 The UK, in whose occupation zone most of the steel production was located, had argued for a less-limited reduction of 12 million tons of steel per year, but had to submit to the will of the US, France, and the Soviet Union (which had argued for a 3 million ton limit).Steel plants thus made redundant were to be dismantled.Germany was to be reduced to the standard of life it had known at the height of the Great Depression (1932).