I still have not gotten my visa as my quota is oversubscribed. The Department of Commerce has taken us over, and started the Publications Board Microfilm Program. I am now coordinator for metals, minerals, and machinery for the microfilm program. We work in the three western zones exclusively. I meet the best German scientists, write reports on subjects in my line, and can study this strange life in Europe. I supervise 15 of our screeners, discuss their problems and targets, and visit the targets myself. In addition to writing reports on special aspects of German metallurgical industry or science, we now screen and film all German documents in industrial establishments, universities, research centers, etc. The DOC is publishing a weekly bibliography and anybody in the States or England can order copies of the films on the latest German research in almost an field. You can now read about the latest research on rubber conducted by IG Farben, or order the film on aluminum cladding or on synthetic shoe polish. Krupps latest research on deep drawing steels or low temperature steels is thus made available. (Speaking of Krupps, I heard from my friend that her cousin, Dr Benno Strauss, who was the inventor of Stainless Steel and director of Krupp before the war, died in 1944 in a concentration camp after being denied a visa to the US. )
I visited hamburg and the Ruhr last week hamburg was bitterly cold. People were skating and bicycling on the frozen lake. People can only heat their dining rooms and their bedrooms are around the freezing point. The condition in The Rhineland is awful. I remember when I read about famine in China and it sounded very sad, but did not affect me too much- it was too far away. That is different now, you see workers at the furnaces who can't carry on after a few hours work. You speak to a manager of a factory who tells you that he and his family of three had three beet roots for last two days and nothing else. Rooms are without light and heat and the people are without hope.
Germany is in a rotten position now, particularly the British Zone is on the brink of collapse. There are regulations forbidding all kind of essential production. There is a lack of mining machinery and of skilled miners. Many have been killed and many are POW's in Russia or France. Those who are left have no incentive to work, and not enough food to keep them fit. The machinery is worn out, and replacement can't be made because the machine factories do not produce anything. There is an influx of refugees from the East. The black market flourishes. One carton of cigarettes sells at 1000 to 1200 marks in the British Zone, at 500 in our zone, where conditions are better and supply is greater. In the British zone, ration cards are often not honored. I do not pity the Germans, but it was bad policy to let things go so far and now one has to start with loans and imports to get the country going. In addition, the presence of a slum in the center of Europe can't be anything but a source for more trouble. So far, Germany has not gone communist because the conditions in the Russian Zone are even worse than in the British. It reminds one of Nazi Germany, people are scared to speak in the train cars, they are taken from their homes and shipped to Russia or lose their jobs because they do not join the party. Our Zone is by far the best run, partly because it was less destroyed and had more agriculture, and partly because the US government realized much earlier than the British that we can control German industry at a top level, but we have not enough good men to spare to run and manage it. The British had too many second and third rate people over here, made them managers of big plants, and they don't know any details of production, but know enough about essentials. The British have lost most of the good will they held a year ago, and the chief problem will exist in a year or two, what kind of philosophy or way of life will the Germans choose. The Russians will certainly try to demonstrate theirs. I personally do not think that free trade and private enterprise will succeed in Germany, if the British have nationalized the coal mines in the Ruhr and the Russians all the industry in their zone. The competition will be between planned democracy, and communism. Democracy does not seem to mean much to the average German as it brought worse living conditions than ever, he thinks.The communists are clever and absolutely unscrupulous. I sometimes wonder whether and when we shall see another war. I don't see how one can cooperate with people who have no moral principles at all.
I have also recently been to Brussels. It is an amazing place, full of the newest motorcars, light, unrationed food and clothes, oranges and sweets and hundreds of things I have not seen since 1938 can be bought there, rather expensively, but quite unrationed. I was asked to visit an Aluminum foil plant in the French zone, in which US industry, apparently, is interested and to report on it. But I can hardly imagine that German rolling mills, eight or ten years old, can be very useful for the US Industry.
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