1917 AND ALL THAT: THE UNTAUGHT HISTORY SYLLABUS.
In Their Own Words: A Political History Of The Cold War 1917-1983.
By Brian Mitchell.

Chapters 45 - 48 of 50.

Chapter 45

BUSINESS IS BUSINESS -
TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ALL THROUGH THE WAR.
"During these months of the "phoney war" British Government departments issued
licences for the re-export of spruce from Britain to the Caprioni firm in Italy.
We were short of spruce ourselves; it comes from across the Atlantic. Our
merchant seamen risked or lost their lives to bring it to Britain; we needed it
for training planes, and we could have made Mosquito bombers' wing-spars from it
- if anyone had allowed de Havilland to make bombers at all at that period. The
Italians did make Caprioni wing-spars from it. And less than a year after the
issue of these licences, some Caprionis were bombing London!"

(Tom Wintringham (Gracchus) "Your M.P.") (1)

Even throughout the war it was business as usual with transnational capital.
Business was 'laundered' through subsidiaries of US-German companies and banks
set up through other temporary subsidiaries and mergers to disguise their German
connections, shareholdings, ownerships and directorships. Gold bars made from
the wedding rings, spectacle frames and teeth of concentration camp victims were
passed through the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland; a
Nazi controlled bank whose President was American Thomas H. McKittrick, and
whose executive staff were German, British, Japanese, Italian and American.

When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 he had immediately appointed Hjalmar
Schacht as Head of the Reichsbank and Nazi Representative at the BIS.



It was his consummate skill at swindling the people which made him
indispensable."

(Adolf Hitler, of Hjalmar Schacht.)



The BIS Board of Directors list of June 16 1943 included Walter Funk (Berlin),
Montague Collet Norman (London), Kurt von Schroeder (Cologne), and Yoneji
Yamamoto (Japan).

When in March 1938 the Nazis entered Vienna, Austria's gold went to the BIS, and
from the BIS to the Reichbank. In March 1939 the Nazis entered Prague and
demanded that the Czech National Bank hand over Czechoslovakia's $48 million
gold reserves. The Czech directors announced that the gold had already gone to
the BIS for forwarding to the Bank of England. (2)

On May 15 1939 Labour MP George Strauss asked the Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain:

"Is it true, sir, that the national treasure of Czechoslovakia is being given to
Germany?"

The Prime Minister, who was a major shareholder in ICI, partner of IG-Farben,
who had members on the board of the BIS, replied:

"It is not." (3)

The British Prime Minister had denied that the national treasures of
Czechoslovakia had gone to Germany. But as was disclosed later, the actual gold
did not need to physically have been moved in order to be transferred to Berlin,
but by adjusting the accounts of the Bank of England's gold deposits in
Switzerland and Czech bank holdings in London. In 1944 it was discovered that
most of the BIS's dividends were going to Germany. (4)

"This country has various rights and interests in the BIS under our
international trust agreements between the various governments. It would not be
in our best interest to sever connections with the bank."

(British Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Kingsley Wood, in reply to questioning
by George Strauss.) (5)

(1)Gracchus "Your M.P." Victor Gollancz. London 1944.

(2)See:Charles Higham "Trading With the Enemy." Robert Hale. London 1983.

(3)See:Charles Higham "Trading With the Enemy." Robert Hale. London 1983.

(4)See:Charles Higham "Trading With the Enemy." Robert Hale. London 1983.

(5)See:Charles Higham "Trading With the Enemy." Robert Hale. London 1983.

Other business was done through the Morgan and Chase National banks and
Rockefeller. Ford trucks supplied the German army. General Motors (Opel), and
Ford built the largest percentage of medium and heavy trucks used by the
Wehrmacht. Most of the engines for Ju 88 bombers and the first Me-262 fighters
were built at Opel plants with General Motors capital. Standard Oil supplied the
German army in France with fuel through Switzerland. Standard Oil was refuelling
German U-Boats in the Canary Islands. Standard Oil's Panama registered ships
were not touched by the German U-Boats during this operation. ITT helped with
Hitler's communications, were involved in the rocket bombs which fell on London,
and built Focke Wulf planes. American ball bearings needed by the Allies were
'laundered' through Latin American subsidiaries for German heavy armaments with
the cooperation of the Vice Chairman of the US War Production Board. (1)

"On January 6th, 1944, the United States Government indicted the Du Pont and
Imperial Chemical Industries of Britain for forming a cartel with IG-Farben of
Germany and Mitsui of Japan. Other big firms followed suit - for instance
Standard Oil, which under cartel agreement with the German IG-Farben, blocked
commercial development of one hundred octane gasoline in the US and withheld
technical information from Army Air Corps; or Dow Chemical and Aluminium
Corporation of America, which as a result of an arrangement with IG-Farben
restricted the production of aluminium in the US with the effect that in 1940,
one year after the outbreak of the Second World War, while the USA produced
5,680 tons Nazi Germany produced more than 19,000 tons.

Most Americans were left in the dark..."

(Avro Manhattan "The Dollar and the Vatican.") (2)

Other US companies which were members of Nazi cartels and trusts were the Agfa
Ansco Corporation, the Aluminium Company of America, the American Cynamid
Company, Bell and Howell, the Carbide and Carbon Chemical Corporation, the
National Aniline and Chemical Company, the Dow Chemical Company, the Eastman
Kodak Company, the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company, and Proctor and Gamble. The
company that had cartel arrangements with the largest number of US companies,
which included Standard Oil, Du Pont, and the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation, was
the IG-Farben trust. (3)

(1)See:Charles Higham "Trading With the Enemy." Robert Hale. London 1983.

Also:"Recalling the Past For the Sake of the Future: The Causes, Results and
Lessons of World War Two." Novosti. Moscow 1985.

And:US 5th Corps War Department document 2267, July 15 1941.

And:A.C.Sutton "Wall Street

And:Guenter Reimann "Patents for Hitler." Victor Gollancz. London 1945.

And:A. Kahn "High Treason. The Plot Against the People." The Hour Publishers. NY
1950.

(2)Avro Manhattan "The Dollar and the Vatican." Pioneer Press. London 1957.

(3)See:A. Kahn "High Treason. The Plot Against the People." The Hour Publishers.
NY 1950.

IG-Farben, with a total value of over £300,000,000, thirteen percent of whos
capital was foreign owned - mainly by Du Pont of the US, ICI of Britain, and
Francolor of France, was the world's biggest chemical combine. IG-Farben's
holdings outside Germany amounted to at least another £50,000,000.

"By some miraculous chance - and one day this may form a profitable theme for an
investigation commission - most of I.G Farben plants were spared during the war.

If one starts with the enormous I.G. Farben headquarters building in Frankfurt -
now the headquarters of Anglo-American occupation authorities - one would think
a magic circle had been drawn around I.G. Farben establishments to save them
from Allied bombers. The I.G. Farben building in Frankfurt, covering several
acres of ground... By its size, shape and location on top of a small hill, it
stands out as Number 1 target in Frankfurt, whether for high or low level
bombing. But it survived without a scratch..."

(Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, in his book "Cold War In Germany.")

German subsidiaries of US companies were compensated for damage done by American
bombing to their property. The US Government awarded General Motors $33 million
tax exemption on profits for the US bombing of its motor and aircraft factories
in Germany in the war. (1)

(1)See:Charles Higham "Trading With the Enemy." Robert Hale. London 1983.



Chapter 46

WHO DIVIDED GERMANY?
"Both the President and Eden agreed that, under any circumstances, Germany must
be divided into several states."

(Harry Hopkins.) (1)

"If you had a unified Germany it would be owned by the Russians."

(US historian Steven Ambrose, Channel 4 TV May 24 1987.)

It was the West who wanted a divided Germany.

While publicly presenting a policy for a united Germany the West did everything
possible to ensure that Germany was divided.

As early as the Teheran conference in 1943 the US proposed dividing Germany into
five small independent states; which would thus be harmless and easy for US
capital to dominate. In 1944 Churchill and Eden went to Moscow with a plan to
divide Germany into three parts. Stalin flatly refused.

