-government was doubtful. Until the Potsdam conference all political activity in the U.S. zone had been forbidden, since then it had not been encouraged. To the exclusion of politics, problems of food, fuel and shelter preoccupied the Germans. Washington decided that U.S. food would go to Germany this winter; otherwise starvation and disorder would preclude the building of a Germany run by anti-Nazi Germans.

"Tell the Bahstads." The British attitude on denazification differed from the Russian and U.S. policies. A Briton explained that it did not matter much if the head of a public-utility system was a Nazi: "We tell the bahstads what to do, you know, so their political beliefs make no difference really." From the standpoint of getting things done efficiently with a minimum occupation staff, the British system worked. Its effect on the political future of Germany was another matter.

All of the Big Three were fed up with the divergences and difficulties of zonal government. But plans for greater centralization were blocked by the French, who still cherished a hope that Germany would be permanently partitioned into several nations. Last week the Russians agreed with the French that the Ruhr area should be split off from Germany and made a separate state, but in principle the Big Three were still united against partition of the rest of the country.

From G.I.s to generals, U.S. military men were fed up with the occupation. General Eisenhower's September report, released last week, reflected this feeling and took a critical view of Allied cooperation. The Russians, who like Eisenhower and understand candor, became more cooperative immediately after the report was published. In a subsequent letter to President Truman, Eisenhower proposed that military occupation in the U.S. zone be replaced by civilian control as soon as possible. Truman agreed. Redeployment had so thinned the occupying force that it lacked enough experienced men for direct control of the German people. The next phase, Allied government of Germany through German officials, would be a political rather than a military operation.

Robert Murphy, Eisenhower's political adviser, was next in line for the job of top U.S. representative, but other names had been suggested to Truman. Moscow had sent to Berlin Marshal Pavel Rotmistrov, said to be pro-American (as Russians go), who was expected to replace Marshal Zhukov.

When the Red Army would depart had not been hinted. But except for a minimum police force, U.S. troops should be getting out of Germany next spring--or sooner.

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