45

had made quite sure that the port facilities and transport had imported), supplied them with rot-gut liquor, and'
network m that is, the food and materials supply system urged gangs of them to loot and murder Germans. When
m of both the Axis and Getiiian-occupied countries was this phase was sufficiently embedded in workers' minds,
obliterated. It was clear that the purpose was to reduce the refugees themselves were herded back into camps by
the population, not the plants, to rubble. Occupation Forces, and told that they would be shot if,
A significant part of the decision to dump Morgen- they tried to escape. After these ex-slaves were suffi-
thau's plan was the understanding of enlightened ciently re-broken, they were allowed to trickle back into
capita_st planners that if this abject condition of a their homelands over the next ten years, though many,
quarter of the world's workers was maintained and particularly the Poles, were sent to French and Belgian
manipulated, then their revolutionary potential might be coal mines after they "willingly volunteered to work in
broken in a few short years, and industrial capacity order to eat."[32]
could be maintained. Not only did Rees have input into It was under these conditions that the strike wave that
the monstrous bombing strategists through Kurt Lewin passed through Germany soon after the war -- the last
(see Richard Freeman's article in this issue), but Tavi- for many years m was broken. Also contributory to the
stock was also responsible for planning the psychological upsurge's defeat was the Occupation Forces' manipu-
manipulations that the European workers were forced to lation of the food supply, such that workers' caloric
endure, intake dropped below the abysmal wartime levels.
The case of Germany is particularly telling. Ger- Generous estimates state that most European workers
man workers who had for twelve years endured Nazi were receiving between 1000-2000 calories per day. In
propaganda about the inferiority of Eastern Europeans, some cases, for instance, sections of Greece, an intake of
were treated to a barrage much more shrill than only 600 calories (the sentence of death within a couple
Goebbels. "The conditions of living of these United of weeks) was imposed.
Nations nationals [Eastern European refugees] shall be After key sections of Europe had been reduced to this
raised to a standard as high as resources allow, without status, military control over food and the resettlement of
consideration of any adverse effect on the living concH- refugees was handed over to the United Nations Relief
tions of the German people" (emphasis added), the ,and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). Dangling
German people were incessantly told. "Arrangements food in front of desperate workers, UNRRA in some
for alternate accomodations at the earliest possible areas had more power than the military authorities, and
moment, if necessary by transferring Get,_ans from was able to set wages and prices, settle strikes, control
neighboring villages to the concentration camps, should news media. Cabinet member Harriman gleefully
be made."[31] described UNRRA as "one of the most effective weapons
To exacerbate the terror, SHAEF took these refugees at our disposal to influence European political events in
(most of them ex-slave laborers that Schacht's successors the direction we desire and to avoid the development of a

Tavistock Grin
intensity operations are
to drive the working
class of the advanced sector
to the level of most of
Third World, happy for its
:ion of Food.

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