The Soviets never wanted Germany to be divided. The Soviet view was that it was
not the German people but the Nazis and their financial and industrial
capitalist backers and supporters who were to blame for the war and it was they
who should be punished and pay reparations; it was they who should be broken up,
not the German nation. Throughout the war Stalin refused to identify the Nazis
with the German people. Even in February 1942, when the Nazis were at the gates
of Moscow and surrounded Leningrad, he said in a speech:

"It would be ridiculous to identify the Hitler clique with the German people,
with the German State. The experience of history teaches us that Hitlers come
and go, but the German people, the German State, remains."

(Stalin, Feb 1942.)

And after the war Stalin opposed any policy which would destroy or divide
Germany and thus punish the German people:

"Three years ago Hitler publicly stated that his task included the dismemberment
of the Soviet Union and the severance from it of the Caucasus, the Ukraine,
Byelorussia, the Baltic and other regions. He definitely said, "We shall destroy
Russia so that she shall never rise again." This was three years ago. But
Hitler's insane ideas were fated to remain unrealised - the course of the war
scattered them to the winds like dust. Actually, the very opposite of what the
Hitlerites dreamed of in their delirium occurred. Germany is utterly defeated...
The Soviet Union is triumphant, although it has no intention of either
dismembering or destroying Germany."

(Stalin, May 9 1945.)

At Potsdam the Soviets proposed the setting up of a central German
administration for political and economic unity. This was rejected by the US and
Britain.

In dividing Germany the West broke another Potsdam agreement, a Soviet proposal,
that Germany should remain a single economic unit under the control of the
German people. The Soviets also proposed the withdrawal of all occupational
troops and let Germany be run by the German people. Fearing that a people
released from living under fascism will invariably opt for socialism, this also
was rejected by the Western Allies.

In Paris, Moscow and London Molotov consistently proposed the establishment of a
provisional government of all political parties and trade unions in all four
occupation zones followed by an all German constitution with secret elections by
proportional representation to an all German government of the German people,

(1)Foreign Relations of the United States, 1943, Vol.III.

supervised by four-power observers. Bourgeois democracy could certainly not have
complained about that; since in no way could it have been dominated by
communists, since the Soviet zone had only 18 million out of Germany's 67
million population. Fearing that the whole German people might vote for the
Communists, the West rejected all these proposals.

A unified Germany under terms of the Potsdam Treaty would put Germany under the
control of the German people and give them the opportunity to opt for socialism.
To the twisted thinking of the West this meant "giving it to the Russians." The
West greatly feared a communist Germany:

"The first question is whether Germany will turn Communist...

Manifestly, then, if we wish to make any effort to prevent Germany from going
Communist we, along with Great Britain and France, are impelled to exert every
effort to breathe new life into Germany's prostrate economy by integrating it as
a prospering element, into our own...

...if the people of western Germany became convinced that Communism offered the
best means of unity, the majority of them would become Communist."

(US Government Memo "Future Policy Towards Germany," March 26 1946.) (1)

The West was so afraid of the possibility of Germany becoming communist that
they staged a repeat of the Zinoviev letter incident. A letter known as
"Protocol M", written in pseudo-Marxist language and calling for strikes and
"liberation of the world proletariat", was "released" by British Intelligence
onto the British and world press. Repressions against Communists and closures of
Communist newspapers followed immediately as eagerly as those of the Nazis, and
left-wing books banned by the Nazis were also banned by the West. Three months
later it was admitted in the House of Commons that "Protocol M" was a fake.

The Soviet view was that a divided Germany would always be dangerous to world
security, since sooner or later along could come another Bismark or Hitler to
"re-unite" Germany. The ideas of US military commander of Germany General Clay,
and the modern German and US revanchists are examples of this.

A divided Germany enabled US forces to intervene and put down any socialist
transformation if the German people had any thoughts of 'going communist', which
they could not have done if the whole of Germany was under joint control with
the Soviets.

A divided Germany enabled separate peace treaties to be made by the West which
they could not make with a unified Germany under the terms of the Potsdam treaty
because of the influence of the USSR. Separate peace treaties paved the way for
West Germany to be incorporated into NATO.

A divided Germany enabled US monopoly capital to dominate a seperated West
German state, whereas they could not have dominated a unified Germany under the
joint East-West supervision terms of the Potsdam agreement. A divided Germany
enabled US monopoly capital to dominate West German heavy industry and restore
the power of the cartels and multi-nationals; which would become part of the
foundations of the European Common Market and part of the formation of NATO -
both as an anti-Soviet alliance; and both of which they could not have done in a
unified Germany under the terms of the Potsdam Treaty.

(1)See:W.W. Rostow "The Division of Europe After World War II: 1946." University
of Texas Press. 1982.

A divided Germany also presented for the US a possible future starting point for
the cause of another war against communism:

"The hell of it is that the State Department is always six months behind us.
They have only just now accepted our demand to set up a separate West German
state. We have been all set to go on that for more than six months... Now
they've accepted the idea of a separate state, of course, we're ready to go
ahead with the Peace Statute. With the Peace Statute signed, we can make Germany
an ally. We'll have a seventeenth nation in the Marshall plan with its

heavy industry and 44 million more people on our side... We're losing precious
time. We should be all set to go in another few months... of course we'll be
ready to go. I should say we'll be ready to go. As a matter of fact, one of my
last jobs has been drawing up a paper on our occupation policy for the Soviet
Union."

(Richard Scammon, US Military Government, Berlin, 1947.) (1)

The capitalist world's desire to destroy communism becomes even more obvious
when you consider that the USSR, our ally in the war against German Fascism, was
denied membership of NATO; while Germany, who had just attempted to take over
the whole of Europe - East and West, was immediately welcomed with open arms as
a friend and ally in NATO:

"First of all we should see that Germany is firmly tied into the other nations
of Western Europe and become a full partner in the North Atlantic Pact [NATO
B.M.]. The importance of this cannot be overemphasised... The Shuman plan offers
a real assurance in this direction."

(New York Herald Tribune Oct 27 1950.)

The formation of NATO by the West was a direct violation of the Potsdam Treaty:

"Each High Contracting Party undertakes not to conclude any alliance and not to
take part in any coalition directed against the other High Contracting Party."

(From the Potsdam Treaty.)

NATO was formed in 1949, just after the Soviet Union had demobilised 8.5 million
of its armed forces. NATO was created solely as an anti-Communist military
alliance. The Warsaw Pact was formed six years after NATO.

Plans for rearming Germany, against the Potsdam Treaty, were in the making
despite the deceiptful and naive statements of US and British politicians.

"There is no intention to rearm Germany."

(US Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, Nov 1949.)

"We are all against German rearmament."

(Ernest Bevin, House of Parliament, summer 1950.)

However, there is a power far higher than a British Labour Foreign Secretary:

"Mr. Bevin went to New York, determined to prevent the precipitate rearmament of
Germany... He failed... Faced with an American ultimatum... he toed the line."

(New Statesman and Nation, Dec 2 1950.)

"I have discussed the whole thing with Monty and he fully shares my view that we
must get a German army as soon as possible. Some dumb politicians are against
it, but they won't be much longer."

(Commander in Chief of the British Army on the Rhine Sir Charles Keightley, at
the Press Club, Berlin, June 1950.) 2)

As part of NATO and against the Potsdam Treaty, and away from public view, West
Germany again rearmed; just as it did in the 1930s:

(1)See:Wilfred Burchett "Cold War in Germany." Melbourne. 1950.

(2)See:Gordon Schaffer "German Rearmament Leads to War." British Peace
Committee. London 1951.

"It is the great merit of the entire German military economy that in those bad
years it did not remain inactive, even if, for understandable reasons, its
activities were hidden from the public. In years of quiet work the scientific
and practical requisites were created so that the German Wehrmacht could resume
work without loss of time and experience at the given hour... Only due to this
work of the German enterprises, which was shrouded in silence... was it possible
immediately after 1933 to find speedy solutions to the new tasks of rearming,
could the many new problems be mastered."

(Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, in a speech at the University of Berlin in
Jan 1944.) (1)

And for the British, in typical contradictory British logic, that was fine, just
as it was in the 1930s:

"I do not consider that the repeal of the disarmament dispositions of the
various peace treaties would in actual face lead to an increase in arms. On the
contrary, I believe that the announcement of the German rearmament programme
brings new hope of a general limitation of arms by all countries."

