Occupation of Germany
The Occupation of Germany refers to the period post-World War II when Germany was divided into zones controlled by Allied forces, primarily the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union. This occupation began formally in 1945, following Germany's surrender, and aimed to dismantle Nazi influence and rebuild the country. Initially, the U.S. military government adopted harsh policies under the influence of figures like Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, advocating for deindustrialization and collective guilt among Germans for wartime atrocities. However, these plans shifted towards reconstruction, leading to the establishment of a more moderate policy by 1947 that emphasized economic recovery and democratic governance.
Key developments during this time included the Nuremberg Trials to hold Nazi leaders accountable and initiatives like the Marshall Plan, which provided substantial financial aid to help rebuild Europe, including West Germany. The occupation also significantly impacted American soldiers, many of whom formed relationships with local Germans, challenging existing racial and social norms. By 1949, the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany marked the end of military occupation, although Allied rights remained until 1955. This complex period laid the groundwork for Germany's integration into the West and the eventual reunification of East and West Germany in the early 1990s.
Occupation of Germany
The Event Military occupation of Germany by the United States after World War II
Date 1945-1949
Place Germany
Following World War II, the United States and other countries maintained troops in Germany to monitor the country.
In 1943, in Casablanca, Morocco, President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender during World War II. Aside from occasional flippant remarks about Germans, however, the president gave no clear instructions on what to do about a nation that was responsible for the war and for the mass murder of Jews and other “undesirables.” The president’s close friend Henry Morgenthau, the secretary of the Treasury, was outraged by the Holocaust and suggested a radical solution. He believed in collective German guilt and thought that the military’s “Handbook for Military Government in Germany,” which he examined in August, 1944, was much too soft because it advocated restoring a German civilian government and economy.
At the Second Quebec Conference, in early September, 1944, President Roosevelt and British prime ministerWinston Churchill adopted Morgenthau’s“Program to Prevent Germany from Starting a World War III,” which advocated the complete deindustrialization of Germany. Within weeks, Roosevelt changed his mind because of growing opposition to a plan that the Wall Street Journal called “Carthaginian.” The president died on April 12, 1945, before final occupation plans could be issued. His successor, Harry S. Truman, signed occupation policy JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) 1067, which incorporated much of Morgenthau’s plan. This policy guided the American military government in Germany until it was replaced in 1947 by the more moderate JCS 1779, which facilitated the economic and political reconstruction of West Germany and ended the military government in 1949.
U.S. Military Occupation Policies, 1945-1947
At a conference at Potsdam on August 2, 1945, the Allies adopted plans for the occupation of Germany based on previous wartime agreements. For administrative purposes, Germany west of the Oder-Neisse line was divided into four zones, with a similar arrangement made for Berlin. The United States zone included Bavaria, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, and an enclave around Bremen including a port to accommodate American shipping needs. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first American military governor, but his deputy, General Lucius D. Clay, a 1918 West Point graduate who became head of military procurement in 1942, was primarily responsible for military government long before he took official control over the occupation army in March, 1947. President Truman rarely interfered with Clay’s actions.
Clay initially accepted German collective guilt for war crimes. He supported the 4D’s: de-Nazification, demilitarization, de-cartelization, and democratization. The German General Staff and military institutions were abolished. Clay suggested Nuremberg for the trial of major German war criminals and subsequent trials of German organizations implicated in war crimes. He also supported a massive de-Nazification program, part of which involved collecting millions of documents and questionnaires that were turned over to the German courts in March, 1946, for use in war crimes trials. Clay was also the first Western military governor and introduced free local elections in January, 1946, followed later that year by elections to three state constituent assemblies.
A major problem Clay faced in instituting deindustrialization was that it would limit German ability to pay for imports, particularly of food. In 1946, American taxpayers paid for 90 percent of German imports. Clay gradually reduced the dismantling of German industry. Of 1,210 plants scheduled to be closed, only 24 were shut down by May, 1946. In that same month, Clay stopped reparations payments from the American Zone. To improve economic conditions, on January 1, 1947, Clay’s zone was combined with the British occupation zone as a Bizone.
