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    "localId": "225248917",
    "label": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 39-48, France's German Policy",
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    "id": "225248917",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 39-48, France's German Policy",
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        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 29,
            "logicalDate": "1848-12-29",
            "month": 12,
            "year": 1848
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{
    "seq": 7,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "2.\nPOLICY IN THE FRENCH ZONE OF OCCUPATION.\nThe political and economic administration of the French zone provides a clear\npicture of a policy designed to subordinate German economic recovery to French in-\nterests and to eliminate all possible threat to France of a future German aggression.\na.\nPolitical.\nThis administration is characterized in its political policies by a high degree\nof military government control and an organization of the Laender designed to en-\ncourage decentralization. The military government maintains a rigid control of Ger-\nman administrations and political parties. The Christian Democrats (CDU) receive\nFrench support because they favor a federalized Germany, while the Social Democrats\nhave their activities curtailed chiefly because they favor a strongly centralized govern-\nment. Other French policies designed to prevent the rebirth of German nationalism\nand the spread of any centralist tendencies are: insistence that the Germans administer\nthe Laender separately, rather than as a unit, in the manner of the US and UK\nzones; encouragement of separatist tendencies in southern Germany, particularly in\nBavaria; and an extensive and long-range program of re-education. The French\nauthorities have laid particular emphasis upon a cultural and educational program\nin the hope of preparing the Germans for democracy and in an effort to establish\nbetter political relations between the French and German populations.\nb. Economic.\nFrench economic policy is characterized by considerable harshness. This\npolicy is designed to make the zone support itself; to contribute something, if possible,\nto French recovery; and to develop along lines which will serve French economic in-\nterests. The French are strictly rationing food and clothing and have done little\ntoward rebuilding cities where war damage created a great shortage of housing. The\nFrench admit that the presence of large numbers of occupation troops and civilian\nemployees, with their families, constitutes a great drain on the limited housing and\nfood resources of the zone. However, prodded by the US, the French have recently\nofficially abandoned requisitions of German foodstuffs and are gradually taking\nmeasures to reduce the occupation personnel in the zone. Exploitation of the indus-\ntrial resources of the zone for the benefit of the economy of metropolitan France has\nbeen pursued by : the transfer of machinery from the zone to France; the acquisition\nof highly advantageous processing and purchasing agreements; and facilitation of the\nacquisition by French capital of controlling interests in local industries. These eco-\nnomic policies not only have resulted in a depressed standard of living in the zone,\nwhich threatens to cancel the political good will created by the cultural program, but\nthey have also so aggravated the basic industrial poverty of the French-occupied areas\nas to make that zone a greater liability to the US economic assistance program for\nwestern Germany than the US or UK zones.\nThe effects of this economic program are becoming evident to the more en-\nlightened occupation officials, particularly the education officers. Under their com-\n4"
}