But we can place no reliance on them as a deterrent to renewed troublemaking on the part of the Germans.
This being the case, it is evident that the relationship of Germany to the other countries of western Europe must be so arranged as to provide mechanical and automatic safeguards against any unscrupulous exploitation of Germany's preeminence in population and in military-industrial potential.
The first task of our planning will be to find such safeguards.
In this connection, primary consideration must be given to the problem of the Ruhr. Some form of international ownership or control of the Ruhr industries would indeed be one of the best means of automatic protection against the future misuse of Germany's industrial resources for aggressive purposes. There may be other devices which would also be worth exploring.
A second line of our planning will have to be in the direction of the maximum interweaving of German economy with that of the remainder of Europe. This may mean that we will have to reverse our present policies, in certain respects. One of the most grievous mistakes, in my opinion, of our post-hostilities policy was the renewed extreme segregation of the Germans and their compression into an even smaller territory than before, in virtual isolation from the remaining peoples of Europe. This sort of segregation and compression invariably arouses precisely the worst reactions in the German character. What the Germans need is not to be thrust violently in upon themselves, which only heightens their congenital irrealism and self-pity and defiant nationalism, but to be led out of their collective egocentrism and encouraged to see things in larger terms, to have interests elsewhere in Europe and elsewhere in the world, and to learn to think of themselves as world citizens and not just as Germans.
Next, we must recognize the bankruptcy of our moral influence on the Germans, and we must make plans for the earliest possible termination of those actions and policies on our part which have been psychologically unfortunate. First of all, we must reduce as far as possible our establishment in Germany; for the residence of large numbers of representatives of a victor nation in a devastated conquered area is never a helpful factor, particularly when their living standards are as conspicuously different as are those of Americans in Germany. Secondly, we must terminate as rapidly as possible those forms of activity (denazification, re-education, and above all the Nuremberg Trials) which tend to set up as mentors and judges over internal German problems. Thirdly, we must have the courage to dispense with military government as soon as possible and to force the Germans to accept responsibility once more for their own affairs. They will never begin to do this as long as we will accept that responsibility for them.