(Winston Churchill's son-in-law, Foreign Office official Duncan Sandys, Nov 2
1935.) (2)

Even before the war had ended it was decided by the West that post-war Germany
should again be the bulwark against communism:

#"Back to War Office to have an hour with Secretary of State discussing post-war
policy in Europe. Should Germany be dismembered or converted into an ally to
meet the Russian threat of twenty years hence? I suggested the latter and feel
certain that we must, from now onwards, regard Germany in a very different
light. Germany is no longer the dominating power in Europe - Russia is.
Therefore, foster Germany, gradually build her up and bring her into a
federation of Western Europe. [Forerunner of the EEC. B.M.] Unfortunately, this
must all be done under the cloak of our policy of a holy alliance between
England, Russia and America, not an easy policy and one requiring a super
Foreign Secretary."

#(British Chief of Staff Field Marshal Sir (later Lord) Alan Brooke, in his
diary, July 27 1944.) (3)

In 1945, under personal pressure from the King and Churchill, and against even
Attlee's choice, which was to be Hugh Dalton, Ernest Bevin was installed as that
"super Foreign Secretary".

About NATO Bevin had said:

"This pact is a powerful defensive arrangement, it is not directed against
anyone."

(British Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin.)

Italy's Fascist Foreign Minister Ciano had said the same before the war about
the Anti-Comintern Pact:

(1)See:The Brown Book - War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany. Verlag Zeit im
Bild. Dresden.

See also: The Nuremberg War Trials Documents.

(2)See:Koni Zilliacus "Can the Tories Win the Peace? And How They Lost the Last
One." Victor Gollancz. London 1945.

#(3)See:Arthur Bryant "Triumph in the West." London 1959.

Quoted in: V.Trukhanovsky "Winston Churchill." Progress Publishers. Moscow
1978..)

"The pact has no hidden aims. It is directed against no one."

(Italy's Foreign Minister Ciano, talking about the pre war Anti-Comintern Pact.)

All that was needed then, and capital has been trying to conjure one up in
people's minds ever since, was to create a situation of conflict in order to
start a war with the Soviet Union and the Socialist world:

"Inasmuch as the Russians appear to be achieving great success with the peace,
and are unlikely to gain more by war, the conflict will have to be of our
making, sparked off by some event, either in Berlin or elsewhere in Europe,
where Russia and the West may come into conflict."

#(Monetary Times, Nov 1948.)

As we shall see in other parts of this book; further attempts to create
situations of potential conflict were made later in Hungary and Czechoslovakia
as well as the GDR and Poland.

The same policy was still in operation over 20 years later:

"The new policy will be to fire battlefield nuclear weapons at targets in E.
Germany, Poland or Czechoslovakia, but not at the Soviet Union, directly
relevant to the front line fighting. This would mean tactical airfields, first
line supply depots or collecting points for reinforcements."

#(Defence correspondent Douglas Home, The Times Dec 23 1969.)

#???Also, Sir Alec Douglas Home, as Foreign Secretary, according to The Times,
told the NATO Council in Paris on December 22 1961, in a reference to Berlin
that the British people were prepared to "be reduced to atomic dust."

Europe didn't have to wait many years for a conflict.

#As the diaries and memoirs of US Government officials such as Forrestal,
Vandenberg and Hickenlooper now reveal; since British scientists played a large
part in the development of the atom bomb, there was a secret pledge made by
Roosevelt and Churchill at the Quebec Conference in 1943 not to use it without
British consent. The US threatened to oppose Marshall Aid to Britain if the
British Government didn't release them from this treaty.

The Attlee Labour Government agreed, the US was released from the Quebec
agreement, and Marshall Aid arrived in Britain accompanied by American bombers -
for a "short training" and "good will" visit. Also as a requirement of Marshall
Aid Britain sold over to the US Britain's share in the Congo uranium mines,
which the US needed for its nuclear weapons programme.

And the British Government had already secretly agreed to Britain's own nuclear
arms programme in 1947.

Bases for the US bombers had already been set up in Britain under the pretext of
airlifting supplies to "starving Berlin" which was said to be "blockaded" by the
Soviets, who in fact were themselves feeding the people of West Berlin.

The truth, however, was that the West had begun to divide Germany by introducing
a separate currency into the Western zones, which upset the economy of the
Soviet zone. As was expected by the West, the Soviets closed the border in order
to protect the currency and the economy in their sector. But movements of
supplies and people were not heavily restricted. The Soviets even offered to
supply the whole of Berlin since there was no shortage in the Soviet zone of
Berlin. A similar offer was made by the Mayor of Berlin's Soviet zone:

"We have the coal and food stored in our warehouses. They can be had by Herr
Reuter [West Berlin's Mayor] for the whole of Berlin without any conditions
whatsoever. And if Herr Reuter does not want to accept, individual suburban
bergermeisters can have it. They can collect from us or we will deliver it to
them."

(Mayor of Berlin's Soviet zone Friedrich Ebert.) (1)

Herr Reuter, who had said he would hang all communists "from the nearest trees
and lamp-posts", rejected the offer and forbade Western mayors to accept. Even
Western companies who accepted Ebert's offer of coal were blacklisted by the
Western authorities. Western Berliners had their sacks of coal given to them by
the Eastern sector confiscated by West Berlin border police.

The crisis and the airlift had to continue. There was no "blockade" of essential
supplies at all.

"The so-called 'blockade' began when the Americans and the British decided to
establish a separate West German State. That decision was a breach of the
Potsdam Agreement."

(D.N.Pritt KC. MP. in his book "Russia is for Peace.")

The so-called German "food crisis" was created by the West. The "food crisis"
enabled the US separate and get complete control of Western Germany.

It is significant that the day after the US currency reform many categories of
food suddenly became unrationed and luxury foods suddenly appeared in the shops.
The industrial workers, however, had been going short of basic foods since 1945,
surviving on about 700 calories a day (a slice of bread and a few potatoes was
the daily food intake for most of the Ruhr working class) as against the
promised 1,500 calories. The US controlled all food movement and prices, and
prevented the traditional trade or Ruhr coal and steel for foods from the East
on a barter basis. Instead, food had to be imported at US prices. The day after
currency reform it was planned to end potato rationing because a sudden
"surplus" of potatoes had accumulated in the US zone.

The "Berlin airlift" was nothing but an expensive propaganda show in order to
"prove" the Soviet Union's "hostile intentions" and provide a reason for setting
up the anti-Soviet alliance of NATO and for initiating another war against the
USSR.

Dividing Germany was also part of the US strategic war plans:

"1. To evaluate the chances of success in delivering a powerful strategic air
offensive... and to appraise any adverse effect on this offensive of the
continuation of the Berlin airlift at its contemplated level until war occurs...

4. The Berlin airlift will be continued... until the outbreak of hostilities...

5. The strategic air offensive will be implemented on a first-priority basis."

(From declassified US security document JCS 1952/1, of Dec 21 1948.) (2)

(1)See:Wilfred Burchett "Cold War in Germany." Melbourne. 1950.

(2)See:Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Modern Military Records Branch,
National Archives, Washington DC.

Also: Reproduced in full in: T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on
American Policy and Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

The Berlin airlift had the required propaganda value:

"There could be a settlement of the Berlin situation at any time on the basis of
a Soviet currency for Berlin and our right to bring in food, raw materials and
fuel to the Western sectors.

The present situation is, however, to US advantage for propaganda purposes. We
are getting credit for keeping the people of Berlin from starving; the Russians
are getting the blame for their privations.

If we settle Berlin, then we have to deal with Germany as a whole. We will have
to deal immediately with a Russian proposal for withdrawal of all occupation
troops and a return of Germany to the Germans. Frankly I do not know what we
would say to that. We cannot keep up the airlift indefinitely."

(US President Truman's foreign policy advisor, later Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles, in an off-the-record speech to the Overseas Press Club, Paris,
Jan 24 1949. (1)

It was much better for the US if the crisis could be maintained and the
shortages blamed on the Soviets and the fact that Germany had "lost" the rich
agricultural lands East of the Oder-Neisse line.

At the end of January 1949 Dulles stated in a New York Herald Tribune interview
that the US did not want the Berlin situation settled until NATO existed and
West Germany was integrated into Western Europe. (2)

It was the West's actions which created a separate German state. The West
introduced their separate currency into the Western zones on June 18 1948. This
was extended to West Berlin on June 23. The new notes had been printed in the US
many months before, and made the Marks in the Soviet zone valueless. The Soviets
immediately, as from June 20, put a tight control on all road, rail and river
transport into the Soviet zone. As an emergency measure the Soviets had to
prepare stamps which were pasted over the notes in their zone. These currency
reforms in West Berlin and West Germany seriously affected the economic
relations between West and East Germany. Over the 12 years of its open border
policy the GDR lost nearly 30 billion Marks.

