Talk:Industrial plans for Germany

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[edit] Questionable paragraph

"By 1949 the West Germans had become confident enough to mount increasing protests against the ongoing Allied policy of factory dismantling. The Western Allies, the U.S., France, and the UK finally had to halt dismantling in 1950. [1] [2]"

I have removed this paragraph because it seems incorrect to me. As I understand it the Allies had favoured industrial growth since at least 1947, even mid 1946, though it was a gradual process. It's true that Adenaur argued in favour of decreasing dismantling at the 1949 Petersburg conference and that concessions were granted it is vastly overstating his role to suggest that dismantling ended due to German pressure. I realise that the paragraph has references but the first one is in German, which I can't read, and the second does not support the assertion - merely stating that dismantling took place, was unpopular and then stopped. I shall check a couple of books and find something more accurate to replace it with. --Cherry blossom tree 15:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I reverted, until such time as you can you can provide any better source. Meanwhile, for inspiration while you're searching for sources, why not read:
I've cited my source. --Cherry blossom tree 22:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Today's edit

"...the Petersberg Agreement of November 1949 (where the Germans had to accept international control of Ruhr Area as a condition for the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany"

It doesn't make sense. The Petersburg Agreement was dated 22 November 1949. The Federal Republic was officially established on 23 May 1949 and functioning as a country at least since Adenauer was elected on 15 September, if not before. The Petersburg Agreement also gave Germany more control of the Ruhr, not less, announcing the intention to apply for membership of the International Authority for the Ruhr where it had previously been an observer. The source cited is entirely consistent with this, so I shall remove this text. Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 21:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I might have drawn to fast conclusions, I shall check the given source (Amos Yoder, "The Ruhr Authority and the German Problem", The Review of Politics, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Jul., 1955), pp. 345-358) more thoroughly.
In the meanwhile, please check the accuracy of the Petersberg Agreement. It states that one of the points of the agreement was. "Acceptance of international control of the Ruhr district (entry of the FRG to the Ruhr Agreement)". So naturally I searched for the "Ruhr Agreement". And found the secondary source I provided that stated "The Ruhr Agreement was imposed on the Germans as a condition for permitting them to establish the Federal Republic of Germany. I shall dig into this. --Stor stark7 Talk 21:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Point II of the Petersburg agreement only states that the FRG intends to apply for membership (with the aim of contributing to the rehabilitation of the European economy.) This did de facto amount to recognising some international control of the Ruhr. The Petersburg Agreement did meet with significant opposition in Germany and led to Kurt Schumacher effectively accusing Adenauer of treason in the Bundestag ("The Allies' Federal Chancellor!") but this was sparked by the issue of dismantling rather than control of the Ruhr. I'll try and get some references for this tomorrow, but if it isn't tomorrow then it will be a while.--Cherry blossom tree 21:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet looting of industry

I wonder if and how the fact that Soviets disassembled and transported east most of factories on the German territories they controlled affect this plan - and the economy of Eastern Germany? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

If you wish to contribute a section on that I suggest you read Norman M. Naimark "The Russians in Germany" first, he quite exhaustively deals with the topic of dismantling, at least as applied to the part of occupied Germany that became the DDR.
The section of Germany that became the DDR was bled quite heavily by the Soviets, until 1956 if I remember correctly and lost a huge amount of its industry. The "the fact that Soviets disassembled and transported east most of factories" is not quite a true fact. I think they only ended up taking 25%-40% of the remaining industrial capacity of what was to become the DDR.
Note that the territories the Poles administered and eventually annexed were much richer than what was left to the DDR area[3], particularly as regards mineral deposits, and even though cities and industries may have been damaged, just as in the rest of Germany, the underlying infrastructure was already in place, streets and roads, electricity, water plumbing etc.
Note also that the Russian activities were only tangential to the industrial plans, they were only useful for the Russians as a means to get material from the western sectors too, aside from that they played they own game in the east. As regards the 20-25% section of Germany placed under temporary Polish administration they took many factories right after occupying the territory, (they were surprised to find them intact) but after the Poles moved in it was mainly the Poles business if I remember correctly. The Poles even sold the Russians coal from Silesia very cheaply at prices below mining costs as a trade against Russian claims on mines etc in the Polish administration zone of Germany.
The shipments of reparations from the U.S. zone was (temporarily?) stopped in 1946 or 47 or something similar, allegedly as a demonstration against the Russians indiscriminate dismantling in the DDR area and lack of cooperation, however John Gimbel was later able to show that this was cold war propaganda, the real target of U.S. policy was the French who were not playing nice with the U.S. plans. see John Gimbel, "The American Reparations Stop in Germany: An Essay on the Political Uses of History"
Gareau showed in the addendum to his his paper on industrial disarmament that taking industry as reparations is incredibly inneficient, the only purpose it can have is to damage the looser economically, the victors taking the factories gains next to nothing of the factories real value. Factories are dependent on the placing near the right type of local resources, usually of local supporting satellite industries, dismantling damages parts of the factory increasing the cost, shipping costs are usually very high for most types of heavy industry machinery etc etc. More efficient would have been to let the factories produce where they were, and take part of the products they produce. But then the underlying goal of the industrial plan was never reparations, the goal was to weaken Germany, the reparations cover was just a means to this end. The Russians eventually discovered that economically it was giving them much less benefit than they had hoped, as Naimark shows, and settled for letting the remaining factories stay put, instead claiming partial ownership of them in situ and taking extremely heavy reparations from ongoing production, something the Western powers had been very much against since taking from production meant an eventual rebuilding of German industry. This is what I have from memory, but I recommend you start with the Naimark book.--Stor stark7 Talk 18:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)