The Minister of Economic Warfare was a British government position which existed during the Second World War. The minister was in charge of the Special Operations Executive and the Ministry of Economic Warfare.
The Ministry of Economic Warfare and Britain's conduct of economic warfare, 1939-1945
Cox, Nechama Janet Cohen
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/file...
The Ministry of Economic Warfare went through many changes as the
war progressed, and the structure evolved as the Ministry's tasks and strategy
altered. Many adjustments were made as a result of shifts in the relative
importance of the Ministry, since the political fortunes of the Ministry
followed the progress of the war. This chapter follows the MEW, from its
beginning in September 1939, through to the end of the war, examining the
changes in the ministerial structure and in its personnel along the way.
The first of the three Ministers of Economic Warfare was Ronald Cross,
who was appointed on 3 September 1939, along with Sir Frederick Leith-Ross,
who served as Director General. Cross was elected Unionist MP for
Rossendale in 1931, a position he held until the end of the war. From 1935-37
he was a Government Whip. He served in many departments: appointed
Lord of the Treasury in 1937; Vice-Chamberlain of FIM Household, a position
he held from 1937-38; and Parliamentary Secretary at the Board of Trade,
from 1938-39, when he was appointed to the MEW.1
Aside from two years as private secretary to Prime Minister H.H.
Asquith, Leith-Ross spent much of his career in the Treasury. Despite having
no formal education in economics or finance, he attained the position of
Deputy Controller of Finance in the Treasury before he was appointed Chief
Economic Adviser to the Government in March 1932. In this capacity he acted
as the British Representative for international bodies. In 1938 he negotiated a
revised German payments agreement to ensure service of guaranteed
Austrian loans following the Anschluss. In September 1939 he was appointed
to the MEW, and was intimately involved in the negotiations with allied and
neutral governments. He enjoyed dealing with the post-war economic policy
questions for the Ministry, and served as Chairman of the Inter-Allied Post
War Requirements Committee from 1941-43, doing preparation work for the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. In February 1942 he
followed Cross' successor, Hugh Dalton, to the Board of Trade.2
As detailed in Chapter 1, the structure of the Ministry was arranged
before the war, into seven departments: Plans, Foreign Relations, Prize,
Intelligence, Legal, Establishment and Financial Pressure. (see Table 3) Each
department was expected to deal with what was anticipated to be a key area
in economic warfare. The Custodian of Enemy Property was set up in order
to hold the assets of enemies affected by the Statutory List. In November
1939, provision for this was made under Section 2 (2) of the Trading with the
Enemy Act which applied to enemy firms as well as to the businesses listed
because of their enemy associations.
With the outbreak of war and the expansion of government to meet
requirements, the MEW was not able to find a permanent home immediately.
It occupied a building at the London School of Economics from September
1939 until March 1940, when it relocated to Berkeley Square House for the
duration of the war. 3 During the initial phase of the war a representative from
the French Minis tére du Blocus had an office in the same building as the MEW
to facilitate the co-operative effort. This Ministére worked with the MEW in
developing the Allied economic warfare effort.
The British government strategy of looking at single commodities
rather than damaging the German economy as a whole led to one of the early
modifications of the MEW bureaucracy - the establishment of separate
sections to deal with individual key commodities. At the suggestion of
Viscount Edward Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, Cross set up a special section
to deal with the oil problem at the end of October 1939. The section was to be
composed of several administrative officers from the MEW and a petroleum
expert, along with suitable staff. It was to concentrate on centralising
information and initiating plans for the blockading of oil, with pre-emptive
purchases left to the Petroleum department. 4 Similar sections were planned to
deal with oil seeds and food stuffs, non-ferrous metals, rubber, iron and
manganese, and raw textile materials. In March 1940 nine committees were
set up. Each looked at sources, what was needed and what the MEW could
do in order to limit the supply.
Информация по комментариям в разработке