Also a separate West German constitution was drawn up. The Allied Control
Council was dissolved by the West. On December 5 1948, separate elections were
held in the Western zones for a separate West German state. On December 21 1948
the British, US and French established a separate tripartite Kommandatura in
West Berlin. Finally, a separate Bonn state was established on September 7 1949.
Since Germany no longer existed as a whole, on October 7 1949 the GDR was
formed.

The FRG was again set up as Europe's "bulwark against communism."

Coupled with this is the dangerous Western ideology of revanchism; to "reclaim"
Europe's "lost territories".

"The best way to get back the German Eastern territories is the rearmament of
Germany in the framework of the European army."

(West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Feb 10 1952.) (3)

"Our aim is the liberation of our 18 million brothers and sisters in the Eastern
territories. Until now we have always spoken of the reunification of Germany.
But we should rather say 'liberation'."

(West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Sept 7 1953.) (4)

"The Eastern frontier of Bavaria must be strengthened for a solution of the
Sudeten German question in the spirit of the Munich pact and for an all European
solution."

(West German Minister, ex-Nazi Theodor Oberlander, in "Bulletin of the Federal
Government" Nov 6 1953.)

(1)See:D.N.Pritt, QC, MP. "Russia is for Peace." Lawrence and Wishart. London
1951.

(2)See:D.N.Pritt, QC, MP. "Russia is for Peace." Lawrence and Wishart. London
1951.

(3)See:"Conspiracy Against Europe. The Paris Agreements." Committee for German
Unity. Berlin 1955.

(4)See:"Conspiracy Against Europe. The Paris Agreements." Committee for German
Unity. Berlin 1955.

"I can only welcome any reinforcement of the defence front, whether through the
despatch of atomic weapons or by other military means."

(West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, to US Army newspaper Stars and Stripes,
Nov 1953.)

"If we give the Germans weapons and equal rights in the Atlantic Defence
Community, and also the hope that the East German zone can be liberated and the
lost territories East of the Oder-Neisse Line can be won back in a war, then
there can be little doubt that we can win the Germans as our most reliable
allies."

(The American Mercury, after Chancellor Adenauer's visit to the US, June 1953.)
(1)

"The Potsdam Agreement contains not only economic principles, it also contains
political principles which are for us Germans unacceptable and will remain
unacceptable."

(West German Chancellor Adenauer, Feb 1 1953.)

"The following definitions and written forms are to be applied in regard to the
East German territories... For the East German territories beyond the Oder and
Neisse: German Reich territory within the frontiers of 31 December 1937 under
temporary Polish (or Soviet) administration, or the corresponding short form:
Eastern territories of the German Reich (as of 31 December 1937) at the moment
under foreign administration."

(West German War Ministry instructions on the official "designation of the
eastern territories, Dec 1958.) (2)

"Our territorial demands reach far beyond the Oder-Neisse line; we want to
recover the old German domains. The year 2000 must not be allowed to become the
83rd anniversary of the October Revolution in the world."

(Von Hassel, West German Minister for Expelled Persons, Refugees and War
Victims, Bulletin des Presse und Informationsamtes der Bundesregierung, Bonn,
Aug 21 1960.)

The border remained open till 1961.

In the middle of 1960 two West German Army officers; Major Bruno Winzer and
Captain von Gliga went to the GDR and revealed detailed plans for the FRG to
launch a lightning war against the GDR. The plans used the idea of creating an
'incident' in the GDR so that West German forces could intervene and occupy and
present the world with a fait accompli, saying that an internal German question
had been settled. These plans were made public by the GDR, who made it quite
clear in conjunction with the USSR that the Warsaw powers would defend their
ally.

#On June 14 1961, West German revanchists in the Bundestag passed a resolution
for the revision of Europe's frontiers. In the US on July 25 1961 the West
German Minister of defence, ex-Nazi Franz Josef Strauss, who still suffered from
frosbitten toes as a constant reminder of his exploits at Stalingrad, said that
the Second World War had still not ended and that a kind of civil war was in the
making. Bombings and other acts of sabotage were carried out in order to try and
destabilise the GDR Government. A plan called "Outline" was developed to seize
the GDR by force. On August 1 1961 NATO troops were ordered on a full alert for
an armed clash in Berlin. A public threat was issued by Kennedy and a nuclear
attack was planned. The USAF mobilised planes and the West German navy was
deployed in the Baltic and ex-Nazi General Spiedel had NATO ground forces
mobilised for the attack. The Warsaw Pact

(1)See:"Conspiracy Against Europe. The Paris Agreements." Committee for German
Unity. Berlin 1955.

(2)See:The Grey Book - Expansionist Policy and Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
Verlag Zeit im Bild. Dresden.

member nations met in Moscow. War was imminent. On August 13 1961 the West woke
up to find the Berlin wall had been built and manned by the workers' militia,
the People's Army of the GDR; backed by rows of Warsaw Pact tanks and artillery
and troops behind it. On August 25 1961 US General Clay's tanks approached the
border only to find lines of Soviet tanks opposing them. 16 hours later Clay's
tanks withdrew. The world stepped back from the brink of World War III. (1)

NATO's plan was abandoned; switching their plans to Czechoslovakia in 1968, as
we shall see later, when again their plans were stopped by the sudden appearance
of five Warsaw Pact forces, not just Soviet, to defend Czechoslovakia against a
combined counter-revolution and any desires of NATO to establish a base in
Czechoslovakia.

The Berlin wall was a normal border of a sovereign state. It was not a wall that
simply divides East and West ethnically or geographically; but a wall that
divides two world economic systems. It divides two ideologies and two world
outlooks; two worlds, one controlled by capital and one controlled by labour.

The division of Germany is on class lines. In the GDR, the working capital of
the whole state is owned by the working class - by the whole people. What share
of the working capital do workers own in the FRG?

The Berlin wall and the borders of the socialist countries are a barrier against
economic and political destabilisation of the world socialist community. The
defence of Socialism begins at the Berlin wall. Does Wall Street or Fenchurch
Street intend to move it? Does the Pentagon or Whitehall intend to knock it
down?

In 1961 the GDR used the power of its borders to show the imperialists the
limits of their power. Imperialist power ends at the wall. But even though the
events of August 1961 showed the West the limits of its power, they haven't
given up:

"Our fatherland is Germany, not only the Federal Republic but also the Soviet
zone as well as the territories under Polish administration and the Soviet
annexed region around Konigsberg."

(Soldatenkurier, soldier's newspaper of the 5th Tank Division, Dietz/Lahn, May 1
1962.)

"Our all-German positions are against the stabilisation of the status quo in
Germany and Europe. As long as we - supported by the free world - refuse to
accept the facts established by the communists in Germany, we are not only
keeping open the German question, but we are at the same time becoming effective
against the finality of the stabilisation of the status quo in Europe. The
non-recognition of the zone and the Oder-Neisse line fulfils a European
function... for the destiny of the Europeans under communist domination is... a
matter of political, historical and moral concern."

(Rainer Barzel, Die Welt, West Berlin, Oct 30 1965.)

"In my talks in the USA I explained that the Federal Republic of Germany...
would struggle with all political means for the restoration of the frontiers of
the German Reich of 1937... with a view to providing lasting conditions and a
peaceful order throughout the whole of Europe."

(Franz-Josef Strauss, Bayerne Kurier, Munich, June 25 1965.)

So a "peaceful order" in Europe is dependent only on restoration of the 1937
German Reich. And what if "all political means" fails? How then does one move
the frontiers of Europe? One cannot simply go and move the fence-posts:

"Without possession of atomic weapons it is unthinkable that Germany can restore
its historical frontiers."

(Secret memo of the Bonn Government, Dec 1961.) (2)

(1)See:Blachman and Kaplan "Force Without War." Washington 1978.

(2)See:The Grey Book - Expansionist Policy and Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
Verlag Zeit im Bild. Dresden.

"If it were up to me, we could break down the wall in Berlin. You have in the
meantime learned enough from me that I would risk a break-through. And I am sure
I could rely on you."