1947-1949
In January, 1947, President Truman appointed George C. Marshall as secretary of state. Marshall replaced JCS 1067 with a new policy, JCS 1779, which acknowledged that Europe could not recover without a productive Germany. In June, 1947, he announced the Marshall Plan, which promised massive U.S. financial aid to Europe. The formation of the Trizone and the introduction of German currency reform in West Berlin in June, 1948, caused the Soviets to blockade all land access to Berlin on June 24, 1948. Clay was determined to ensure the survival of West Berlin, and he won the support of Truman. On June 26, the Berlin airlift was launched, which supplied West Berlin until the Soviet blockade was lifted in May, 1949. West Berliners honored Clay by naming a major avenue after him.
May, 1949, also saw the creation of a new West German government (formally the Federal Republic of Germany), which ended the American (and French and British) military occupation and created an Allied High Commission. The Occupation Statute of September 21, 1949, continued Allied rights to intervene in German affairs. Clay was replaced by the U.S. high commissioner John J. McCloy (1895-1989), assistant secretary of war during World War II. McCloy played a key role in the creation of a new German military, which was totally integrated into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1955. Although German sovereignty was gradually restored by 1952, the high commissioners did not fully end the occupation status and grant West Germany full sovereignty until May 5, 1955.
Effect on the United States and the U.S. Military
After the defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan, the American military government in Germany was challenged by numerous problems, ranging from increasing cases of venereal disease to thefts by American personnel. In December, 1945, The New York Times described “homesick Americans,” and in January, 1946, three thousand American soldiers demonstrated at the headquarters of General Joseph McNarney, demanding to go home.
American soldiers ignored nonfraternization orders, particularly in actions involving women and children. Polls in the United States in the fall of 1945 revealed that a majority of Americans opposed fraternization in Germany. Despite official policy, many serious relationships had developed between G.I.’s and German women, including marriages. The nonfraternization rule was ended in October, 1945, and in December, 1946, the marriage ban was lifted. By June, 1950, more than fourteen thousand German women married to American soldiers were living in the United States.
African Americans serving in Germany were often treated better by Germans than by their own military authorities. Freda Utley, a newspaper reporter, noted Jim Crow practices in occupied Germany. Leon Standifer and David Brion Davis, a member of the military constabulary force in occupied Germany, recalled the abysmally racist attitudes of the white American military police, particularly when the police confronted black G.I.’s with white German girlfriends. African American newspapers and civil rights organizations in the United States monitoring the treatment of black soldiers in Germany reported that the former enemy German population treated blacks better than many white American officers and soldiers did, and they used that argument effectively to support their fight for civil rights and integration of the U.S. military.
Impact
In 1945, a sign at the entrance of the major U.S. building in Nuremberg prohibited entry to Germans and dogs. By 1947, however, a Gallup poll revealed that a majority of Americans were friendly toward Germans, and two years later two-thirds of Americans felt that Germans had been punished enough. Although growing anti-Soviet sentiments in the United States played a role in changing American attitudes toward Germans, the increasing interaction between American occupation forces and Germans was equally important.
Clay’s support of local and state democratic government, as well as his efforts to unite the three Western zones of Germany, played a key role in establishing the basis for a durable new democratic system in West Germany. U.S. support for German reunification within NATO was one important factor leading to the Moscow treaty of September 12, 1990, between the four major World War II Allies and the two German states (the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, known as East Germany). This treaty officially ended all Allied occupation rights in Germany and Berlin and led to German unity one month later. Soviet troops left former East German territory by the end of 1994, while American troops are still welcome in a Germany that has been cured of its past militarism.
Bibliography
Beschloss, Michael. The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-1945. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. Essential for understanding the debate generated by Henry Morgenthau’s plan. Insightful notes, bibliography.
Goedde, Petra. GIs and Germans: Culture, Gender, and Foreign Relations, 1945-1949. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Argues that the interaction of G.I.’s with German women and children was crucial for the rapprochement of Germany and the United States. Bibliography and index.
Peterson, Edward N. The American Occupation of Germany: Retreat from Victory. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1978. A chronological survey. Suggests that the military government left a conservative power structure. Exhaustive notes, bibliography.
Schroer, Timothy L. Recasting Race After World War II: Germans and African Americans in American-Occupied Germany. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2007. Part of a growing literature on the experience of African American soldiers in Germany and its impact on American racial attitudes. Bibliography.
Schwartz, Thomas Alan. America’s Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. Academic survey of McCloy’s actions as U.S. high commissioner in Germany. Scholarly bibliography.
Smith, Jean Edward. Lucius D. Clay: An American Life. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. Uses extensive interviews with Clay to explain his German policy. Extensive notes, bibliography.