Document 6: Unemployment

Excerpts from the Report of the German Economic Commission (May 13, 1919)

In the course of the last two generations, Germany has become transformed from an agricultural State to an industrial State. As long as she was an agricultural State, Germany could feed forty million inhabitants.

In her quality of an industrial State she could ensure the nourishment of a population of sixty seven millions. In 1913, the importation of food stuffs amounted, in round figures, to twelve million tons. Before the war a total of fifteen millions of persons provided for their existence in Germany by foreign trade and by navigation, either in a direct or an indirect manner, by the use of foreign raw material…..

After this diminution of her products, after the economic depression caused by the loss of her Colonies, of her merchant Fleet, and of her possessions abroad, Germany would not be in a state to import from abroad a sufficient quantity of raw material. An enormous part of German industry would therefore inevitably be condemned to destruction. At the same time, the necessity of importing food stuffs would increase considerably; whilst the possibility of satisfying that demand would diminish in the same proportion.

At the end of a very short time, Germany would, therefore, not be in a position to give bread and work to her numerous millions of inhabitants, who would be reduced to earning their livelihood by navigation and by trade.