(Captain Ott, to soldiers of Armoured Rifle Brigade 13 of the West German Army.)
(1)

"As far as I am concerned, it could begin tomorrow. In one day we could be in
Leipzig [GDR B.M.] and by night-time I would already be sleeping on the stairs
of the central railway station."

(Captain Schubert, Signal Battalion Clausthal-Zellerfeld, to West German Army
recruits.) (2)

"An atomic war of extermination should be made the basis of total military
preparations by the government leadership. All military measures must be
reconsidered from the viewpoint of a war of extermination."

(Land Defence of the Federal Republic of Germany as an Organisational Problem.
Wehrkunde, Munich, 1966, No.5.)

"No, in this question of German life and destiny complete clarity and frankness
are all the more necessary... the final aim which is the united Reich including
the German territories in the East."

("Might and Right", in German Soldier's Yearbook 1966.) (3)

Like Hitler's Nazis, the West German revanchists still keep their military
options open for expansion to the East:

"Whoever is of the opinion that the best forward defence is a foreign policy,
which pushes its position ahead towards the East, will not allow the military
instrument to become blunted."

(Frankfurter Allgemeine, Feb 9 1967.)

"From here the German order of knights has carried the free culture of the
occident to the east of our fatherland since the Middle Ages."

(Brigadier General von Gaudecker, to West German Army recruits, Deutsches Eck,
Coblenz.) (4)

"Once flourishing stretches of country are situated beyond the Oder-Neisse line
which had formerly brought forth a surplus of food for the provision of many
millions of people - and which are now in a state of decay. The Polish settlers
installed there consider their presence in the Eastern German territories as
temporary."

(Information fur de Truppe, special issue with map with 1937 frontiers "Die
Deutschen Ostgebeite." (The Eastern German Territories).) (5)

The US government and its faithful owners of the British media still pander to
West German revanchism in the 1980s:

(1)See:The Grey Book - Expansionist Policy and Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
Verlag Zeit im Bild. Dresden.

(2)See:The Grey Book - Expansionist Policy and Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
Verlag Zeit im Bild. Dresden.

(3)See:The Grey Book - Expansionist Policy and Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
Verlag Zeit im Bild. Dresden.

(4)See:The Grey Book - Expansionist Policy and Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
Verlag Zeit im Bild. Dresden.

(5)See:The Grey Book - Expansionist Policy and Neo-Nazism in West Germany.
Verlag Zeit im Bild. Dresden.

"Let me be very clear, the United States does not recognise the legitimacy of
the artificially imposed division of Europe... This division is the essence of
European security and human rights problems."

(US Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs George Schultz, to Stockholm
Conference on Confidence Building Measures and Disarmament, Jan 17 1984.)

Even during the world's 40th anniversary of its victory over fascism the West
German and US revanchists were calling for the restoration of the 1937 Reich
borders:

"May 8 1945 did not draw a line through the German question. The Reich within
the 1937 borders is not abolished."

(Alfred Dregger, former Nazi army Captain, chairman of the Christian Democratic
Union - CDU/CSU faction in the West German Bundestag, May 1985.) (1)

"The reason Yalta remains important is that the freedom of Europe is unfinished
business."

(US President Ronald Reagan, Feb 1985.) (2)

"Forty years ago today the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and
the United Kingdom, met at Yalta in the Crimea to discuss the future of
Europe... Yalta means the root of all their present political evils... That is
what divided Europe and divides it still."

(The Times Feb 4 1985.)

Revanchism is presented to West Germans several times a day. Every time they see
the weather map on television it shows the 1937 frontiers. West German postage
stamps are issued which show as belonging to West Germany cities which belong to
other states. Thus revanchism is kept alive in the minds of the people in the
hope that one day conditions might present themselves in which the West can take
back the GDR into the imperialist fold. And psychological preparation of public
opinion continues:

"This fourth dimension is a war which cannot be shown on any strategic map, but
is wherever the press, radio or pictures can reach into the last village.

The battles of a third world war, fought on the level of this fourth dimension,
have long been in action, it is the struggle for the minds of the people of our
world."

("Press Freedom and Psychological Armament." in Wehrkunde, official organ of the
West German War Ministry, Munich, 1964, No.9.)

(1)See:"Imperialism Condemned." Novosti. Moscow 1985.

(2)See:Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. Vol 21, No.6. 1985.



Chapter 47

THE GDR IS FORMED:
AS FAR AS WE ARE CONCERNED -
"WAR WILL NEVER AGAIN EMANATE FROM GERMAN SOIL."
In the GDR, in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, there are no Fascists in
power, no armaments industries, and no large army. And unlike West Germany,
there was no Marshall Aid.

Contrary to malicious Western propaganda, the Red Army did not "impose"
socialism on East Germany.

Regarding Germany, Stalin said at Potsdam that the political system of Germany
must be the decision of the German people:

"Germany is what she has become as a result of waging a war, there is no other
Germany. It is a nation without a government, without borders, without wealth,
without an army and without heavy industry and without Nazis. Germany is now
Zones of occupation. Therefore let the German people choose its government and
means of production and distribution of wealth."

(Stalin, Potsdam, 1945.)

In strict accordance with the Potsdam Treaty, and in direct contrast with the
FRG (West Germany), in the GDR (East Germany) land reform were carried out, the
property of Fascists was turned over to the people, and non-fascist political
parties and trade unions were formed. Local self government and administration
was established, and elections to community, district, and state assemblies of
people's representatives were held in 1946. Elections were equal, direct, and by
secret ballot, in which representatives of the Socialist Unity Party won the
majority of votes. Junkerdom, fascism and militarism were abolished, and
monopoly capital in land, finance and industry was handed over to the people;
and the press, judiciary and education were purged of fascists.

Contrary to the Potsdam Treaty, in the western Zones of occupation the formation
of a single German government was impeded, unification of political parties on a
nationwide basis was prevented and the Socialist Unity Party was prevented from
functioning. The Western occupied zones were united in a block as part of the
West's policy of splitting Germany. In September 1948 Western military
commanders formed a so-called "parliamentary council" which drafted the Bonn
constitution of a separate West German state which was approved of by the
Western military commanders-in-chief on May 12 1949. The West German people took
no part in the drafting of this constitution, which provided for the
re-domination of the monopolies and gave no guarantees against militarism,
fascism and revanchism (reformation of the 1937 German "Reich" lands).

The FRG was formed on September 20 1949 and headed by Adenauer.

"Bismark spoke about the coalition against Germany as his nightmare. I also have
my nightmare which is Potsdam."

(West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.) (1)

Not long after the ink was dry on the Potsdam Agreement West Germany was
absolved most of its war debts and reparations and received millions of dollars
of US capital investments, known as "Marshall Aid." The German economy was so
poor that it was feared again, as it was before the war, that the German people
would opt for socialism.

(1)See:Bulletin des Presse und Informationsamtes der Bundesregierung. 13, Juni.
1953.

There had always been a strong socialist tradition in Germany, with many fine
leaders, such as Ernst Thaelmann, who spent ten years in Nazi jails from 1933
and was finally killed in Buchenwald, a concentration camp for political
prisoners, and many fine examples of of internationalism. When the town of
Eisleben, now in the GDR, was liberated, a banner which had been presented to
the workers of the town before the war by Soviet miners from Krivoi Rog was
brought out to greet the Red Army. Another act of solidarity by the town was the
hiding of a bronze statue of Lenin which the Nazis had brought from the Soviet
Union to melt down for armaments. Reprisals were taken, but the statue remained
hidden. When the Red Army liberated the town the inhabitants wanted to give it
back to its rightful owners. The Soviet authorities said: you saved it, we
donate it to you. A German journalist writes:

"The market-place was a sea of red flags. In the old town-hall a democratic
administration, a representative body of the working class was installed under
the glorious banner of the Krivoi Rog miners which Otto Brosowski, the Party
veteran, would not relinquish despite torture and solitary confinement by the
fascists. In the open... stood a statue of Lenin - material evidence that in
this part of Germany the torch of proletarian internationalism had never gone
out, that the banner of Ernst Thaelmann's Party had been held high, untainted,
despite the fascist darkness."

(Otto Winzer.) (1)

Many of the founders of the GDR were members of the Free German Committee formed
during the war by anti-Nazi German army officers and Reichstag deputies, some of
whom managed to reach the safety of Moscow before the war, and some of whom were
German prisoners of war captured by the Soviets. One such prisoner was Field
Marshal von Paulus, who surrendered at Stalingrad and joined the Free German
Committee in Moscow. After the war he taught at a Soviet military academy. He
died in the GDR in 1957.

