The Times

Future Of German Cartels

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 Simultaneously with the news from Germany that United States army engineers will demolish three large munition plants of I.G. Farbenindustrie and five other industrial establishments in the American zone of occupation, the War Department has issued here a hitherto restricted document in which the United States Military Government in Germany urged that all I.G. Farben cartels should be wiped out. The report, submitted by General Eisenhower on October 1, questioned the worth of destroying the roots of these cartels in the American zone if similar action was not taken in the Russian, French, and British zones. Most of the industrial plants concerned are in the Russian zone and only a tenth of the total in the American. General Eisenhower is re- ported to be in communication with the British zone on the subject, but the Russians have not appointed an I.G. Farben control officer. General Eisenhower stated that this big German industry has amassed assets of 6,000,000,000 marks and operated with a varying degree of power in more than 2,000 cartels. In spite of the destruction of much of its property during the war and the imprisonment of its key executives, General Eisenhower says that it remains one of the greatest combines in the world, and he recommends its complete dissolution as one means of ensuring peace. His recommendations also include, first, the seizure of I.G. Farben plants and assets in all zones of occupation; secondly. the passage of a law vesting the legal title to I.G. Farben plants and assets in the Allied Control Council; thirdly, an investigation of all l.G. Farben's relations and activities; and fourthly. making plant available for reparations, destruction of plants used for war-making purposes, destruction of monopoly by dispersion of ownership of other properties, termination of cartels, and control of research. U-BOAT PENS BLOWN UP HAMBURG, Oct. 21.-Royal Engineers to-day blew up the Finkenwarden U-boat pens in the harbour here. The ground shook under the impact of the explosion as 263,000 tons of concrete collapsed into the water. The Finkenwarden pens were the product of four years of slave labour and cost about ?2,000,000. It took 32 tons of German explosives to blow them up. Some massive slabs, 12ft. thick, sank into the water until they came, to rest, one of them on top of two submarines which the Germans had scuttled there before the end of the war.-Reuter. FUTURE OF GERMAN CARTELS GENERAL EISENHOWER'S ADVICE