Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1943. BRINGING GERMANY UNDER CONTROL.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 December 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1943. BRINGING GERMANY UNDER CONTROL.

'ACCORDING to the London correspondent of the “New York Times,” quoted in a cablegram yesterday, the impending meeting of Messrs Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin will find the three Allied leaders already agreed on certain leading principles for the treatment of Germany. These are, in brief, that Get many must be converted into a battlefield before she will cease invading her neighbours, that alter her surrender Germany must be totally occupied and administered by an Allied military authority, and that Germany’s war-making capacity must be controlled for years to come. This ranks only as an unofficial estimate of the views, and proposals of the Allied leaders, but it is clear that the principles of action on which these leaders are said to have reached agreement are by no means unduly drastic. In at least one vital particular they do not go far enough. The lessons of this war and of its predecessor will have been learned badly il the United Nations and all others prepared to combine and cooperate in a policy of collective security aim at anything less than the imposition of permanent control over the war-making capacity of all nations and at uniled action against.any nation taking even, ’the earliest and most, tentative steps in a caieei. of aggression. It is on the beginnings rather than the ultimate development of a policy of international collaboration to uphold peace and security that practical attention must be concentrated for the time being, however, and the first condition of effective action is satisfied in the demand of the United Nations for the unconditional surrender of the enemy powers, or rather will be satisfied by a rigid enforcement of that demand. While' it dealt specifically with the punishment of war criminals and included, a declaration that Britain, Russia and the United States stand for the restoration of a free Austria, the official communique issued after the Moscow conference left many details regarding the treatment of Germany after the war to be filled in. It may be hoped that at their coming meeting the Allied leaders will give an explicit lead on the question of imposing the fullest and most comprehensive control over Germany for an extended period of years. This obviously is necessary on a number of grounds. Complete and lasting control over Germany is essential in order that Avar criminals may be hunted down and dealt with. It is necessary, also, for the sake of the many millions of Europeans whom the Nazi gangsters have enslaved for the war industries of the Reich. This control is needed not least as a means of defeating the political trickery by which the Prussian militarists and their Nazi associates were enabled to resume their plans for aggression almost as soon as the last Avar was over. In addition, a thoroughly effective continuing control over Germany is necessary in order that she may be compelled to repair, in the admittedly limited extent to which that is possible, the havoc she has wrought in Europe and elsewhere. No one presumably Avill wish to repeat, after this Avar, the farce of reparations which followed the 1914-18 Avfir. This assuredly need not mean, however, that Germany must escape liability for all the material havoc she has Avrought in the countries to Avhich her bestial stray has extended. Sections of the SoA-iet Press have lately been discussing the utilisation of German labour, machinery and equipment in the restoration and rehabilitation of ravaged Russian territories. There are, of course, other European countries Avhich have indisputable claims on German manpower and materials for restoration, but none has greater claims in this category than Russia. Justice demands quite as imperatively that Germany should make good the devastation she has Avrought, in the extent to Avhich her resources are equal to the task, as that retribution should be visited upon her Avar criminals.

To what lengths control over Germany will ultimately have to be carried time and events must determine. It is apparent on all grounds, however, that a peace settlement which did not provide for a rigid and lasting control over the Reich and its people would be unworthy of the name.