"If the German people continue inertly to follow Hitler, then he can be
overthrown only by the armies of the Coalition. But that would mean the end of
our national independence and the partition of our country.

If the German people have the courage to free Germany of Hitler... then Germany
will have won the right to decide her own fate, and other nations will respect
her... But no one will make peace with Hitler; therefore the formation of a
genuine National Government is an urgent task... Such a government can be formed
only by men who have risen against Hitler...

The forces in the Army, true to their Fatherland, must play a decisive part in
this. Our aim is a free Germany, i.e.a strong democratic power totally unlike
the impotent Weimar Republic."

(From the Programme of the Free German Committee, 1943.)

The majority of Government ministers in the GDR also spent time in Hitler's
concentration camps - on the inside of the wire, including GDR President Erich
Honecker, who survived 10 years in Nazi concentration camps. President Honecker
and the people of the GDR say that as far as they are concerned: "Never again
will capitalism, exploitation, fascism or war emanate from German soil."

The GDR had a difficult birth. Berlin. like the rest of Germany, was a heap of
rubble, no food, since the Nazis had destroyed all the food stores, and little
of anything else. Most of the food, transport and other essentials were supplied
by the Soviet Union. Alexander Werth describes:

"The feeding of Berlin was a terrible problem, since the Nazis had destroyed all
the food-stores, saying: 'While we are here you'll have food, but when the
Bolsheviks take over, you'll starve.' But things were not nearly as bad as the
Germans - very frightened at first - had expected. The Red Army had presented
Berlin with a thousand lorries... twenty-five million marks..."

(British historian Alexander Werth.) (2)

(1)Otto Winzer "Zwolf Jahre Kampf gegen Faschismus und Krieg." Berlin 1955.

(2)Alexander Werth "Russia at War 1941-1945." Pan Books. London 1965.

To rid the country of fascism was one of the first priorities. Nazis were
removed from all positions of power and given other work to do. Nazi school
books were replaced and it was difficult to find enough anti-Nazi teachers.

Government. banks, land and industry have been taken over by the East German
people who, after paying heavy war reparations and without a penny of Marshall
Aid, have built themselves a fine, modern industrial country whose industrial
output is now among the world's top ten and whose standard of living is at least
as high as the average worker's in Britain. Like the other Socialist countries,
the GDR has no inflation, prices remain stable, and wages rise steadily, so the
real standard of living steadily rises. And it has an economic growth rate that
is the envy of the capitalist world.

The East Germans also had to rebuild their ruined and destroyed cities without
any capital aid from the West:

"Berlin, another of the cities largely decimated by World War II, immediately
involved one in thought of all the tortuous calamities resulting from warfare.
whilst the people were still living largely in cellars, dugouts or ruins, it had
been a question of whether it was worth trying to rebuild East Berlin at all, or
whether it would not be simpler to start afresh on a new site."

(Dean of Canterbury, Hewlett Johnson.) (1)

East Berlin is now a bright new clean and impressive modern city in almost all
respects and to an immensely greater degree than London, New York, and certainly
by contrast with West Berlin. It is often said that if you photographed or
filmed East and West Berlin and reversed the titles, such are people's abysmal
ignorance and prejudices engendered by a mind-saturating Western media, most
people would believe you. Much of West Berlin is dirtier, more run down and full
of rubbish, empty buildings, unemployment, homelessness, drugs, vandalism, crime
and every other example of Western inner city decay. East Berlin's equivalent to
London's Oxford Street is a wide street with wide pavements, boulevards, bright
new shops, office blocks and apartments of a quality which disgraces much of its
London counterpart. And how many working people in London could afford the rent
to live in an apartment above the shops in Oxford Street; as they do in the
centre of East Berlin?

(1)Hewlett Johnson "Searching for Light." Michael Joseph. London 1968.

To have an idea of what the GDR has had to cope with since 1945, let GDR workers
speak:

"For years we have been rebuilding Semper's Opera House which was destroyed
during a barbaric air raid on my home town. I don't know if anyone can imagine
how many bricks had to be carefully laid one by one with a spirit level, before
a window appeared, closed by an arch. The old stately building had thousands of
broken doors and windows. And inside the ring walls there was hardly a vault
left standing. But we have all grown up with concrete slabs. Who would know how
to model stucco rosettes? Who would know what colours were used for the painting
on the ceiling 110 years ago?

We had to learn all that and undertake the reconstruction work in full
accordance with the old designs, as if court architect Semper was standing right
behind us. He needed eight years to complete the building; the air raid in 1945
only needed eight seconds to destroy it. The surrounding pond was drained empty
to extinguish the fire. I sometimes wish that the general staff officers of the
American Air Force had had to drag all the bricks for us so that they might
think a little before they press the button again! With the bombs they have on
board today, the surrounding pond would evaporate in a flash.

I merely want to say: we builders will still not be finished with this project
when the Opera House is opened on 13 February 1985. That will be the 40th
anniversary of its destruction.

We must also ensure that anyone who wants to throw again a firebrand into our
building has his hand stayed. For this reason, I have served three years in the
National People's Army and, thus, I go on marches with the workers' militia at
the weekends: for the Zwinger, for the Kreuzkirche, for Semper's Opera House,
and for life in this city."

(Gerolf Otte, 27, bricklayer, Dresden, GDR.) (1)

"The roots of war, exploitation and oppression have been removed forever in the
first workers' and farmers' state on German soil."

(From "GDR Youth Accuses Imperialism.") (2)

"As I see it, there's a two-fold political as well as a two-fold economic reason
why we had to carry out land reform and make a success of it. First of all we
had to get rid of the Junkers, the princes, counts, barons and such junk. They
have been the curse of Germany and the curse of the small peasants and labourers
too, for long enough. They were a breeding ground for militarists, adventurers
and reactionaries of all sorts. They had to go. Without their estates, they're
no power and no danger at all. Let them go to the West and sit in their friends'
castles there and make their plans. They'll never come back, take my word for
it. Think of it, 2,000 of them owned as much land as 2,000,000 of our peasants."

(East German village committee official, to Australian journalist Wilfred
Burchett, in his book "Cold War in Germany.)

"The expropriated enemies of the people were received in the West German zones
of occupation with open arms. They put many a spoke in our wheel. We had a
miserable inheritance: we had four blast furnaces, and they were only fit for
the scrap heap. In what is now the Federal Republic, there were 156. In Leuna,
not one piece of piping was intact, in the IG-Farben works, by contrast, the
chimneys soon began smoking again."

(Gerda Hesse, Director of the Pirna Industrial Health Academy, GDR.) (3)

"When I was born, the question of who would win out, socialism or capitalism,
had been decided in favour of socialism. For 16 years the imperialists tried to
bleed us white on account of the open state borders, causing us losses in excess
of 100,000 million marks. They tried to roll socialism back through terrorist
groups, the discontinuation of vital supplies, phoney currency exchanges,
deliberate brain drains and smear campaigns. But we soon learnt to fight against
this. The workers' militia, the National People's Army, the Soviet Army and the
Warsaw Treaty Organisation created an impregnable barrier in August 1961. From
then on, we could at last work for ourselves."

(Carola Guntert, GDR.) (4)

Can anyone seriously imagine that the people of the GDR want to give the
factories back to the Krupps, Thyssen and IG-Farben monopolies, the banks back
to finance capital, and the land back to the Junkers land owners?



Author's note 2006:

Some will argue that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the European socialist
countries shows the unviability of socialism. About the same as Icarus crashing
to earth proves the unviability of manned flight.

Meeting previous GDR citizens in 2001, a common joke among them was that they
thought they were voting for socialism but with a Mercedes. Now the overwhelming
majority of them have neither. Bit like us in the UK really aren't they!



(1)See:"GDR Youth Accuses Imperialism." Berlin GDR 1985.

(2)See:"GDR Youth Accuses Imperialism." Berlin GDR 1985.

(3)See:"GDR Youth Accuses Imperialism." Berlin GDR 1985.

(4)See:"GDR Youth Accuses Imperialism." Berlin GDR 1985.



