Foreign News: Loot

• Share

If Adolf Hitler seized Czecho-Slovakia because he thought the country's riches would pull him out of an economic hole, he is very likely to find himself as mistaken as when he took Austria and the Sudetenland. They have both proved to be liabilities.

On paper, however, the booty looks impressive: 1) about $80,000,000 in gold in the Czecho-Slovak National Bank; 2) about $200,000,000 in foreign exchange and foreign assets held abroad by individuals and corporations; 3) an agricultural surplus in Moravia and Bohemia sufficient to feed the Sudetenland, and in Slovakia sufficient to feed Vienna; 4) about 1,200 Czech airplanes (200 of them first-line), 500 tanks, some good heavy artillery; 5) increased industrial and arms capacity.

But there are many moldy spots in his prize package. About $37,000,000 of Czech gold is held in London, and since London refuses to recognize the new status of Czecho-Slovakia it cannot now be redeemed by the Germans. Not much more than 60% of the foreign exchange and as sets can be liquidated and returned to Germany. The chances are that from gold and foreign exchange the Reich will be able to realize not more than $200,000,000, or about enough to smooth out things for the Nazis for another six months. Even Austria yielded more money.

Moldiest of all, however, is the fact that Czecho-Slovakian economy rested on its ability to import raw materials and export the finished product. Now that it is brought inside the closed Nazi economy of warfare, Czecho-Slovakia can no longer fulfill its economically useful purpose. The same thing happened after Anschluss, but fortunately for the Reich, Czecho-Slovakia, unlike Austria, can feed herself. Best hope for Czech as well as Austrian industry is that Dictator Hitler will soon grab some backward, goods-consuming neighbor States. Otherwise it goes without saying that the Czech standard of living will be lowered, for Germans, in general, far from expecting the Czechs to cost them money, hope to profit from them. Next best hope is that other countries will relax and open their markets again to Czech goods.

From the CzechoSlovak seizure Germany will get seven major armament and several aircraft & engine plants. The arms factories consist of the four plants of the Skoda works, a big subterranean plant in Slovakia, the famed Witkowitz plant near Moravská Ostrava, partly owned by the Rothschild banking interests of London, and a government-owned steel works at Kladno which manufactures rifles, revolvers and sabres. Other valuable things produced by Czecho-Slovakia were the air-cooled Tatra and Walter airplane engines. None of the arms factories, however, can be run without substantial imports of raw materials. All told, the Führer will get arms for about 150,000 men. The army of occupation—never expected to fall much below this figure—can thus be armed without an additional strain to the Reich.

Two most valuable acquisitions are good timber areas and a capacity to produce livestock which can be substantially increased.