Monthly Report of Military Governor, U.S. Zone, No. 3: Reparations and Restitutions

REPARATIONS & RESTITUTIONS SYNOPSIS The month of September, 1945, witneased the first pronounced progress in reparations since the Potsdam Conference. Thirteen industrial plants located in the United States Zone are nowbeing I dismantled and packed preparatory for shipment as reparations. An interim restitution policy for looted articles found in the United States Zone has been established. This policy provides for the immediate return of certain oategories of urgently needed equipment and livestook to those countries from which they were originally taken, regardless of any future effect on repar& tions. Restitution under this policy and during this period is limited to eleven nations who have been invited to submit lists to facilitate identification. No con solidated lists have been received as yet, although there have been considerable re- quests for the return of specific properties, and also for restitution in kind. Shipments of looted works of art have been made to France and Belgium and other suoh shipments are planned for Holland and Csechoslovakia. The decrease in the number of available military guards for art repositories has made their reduction in number of the greatest importance. An increase in the number of art- icles received at collecting points was noted during the month, and some progress has been made in weatherproofing these collecting points. The preservation of world famous historic monuments located in Germany is beginning to become effective in a few isolated spots. Local German art commit- tees are increasing in number and there is hope that their efforts will do nuch to help in this preservation. REPARATIONS The Potsdam Protocol establishes the general policy for reparations in the United States Zone. In general it was determined to use all heavy industrial capital equipment, not needed to maintain a minimum German civilian economy, as re parations. Owing to the time necessary to develop quadripartite agreements on procedures to carry out the Potsdam Protocol directives, no actual determina- tion of reparation availabilities was accomplished until September 1945. During this month, 29 major industrial plants in the Western Zones were declared as non-essential to the maintenance of a minimum German economy. Of these plants 13 were in the United States Zone and they are already in the process of being dismantled and packed preparatory to shipment. This equipment will be shipped on reparations account after inter-governmental policies and decisions have established the priorities of assignment. RESTITUTION To many of the Allied Nations the problem of restitution is of paramount importance, both from the sentimental point of view and from the economic point of view. As a result there is considerable pressure being placed on the Military Government for the return of looted equipment, particularly rolling stock, machine tools and cultural works, the first two for economic reasons and the latter for political reasons. Except in the field of Fine Arts no actual restitution of looted articles has taken place but considerable work has been done on the imple- mentation of the recently announced United States policy for restitution. SEPTEMBER 1945 1 -