Chapter 48

US NUCLEAR WAR PLANS AGAINST THE USSR
WHEN THE SOVIETS DID NOT HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
"The future will almost certainly bring many further attempts by the Entente at
intervention and possibly a rebirth of the previous predatory alliance between
international and Russian capitalists, to overthrow Soviet rule in Russia, in
short, an alliance pursuing the old aim of extinguishing the centre of the world
socialist conflagration - the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic."

(Lenin, 1919.)

"The years in which we have the monopoly of the bomb are our years of
opportunity."

(US Secretary of Defence James Forrestal.) (1)

These "years of opportunity" were not ignored by the US.

#Recently declassified US military, State and National Security documents reveal
a number of early plans by the US to launch nuclear attacks on the USSR and
other Socialist countries - especially when the Soviet Union did not have
nuclear weapons. The first of these was in June 1946, code-named "Pincher",
planned the immediate obliteration of 20 Soviet cities and a land and sea
invasion through Poland, the Balkans and Western Asia. Other later plans had
codenames such as "Fleetwood", "Trojan", "Charioteer", and "Dropshot".

One such document, adopted August 14 1948, was US National Security Council
report 20/1. Declassified in 1978, it stated in its introduction:

"This government has been forced, for purposes of the political war now in
progress, to consider more definite and militant objectives towards Russia even
now, in time of peace, than it ever was called upon to formulate with respect
either to Germany or Japan in advance of the actual hostilities with those
countries."

(NSC 20/1. Records of the National Security Council on deposit in the Modern
Military Records Branch, National Archives, Washington DC.) (2)

Thus, the US, armed with nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union did not have
nuclear weapons, was planning war against the USSR.

Like Hitler, who planned a banquet at the Astoria hotel in Leningrad to
celebrate his victory over that city, invitations to which were found by the Red
Army in Berlin; the Americans even planned to put on Guys and Dolls at the
Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. This was mentioned in George Kennan's memoirs; from an
article in Colliers magazine. The original idea was said to be from
J.B.Priestley.

#(1)See:"The Forrestal Diaries."

(2)See:T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

NSC 20/1 goes on to describe post war occupation and administration of the USSR.
This envisaged the breaking up and dismemberment and economic domination of the
USSR in a manner similar to that of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty forced on the USSR
by Germany in 1918, which lost the USSR many territories:

"We would have to demand:

(a) Direct military terms ...evacuation of key areas...

(b) Terms designed to produce a considerable economic dependence on the outside
world... Such terms would have to be harsh ones and distinctly humiliating to
the communist regime in question. They might well be something along the lines

of the Brest-Litovsk settlement of 1918."

(NSC 20/1. Records of the National Security Council on deposit in the Modern
Military Records Branch, National Archives, Washington DC.) (1)

Thus, the US National Security Council became the successor not only to the
German imperialists of 1918, but also to the German fascists of 1941. It had
given up detente and peaceful coexistance.

But the US was not going to make the same mistake as the German imperialists of
1918 and conclude a definite peace treaty, even one as harsh as Brest-Litovsk:

"We would not be prepared to conclude a full-fledged peace settlement and/or
resume regular diplomatic relations with any regime in Russia dominated by any
of the present Soviet leaders or persons sharing their cast of thought. We have
had too bitter an experience, during the last fifteen years, with the effort to
act as though normal relations were possible with such a regime."

(NSC 20/1. Records of the National Security Council on deposit in the Modern
Military Records Branch, National Archives, Washington DC.) (2)

As for what kind of government would be imposed on the the USSR after such a
war, the US is indulging in a dream world all of its own. In 1917 Churchill
planned to use emigres and dissidents:

#"...assistance should be forthcoming ... to support any responsible body in
Russia willing to oppose actively the Maximalist [a word wrongly applied to the
Bolsheviks. B.M.] movement."

(From a secret War Cabinet meeting in London, Dec 3 1917.) (3)

Just like Churchill in 1918, the US planned to use emigres and dissidents:

"At the present time, there are a number of interesting and powerful Russian
political groupings among Russian exiles... any of which would probably be
preferable to the Soviet government, from our standpoint, as the rulers of
Russia."

(NSC 20/1. Records of the National Security Council on deposit in the Modern
Military Records Branch, National Archives, Washington DC.) (4)

And what would the Americans do with the Soviet Communist Party?

"This is an extremely intricate question. There is no simple answer to it."

(NSC 20/1. Records of the National Security Council on deposit in the Modern
Military Records Branch, National Archives, Washington DC.) (5)

The document now, indulging in ever more wishful thinking, envisages the use of
Tsarist emigre White terror while washing its own hands of such operations:

(1)See:T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

(2)See:T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

(3)Public Records Office: Cabinet 24/36 Vol 31.

Quoted in:Fyodor Volkov "Secrets of Whitehall and Downing Street." Progress.
Moscow 1986.

(4)See:T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

(5)See:T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

"In any territory which is freed of Soviet rule, we will be faced with the human
remnants of the Soviet apparatus of power...

It is probable that... the local Communist Party apparatus would go underground,
as it did in the areas taken by Germany during the recent war. It would then
probably re-emerge in part in the form of partisan bands...

...the problem of dealing with it would be a relatively simple one; for we would
need only to give the necessary arms and military support to whatever
non-Communist Russian authority might control the area and permit that authority
to deal with the communist bands, through the traditional thorough procedures of
Russian civil war...

...and to dispose of them in such ways as to prevent their being harmful in the
future... We must always remember that to be the subject of persecution at the
hands of a foreign government inevitably makes local martyrs..."

(NSC 20/1. Records of the National Security Council on deposit in the Modern
Military Records Branch, National Archives, Washington DC.) (1)

Another US nuclear war plan against the USSR, codenamed "Charioteer", drawn up
for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1948 spoke of:

"...a concerted attack employing atomic bombs against governmental, political
and administrative centres, urban industrial areas, and selected petroleum
targets within the USSR from bases in the western hemisphere and the United
Kingdom."

("Dropshot.") (2)

By September 1 1948. plan "Fleetwood" had been drawn up and circulated to US
armed forces field headquarters.

But there were reservations and cautions which stated that by the first six
months of the war:

"...the Soviets have the capability of occupying and consolidating the entire
northern littoral of the Mediterranean from the Pyrenees to Syria, and of
bringing the Mediterranean LOC under heavy air attack. In addition they have the
capability of occupying Spain by approximately D+6 and bringing the line of
communication under artillery fire."

(Brief of Short Range Emergency War Plan JCS 1844/13 July 21, 1948. Records of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Deposit in the Modern Military Records Branch,
National Archives, Washington DC.) (3)

(1)See:T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

(2)A.C.Brown "Dropshot: The US Plan for War With the Soviet Union in 1957." Dial
Press. NY 1978.

(3)SeeT.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

On December 21 1948, an operational plan was submitted to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff of the US Air Force. This operational plan said:

2. War will occur prior to April 1, 1949.

3. Atomic bombs will be used to the extent determined to be practical and
desirable...

(b) Target folders and navigational charts will be available by 1 February 1949
for operations against the first seventy cities..."

(Operational plan SAC EWP 1-49. JCS 1952/1. Dec 21, 1948. Strategic Air Command
Emergency War Plan 1-49. Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Deposit in the
Modern Military Records Branch, National Archives, Washington DC.) (1)

In 1919 a US agent had found it useless to try to change the Soviet political
economic system by military force:

"The Soviet government is firmly established and the Communist Party is strong
politically and morally... it is my conviction that the Soviet government is the
only constructive force in Russia today... No government save a socialist
government can be set up in Russia today except by foreign bayonets, and any
government so set up will fall the moment such support is withdrawn."

(William Bullitt, American agent on a mission to Soviet Russia, in a telegram to
US President Woodrow Wilson.) (2)

Thirty years later, not all of the US forces commanders were confident of the
success of their plans to set up a government in the Soviet Union by the use of
'foreign bayonets', but on May 11 1949 a review committee, coming to the
conclusion that such a limited nuclear war might not be decisive because of
political and psychological considerations, submitted a secret report:
Evaluation of Effect on Soviet War Effort Resulting from the Strategic Air
Offensive:

"1. To evaluate the effect on the war effort of the USSR of the Strategic Air
Offensive contemplated in current war plans, including an appraisal of the
psychological effects of atomic bombing on the Soviet will to wage war...

9. Physical damage... 30 to 40 percent reduction of Soviet industrial capacity.
This loss would not be permanent and could either be alleviated by Soviet
recuperative action or augmented depending upon the weight and effectiveness of
follow up attacks...

