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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 21, 22 May 1950, p. 6.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
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On this page we present sections of an exceptionally interesting document bearing vitally on an important question of today: the rise of German nationalism under the occupation, both the reactionary neo-Nazi variety and the progressive aspiration for national independence which the best elements in German society are fighting for. One of the elements behind the rise of hatred for the occupation in all sections of Germany is the crime of Allied policy with regard to the industrial dismantling program. It is a story whose details are little known to the American people, who are belabored by the press with scare stories of a rebirth of Nazism and who are not told of what the occupation powers have been doing to help bring precisely this result about. The dismantling program in Germany was originally launched and justified as a means of eliminating the country’s potential for making war, and secondarily as a means of reparations. It was never either of these two things. This first article presents one outstanding case of Allied policy in dismantling, as an example – the case of the Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl plant in the Ruhr. A second article will summarize the amazing facts about several others. A third will discuss the dismantling program more generally and point some conclusions. The following, constituting the first article, is reprintedverbatim from a document which has never been made public, and which jibes thoroughly with the story of dismantling that can be gathered from other sources. Congresswoman Katharine St. George, a right-wing Republican from the Tuxedo Park area of New York State, assigned an investigator to go to Germany to report (to her) on the situation of the dismantling program. These reports of the investigator were mimeographed, presumably for circulation mainly among Washington officials. They were written in July and August of last year, and describe one facet of the continuing problem. The dismantling program is still going on, though little is heard of it here. Whether the particular plant discussed this week has yet been dismantled is not known to us, though we understand it is at any rate still on the dismantling list. In any case, it vividly illustrates the background of the. German problem today. The dismantling scandal is a sore spot both for the German industrialists and the German working class, for quite different reasons. Congresswoman St. George’s Republican angle on it can easily be conjectured. That of the German workers is also clear, and is indicated here too. Our stand is on the side of the German working class and its socialist movement, to gain real national independence in a workers’ Germany which can be the best guarantee of peace in Europe. – Ed. |
July 15, 1949
The dismantling of Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl, or “Bochum,” as it is popularly called, a small but highly important fine steel plant whose products are of especial importance to the mining industry, typifies in a microcosm the tragedy of the Ruhr dismantlings. The British, so far as I have been able to discover, do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to justifying the removal of this plant.
Its capacity of 7,500 tons of steel a year is negligible ax a percentage of the aggregate. The engineering genius of its founder and manager for twenty-five years, Austrian-born Dr. Poeltzguter, has led to the development of a long series of unique, one might say, “custom-built,” products, some 700-1,000 in number, “Duplicate capacity” could be said to exist only in the sense that there are other fine-steel plants in the Ruhr ...
The war left a shambles of the plant, but when it was taken off the dismantling list in the spring of 1948, these former workers set about restoring machinery and building with their own hands. Although the food situation in the Ruhr during these months was desperate, and 60 per cent of the workers had lost both homes and furniture through the bombings, they drove themselves on empty stomachs and no more pay than a cigarette a day, to dig their semi-ruined machines out of the rubble and reconstruct them, and to build, brick by brick, the Walls of their plant ...
Mr. Sabbas [assessor of the German Mining Control Board] pointed out the fact that since the mining industry is heavily dependent upon these products, the dismantling of ffochum would be followed by a substantial loss in coal production within a short time. Furthermore, said Mr. Sabbas, this plant is indispensable as a workshop for mining equipment repairs, especially of conveyors, power stations, water drainage and coke oven plants. Its location in the heart of the Ruhr coal mining industry enables it with its mobile smelting station and other workshops, to make repairs in the shortest possible time ...
We commented on the fact that recently a long cable was received in this country from Dr. Ernest Reuter, lord mayor of Berlin, protesting at the imminent dismantling of Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl. If this company were to be removed, he said, it would cause the early breakdown of the electric works which we are erecting at much expense in the West sector of Berlin in order to make this part of the city independent in the future of Soviet sector supply. No other company in Germany, said Dr. Reuter, could supply the critical parts supplied by Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl ...
July 21, 1949
Yesterday morning at 8 o’clock. Major Wilson, town commander of Bochum, in a state of extreme intoxication summoned Or. Poeltzguter, managing director of Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl, to report to his office for an immediate conference.
When Dr. Poeltzguter appeared, Wilson informed him that “all the game” about postponing the dismantling of Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl was now off. Orders had come down from on top that the dismantling would be put through at top speed. Wilson told him that an official three-man committee would visit his plant today to give official notice to this effect, Wilson asked that there also be present at this conference four members of the Betriebsrat of his plant. (The Betriebsrat, or factory works council, consists of the elected representatives of the workers in the plant.)
The significance of the request to have the Betriebsrat members present was clear – the British wished, to assure themselves that no critical resistance would arise in connection with the disantlings, such as has occurred in Bochumer Verein, the large steel plant adjacent to Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl. In Bochumer Verein, six (or eight) men were jailed by the British for resisting dismantling, and another group is to be tried on a similar charge within the next few days.
This was the first time that any worker representatives from Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl have met with the British, and I was interested in seeing haw the latter would handle a human problem like this. I arranged to conceal myself, shortly before the meeting, in a tiny room where I could clearly hear all that went on through a connecting door.
At 10:45 this morning, three Britishers arrived at Dr. Poeltzguter’s office, where the Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl group were already assembled. The Britishers were: Major Wilson, town commander of Bochum; Mr. Bate, of the manpower division, and Mr. Crooks, a top RD&R figure. Crooks figured prominently in helping to set the level of industry fox Germany, and to select those plants which were to go. on the dismantling list.
