The Spoil of Europe
$2.75
By NORTON
THE methodical, thoroughgoing way in which Germany has set about both to despoil and to organize the conquered countries of Europe is here described with remarkable completeness and detail. No other author has put together so many concrete facts about the German new order, about the economic and financial subjugation which has been the lot of the defeated countries. Germany has not waited for the end of the war to remodel Europe on the basis of a dominant Germany surrounded by satellite states. In this new Europe, Germany will possess a monopoly not only of armaments but of war industries, and the economies of all the other countries will be required to conform to German needs and interests. Industries that compete with Germany’s are looted and destroyed; agricultural systems are made over according to German prescription; the German mark, unless this plan of reconstruction crumbles with military defeat, will become the central currency. Major banking operations will be centralized in Berlin, and almost all intraEuropean trade will be cleared through the German capital. The author, whose identity is concealed because of his official position, obviously enjoyed access to an unusual amount of source material, and his picture of German methods, ranging from outright spoliation to the achievement of the same ends through currency and foreign trade manipulation, is extremely impressive because so well documented.
W. H. C.