11. The initial atomic offensive could produce as many as 2,700,000 mortalities,
and 4,000,000 additional casualties, depending upon the effectiveness of Soviet
passive defense measures...

12. The atomic offensive would not, per se, bring about capitulation, destroy
the roots of Communism or critically weaken the power of Soviet leadership...

13. For the majority of Soviet people, atomic bombing would validate Soviet
propaganda against foreign powers, stimulate resentment against the United
States. unify these people and increase their will to fight. Among an
indeterminate minority, atomic bombing might stimulate dissidence...

18. Atomic bombing will produce certain psychological and retaliatory reactions
detrimental to the achievement of Allied war objectives and its destructive
effects will complicate post-hostilities problems."

(US Review Committee's Report: Evaluation of Effect on Soviet War Effort
Resulting from the Strategic Air Offensive. May 11 1949) (3)

(1)T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy
1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

(2)Foreign Relations of the United States, 1919, Russia, p81,83.

Quoted in:Fyodor Volkov "Secrets of Whitehall and Downing Street." Progress.
Moscow 1986.

(3)Records of the Organisational Research and Policy Division of the Office of
the Chief of Naval Operations, Naval Historical Center, Washington DC.

See also:T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

NSC 20/1 also expressed a realisation that an all out military occupation and
administration was not practical:

"In the first place we must assume that it will not be profitable or practically
feasible for us to occupy and take under our military administration the entire
territory of the the Soviet Union. This course is inhibited by the size of that
territory, by the number of its inhabitants... In other words, we could not hope
to achieve any total assertion of our will on Russian territory, as we have
endeavoured to do in Germany and Japan. We must recognise that whatever
settlement we finally achieve must be a political settlement..."

(NSC 20/1. Records of the National Security Council on deposit in the Modern
Military Records Branch, National Archives, Washington DC.) (1)

Thus, the Generals had come to the conclusion that armed force, even in a
limited nuclear war, would not change the Soviet social and political system.
And therefore only complete military superiority in an all out war could be
decisive in changing the Soviet political economic system. Perhaps also the
failure of Hitler's blitzkrieg against the Soviets with all the resources of
Europe at its disposal was still fresh in their minds.

But US monopoly in nuclear weapons ended in September 1949 when it became
obvious that the USSR had tested a nuclear device.

It was then that plan "Trojan", a lightning "preventive" strike, hurriedly was
drawn up to be put into operation on January 1 1950. (2)

However, after war games evaluations the Joint Chiefs of Staff again could not
be sure of a decisive victory over the Soviet Union.This was because of a number
of "technical reasons". Among these was a possible 55 percent loss among bomber
crews, who might cease to continue to obey their commanders. During World War
Two bombing raids over Nuremberg 20 percent losses almost caused mutiny among
air crews. Other considerations were numbers of planes and bombs available, the
fact that Moscow and Leningrad could only be reached from new bases in Britain,
which could now be destroyed by Soviet atom bombs, and that the Soviets could
occupy Europe and the Middle and Far East, and knock out the US Strategic Air
Command early in the war, and that the US did not have enough bases around the
world:

"The Air Force could not (a) complete the entire air offensive called for in
Trojan or (b) provide the air defense for the United States and Alaska."

(Major General S.Anderson, Director of the US Air Force plans and operations,
April 11 1950.) (3)

Thus, a political war by the US against the USSR would have to be put off until
the US had enough bases and allies so strategically located around the world as
to ensure a complete and decisive all out victory if it was to achieve its
avowed intention to wipe socialism off the face of the earth. The US could then
take over the other, smaller socialist countries with more or less impunity.

A coalition war by US, NATO, and other allied forces was drawn up, code named
"Dropshot", and planned to be put into operation on January 1 1957.

"Dropshot", declassified in 1978, planned the destruction of 85 percent of all
Soviet industry and the division of the Soviet Union into four regions of
operation by 38 army divisions [about 1 million men B.M.]. However, the Soviet
Union had its own thermonuclear weapons by 1953 and had superior ICBMs
(intercontinental ballistic missiles) by 1957, and "Dropshot" had to be
abandoned.

(1)See:T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and
Strategy 1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

(2)See:A.C.Brown "Dropshot: The US Plan for War With the Soviet Union in 1957."
Dial Press. NY 1978.

(3)A.C.Brown "Dropshot: The US Plan for War With the Soviet Union in 1957." Dial
Press. NY 1978.

While planning operation "Dropshot" the US National Security Council was also
drawing up its Directive NSC-68, which was approved by President Truman in 1950
and declassified in 1975.

"A powerful blow could be delivered on the Soviet Union, but it is estimated
that these operations alone would not force the Kremlin to capitulate...

Without superior aggregate military strength, ...a policy of 'containment' -
which is in effect a policy of calculated and gradual coercion - is no more than
a policy of bluff...

...could only be a tactic... to gain public support for the programme...

...overt psychological warfare... with a view to fomenting and supporting unrest
and revolt in selected and strategic satellite countries...

...emphasis should be given to the essentially defensive character and care
should be taken to minimise, so far as possible, unfavourable domestic and
foreign reactions."

(NSC 68.) (1)

The British Tories are always saying that it is the West's possession of nuclear
weapons that has kept the peace since 1945. The Pentagon's abandonment of these
plans to launch a nuclear war against the USSR if it could do so from a position
of strength shows that it is precisely the Soviet Union's possession of nuclear
weapons that has always thwarted the West's nuclear war plans and kept the
peace.

(1)T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy
1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

For the full text of NSC 20/1, NSC 20/4, NSC 68, and other NSC documents; see:

T.Etzold and J.Gaddis "Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy
1945/50." Columbia University Press. NY 1978.

And:A.C.Brown "Dropshot: The US Plan for War With the Soviet Union in 1957."
Dial Press. NY 1978.

Also published in England as: "Operation World War III." Arms and Armour Press.
London 1978.

#See also:Dr. Mikio Kaku and Daniel Axelford "To Win a Nuclear War. The
Pentagon's Secret War Plans."

Main extracts from these and other secret US documents are printed in:

Prof. N.Yakoflev "CIA Target - The USSR." Progress Publishers. Moscow 1980.



School and college history, economics and business studies teaching and books do
not contain any of this information.



All the material and information I have presented here is readily available to
historians, writers, journalists, teachers, educators and syllabus publishers.
Although I have spent many hundreds of hours gathering it all together, I did
not have to look very far to find any of it.



When as a trainee history lecturer, it was suggested I take the class on a trip
to the Tower of London and then set them an essay on what life was like for a
soldier in King Charles' Army centuries ago. Very useful knowledge that! A
sociology of the past perhaps? But certainly not history in its most important
sense; unless history is to mean anything old or 'interesting' that you can do
in evening classes, like antiques, flower arranging or basket weaving. When
instead I taught real history, learning from the past in order to change the
future, the collective life-experience of humanity, I was got rid of. The head
of the history department complained that the students had remarked that I made
them think; which the head of history had probably never done in a lifetime of
teaching. I ended up washing and cleaning and emptying human surgical waste in a
hospital.



Unless teachers learn to be brave and intellectually honest (difficult when they
have a mortgage and bills to pay), future historical, social and economic
education and popular 'knowledge' will also not refer to the US or British
history and continuing complicity in global plunder, exploitation, domination
and control, wars of aggrandisement and acquisition, causing the deaths and
devastation of the homes and lands of millions of people - the thousands of
children under the age of two who will die tonight through simple lack of food,
clean water, medicine and education - the untold millions of unnecessary deaths
among the overwhelming majority of humanity on this incredibly rich and abundant
and ultimately sustainable earth.



From Brian Mitchell. Evolution.



Responses and criticisms welcomed. Reply to my personal e-mail if you prefer. My
replies to criticisms will be posted.



.




"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our
minds." (Bob Marley, Redemption song.)

"The most remarkable thing about the world is that you can understand it."
(Einstein.)

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set I go
into the other room and read a book." (Groucho Marx.)

"Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice against anyone,
anywhere in the world." (Ernesto (Che) Guevara, in a letter to his children, a
few months before he was killed.)

"And if we were all capable of unity to make our blows stronger and infallible
and so increase the effectiveness of all kinds of support given to the
struggling people - how great and close would the future be." (Che Guevara.)


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