Control Council (ACC), consisting of four supreme commanders of the Allied Forces governed the zones. The ACC’s decisions were to be unanimous. If agreement could not be reached, the commanders would forego unified actions, and each would confine his attention to his own zone, where he had supreme authority. Indeed, the ACC had no executive authority of its own, but rather had to rely on the cooperation of each military governor to implement its decisions in his occupation zone. Given the immense problems involved in establishing a provisional administration, unanimity was often lacking, and occupation policies soon varied.The French, for instance, vetoed the establishment of a central German administration, a decision that furthered the country’s eventual division. Because they had not participated in the Potsdam conference, the French did not feel bound to the conference decision that the country would remain an economic unit. Instead, the French sough to extract as much as they could from Germany and from the Saar area for a time.The Soviet occupiers likewise sought to recover as much as possible from Germany, as compensation for the losses their country had sustained during the war. Unlike the French, however, they sought to influence Germany as a whole and hoped to hold an expanded area of influence. In their own zone, the Soviet authorities quickly move toward establishing a socialist society like their own.The United States had the greatest interest in denazificitaion and in the establishment of a liberal democratic system. Early plans, such as the Morgenthau Plan, to keep Germans poor by basing their economy on agriculture, were dropped the Soviet Union came to be seen as a threat and Germany as a potential ally.Britain had the lease ambitious plans for its zone. However, British authorities soon realized that unless Germany became economically self- sufficient, British taxpayers would bear the expense of feeding it...
