PROBLEMS FOR BRITAIN
The occupying power that was least happy with this arrangement was Britain. Churchill had approved the Morgenthau Plan in Quebec in September 1944, after being persuaded by his 'scientific adviser' Frederick Lindemann (created Baron Cherwell in 1941) that the suppression of German industry would be to the benefit of British industry. But, as Keynes knew very well, there was no way that post-war Britain could fill the gap left by a de-industrialised Germany.
In the four-power carve-up of Germany, Britain got the North-West portion, which included the Ruhr Valley which, together with Upper Silesia (gifted by Stalin to Poland) was the industrial power-house of Germany. Given the policy of de-industrialisation, however, this was hardly an advantage. The main food-producing area was in the East, partly in the area gifted to Poland and partly in the area controlled by the Soviet Union. According to Alan Bullock's biography of Ernest Bevin:
'None of the occupying powers stood to lose as much by this de facto partition of Germany as the British. If hope of getting Germany treated as an economic unit had to be abandoned, the British would be left with an over-crowded zone less capable of supporting itself than any of the others and with no alternatives but to see its population starve or keep them going at British expense.' (8)
(8) Alan Bullock: Ernest Bevin - Foreign Secretary, 1945-1951, London, Heinemann, 1984 (first published 1983), p.147.
Between June 1945 and April 1946 Britain had to supply one million tons of food to its German zone, in addition to the task of supplying its own troops and difficulties in feeding its own population (Bullock, p.150).
In 1946:
'Over Europe as a whole food production was 25% below normal, and for the world 12% below. Besides Europe the worst hit area was South and SE Asia, particularly India. Here at last was an issue on which he could hope to get concerted action. While Attlee wrote to enlist the support of Truman and other heads of government, Bevin tried to bring home the urgency of the situation to the House of Commons, the UN General Assembly, the trade unions, the International Conference of Agricultural Producers ... Much the most effective lead Britain could give was by making food available herself, and Attlee and Bevin decided that this must be done even at the cost of cutting British rations still further. They agreed that 200,000 tons of wheat should be diverted from the UK quota to help Asia, especially India, and a total of 400,000 tons of food exported to the British zone in Germany. The cut in rations was unpopular at home and was seized on by the Opposition as evidence of mismanagement. There was some truth in this. But the Government refused to bow to the storm and on the principle of sharing Bevin demanded to know whether the Opposition, which was loud in proclaiming its belief in the Empire, looked on the 500 million people of India and the East as British subjects, or only the people of the United Kingdom, when it came to food supplies.
'The party row over rationing went on well into the summer, leading to Ben Smith's resignation as Minister of Food on 27 May (he was succeeded by John Strachey) and the introduction of bread rationing, a step never taken in wartime, a month later.' (Bullock, pp.232-3)