The conversation lasted until 1:15. I will try to telescope it into a short summary.
The British first asked Poeltzguter if he had received an official letter from RD&R, stating that the dismantling of his plant would start on August 1st. Poeltzguter had not.
The British then said that it had now been decided at highest levels to set the date of August 1st, and that this date would be the absolutely final decision regarding the dismantling date.
Poeltzguter protested that he had been assured that there would be no dismantling prior to September 1. He had orders on hand which would have to be filled to avoid a critical breakdown in mining and power station supplies.
The British: Gentlemen, no promise came to you from RD&R. You have had months to put your affairs in order. It was the responsibility of the Germans to place their orders where they could be filled with certainty.
Poeltzguter: You must realize that Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl produces equipment that is one-of-a-kind in Germany. It is not possible to place orders elsewhere if no other plant is equipped for such production. Isn’t it true that the Keenan Report said it would be impossible to find duplicate capacity elsewhere in Germany, and weren’t we on every list of recommended retentions – the Humphrey Committee list, and that of the Collisson and Wolf Committees?
The British: Have you seen the Humphrey Report?
Poeltzguter [not revealing the fact that Mr. Loesch, managing director of the Deutsche Edelstahlwerke, of which Hochfrequenz-Tiegelstahl is a subsidiary plant, had brought back a published copy of the Humphrey Report from the United States two weeks ago!: Well, that’s what we heard on the radio and read in the papers.
The British: I should not think the German newspapers or radio were a very reliable source of information. You Germans only make things harder for yourselves by clutching at such straws of unsubstantiated news.
Poeltzguter: But isn’t it true that the American Congress and some influential labor leaders in America and France are protesting the German dismantlings?The British: Gentlemen, we do not intend to be drawn into a provocative discussion of whether your plant should be saved or not. The dismantling list was compiled long ago at highest three-power level, the United States taking a major part in the decisions. There was later some reconsideration of whether or not certain plants should be retained in the interest of European recovery – I repeat, in the interest of European recovery. It was finally determined at Washington that your plant was not among those considered essential. This decision was made last April with complete agreement by the United States. All further discussions of the merits of the case are therefore of no point.
At this point, Schorn, leader of the Betriebsrat, broke in!
You are speaking of production matters. As the leader of the 700 workers in this plant, I want to speak of the human, the “Menschlichkeit,” side. We workers have been with this plant, most of us for many years. Some of us have had parents who worked here, too. This is our home. During the war the plant was bombed almost to nothing, and 65 per cent of us lost our homes and all our furniture. Then in 1946, we heard that we had been taken off the dismantling list. We started then to rebuild brick by brick, with our own hands.
The British tried to cut this off, but another Betriebsrat member broke in: We worked eight-ten hours a day at the plant, laying bricks and restoring what machinery was left. We had almost empty stomachs those days. We worked for only a cigarette a day. Then we went home and worked another six hours in the evenings, rebuilding our houses. Three of our men were killed, because they were not expert construction men.
You speak of the recovery of Europe. That is what we believed in, too. We did all that we could with our own hands to make our own contribution.
The British: We appreciate that that is so. You must remember, however, that we British have scars from this war which we cannot so easily forget. I can assure you gentlemen that England is. not a very pleasant country in which to live just now.
Betriebsrat member: That is true. But you must remember, also, that some of us were sitting in concentration cells while the British were sitting in Withelmstrasse.
The British: Gentlemen, I think we are wandering rather far afield. This kind of conversation could go on all day.
Betriebsrat member: We Germans do not want to receive charity. We ask nothing but a chance to work, to earn our living with our own hands. But what are we to work at now, if you tear down our plant? 5,000 men are already out of work at the Bochumer Verein. This is at least 15,000 people including their families, and the number of unemployed grows larger every day. If we were single men perhaps we could get through. But we have families. What are we to do now?The British: You may be sure that we appreciate the distress that will result from the dismantlings for a while. But you must explore all possible avenues. Some of you can perhaps be taken on at the Krefeld plant of Deutsche Edelstahlwerke. (Note: DEW is already on short time. Furthermore, Krefeld has NO housing avail-ble. Workers at DEW must commute as much as 50 miles a day – but Bochum is 1½ hours distant by fast auto, each way.) The point is, you have known for months that your plant is on the dismantling list, and you have known you would have to make provision for yourselves and your families.
Then there is another point which we think will offer some relief. The RD&R division, appreciating the distress which these orders will cause the workers, have decided to allow you to dismantle your own plant, providing the work is carried through expeditiously. This work will require from 20 up to 100 workers, which would help your unemployment situation materially. Of course if you refuse, you will immediately be replaced with workers from a commercial dismantling firm.
A discussion followed, in which the British gave the Betriebsrat until next Thursday (July 26) to decide whether they would do their own dismantling.
Then the Betriebsrat member again appealed to the British: Couldn’t you arrange for a delegation of our workers to go to the British Parliament and lay our case before the British labor leaders? We are sure that if the British workers know our difficulties, they would change their minds about the dismantling of this plant.
The British said they would take this up with General Bishop (governor of North Rhine-Westphalia): We appreciate the merits of your proposal, but of course you realize that General Bishop is a very, very busy man, and this is only one of the countless problems that crowd his attention every day.
Then the British rose: “Well, gentlemen, we will await your decision on Tuesday.” Then they left.
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