Business News


On Tuesday, 8 May, 1945, the streets of Birmingham were awash with people celebrating the end of over five years of conflict with Germany. At the same time there was a meeting in the offices of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce so discuss if and how we should trade with our erstwhile foe in the future. There was even a suggestion that Germany should become solely an agricultural country. John Lamb looks back at those nervous days.


VE Day remembered in Birmingham


of Commerce, showing great foresight, was already looking at how to restore trade with Germany. It is a poignant echo of what is happening today as we look at the prospects for life generally and business in particular after the fight against the deadly Covid-19 virus is won. Three quarters of a century ago


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there was clearly a strong affinity with the Chamber and the Armed Forces, in the same way that the Chamber today counts among its patrons the West Midland Reserve Forces & Cadets Association. The Chamber is also a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant. Back on Tuesday, 8 May, 1945,


the Chamber was examining future relations with a country with whom Britain had been at war for over five years. As our picture shows, the people


of Birmingham celebrated in huge numbers in New Street in a way that was impossible last month given the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 lockdown. And towering over those


revellers were the offices of the Chamber where behind its Victorian façade serious thought was being given to future trading with Germany (the country was yet to be partitioned). There was even a thought from academics that Germany should be restricted to trading only in agriculture. At the Chamber’s annual


meeting on 23 April, 1945, the then President, Alderman Kenneth H Wilson, spoke with biting clarity for the Government to make a “statement of priority” according to a report in the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Journal (forerunner of Chamberlink). Ominously, the Chamber warned


of the dangers when it reproduced excerpts from an article in the ‘Financial Times’ which spoke of


24 CHAMBERLINK June/July 2020


hen Birmingham was celebrating VE Day 75 years ago, the Chamber


‘Towering over those revellers were the offices of the Chamber where behind its Victorian façade serious thought was being given to future trading with Germany’


“the perils of facilitating the restoration of Germany’s highly developed industries with their potentialities for war by easy and rapid transition”. It was nervous about trading


with a country that still had “vast stores of V weapons (flying bombs) ready, or nearly ready, for use against this country when Germany and the Low Countries were over- run by the Allies”. The Journal reported the FT as


saying: “Unless Germany is de- industrialised completely, she will have the chance sooner or later to resume their (V bombs) production.” It went on: “Their possession will


stimulate the desire for another attempt at world domination. Sooner or later this country and others would have to pay a terrible price in human life and property for so short-sighted a policy.” There were other experts who


advocated the destruction of Germany’s industrial capabilities. Hans Morgenthae, a major figure in the study of international relations, proposed converting Germany into an agricultural country. However, the Chamber opposed


this view while at the same time supporting a comment in the FT which warned about “…the war- making proclivities of the Hun”. It agreed with the FT view that “there can be no prosperity in Europe or the world unless Germany is also prosperous”. The rest, of course, is history. In his address at the annual


meeting, Alderman Wilson expressed his opposition to a Government proposal “which forces us to sit up and take notice”. He was talking about a Distribution of Industry Bill which proposed taking manufacturing away from


traditional areas, like Birmingham. He said: “What we do not agree


with is that…it is necessary to paralyse regions which are endowed with innate industrial vitality”. Alderman Wilson said the Chamber had “collaborated with


the Municipality in bringing to the knowledge of our Members of Parliament the menace to the normal industrial evolution of this region, and we hope that the Bill will be so far amended as to achieve the Government’s objective without doing avoidable and irreparable harm to existing industrial districts”. Powerful stuff from a man who concluded his speech by saying:


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