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The Reparations Settlement and Germany's Peacetime Economy: Statement by the U.S. State Department (Press Release of December 12, 1945)

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(c) It is implicitly recognized in the Berlin Declaration that the policy of industrial capital-equipment removals and the restriction of exports in the fields of metals, machinery, and chemicals will require countries which have previously depended on Germany as a source of these products to obtain them elsewhere. Since capacity in the metal, machinery, and chemical industries in excess of German peacetime needs is to be transferred to countries entitled to receive reparation from Germany, it is expected that the industrial capacity lost in Germany will after an interval be recovered in large part elsewhere in the world, and for the most part in Europe. But it should be borne in mind that the industry removed from Germany will in the main replace industry destroyed by the Germans and will not be sufficient to meet the pre-war demand. It should be emphasized, however, that any effort toward industrial recovery in Germany must not be permitted to retard reconstruction in European countries which have suffered from German aggression.

(d) In determining the amount of capacity required to strike an export-import balance, the United States and other occupying powers cannot in fact guarantee that the export-import balance will be achieved. Their responsibility is only to provide reasonable opportunity for the attainment of balance at the agreed minimum level of standard of living. In fixing the amount of industrial capacity necessary for export, the provision of margins of safety is unnecessary if Germany's export potential is estimated on a reasonable basis. It should be noted that, if resources are left to enable Germany to make good her war damage and depreciation in housing and transport over certain numbers of years as suggested in paragraph 6 (d), extension of the period in which such deficits are liquidated would in case of need make some additional capacity available for production of export goods.

9. The necessity which devolves upon the United States and other occupying powers to finance imports into Germany and possibly to pay for such imports in the next few years does not arise in the first instance from the policy of reparation removals agreed upon at Potsdam. The German economy was brought virtually to a standstill by Germany's defeat, which produced an almost complete breakdown of transport, economic organization, administration, and direction. If no removals of industrial capital equipment were attempted, Germany would still

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