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After disposing of Hitler’s successor as head of state and his government, the Allies issued a unilateral declaration on June 5, 1945, which proclaimed their supreme authority over German territory. The allies would govern Germany through four occupation zones, one for each of the four powers- the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. The establishment of zones of occupation had been decided at a series of conferences. The conferences of Casablanca and Tehran were used as a planning conference. While at the Yalta conference in February 1945 participates decided that in Addition to the United States, British, and Soviet occupation zones in Germany, the French were also to have occupation zones carved out of the United States and British Zones. The peaceful relationship between the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union began to show strains at the Potsdam Conference, held from July 17 to August 2,1945. In most instances, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was successful in getting the settlements he desired. One of his most far reaching victories was securing the conference’s approval of his decision to compensate Poland for the loss of territory in the east to the Soviet Union by awarding it administrative control over parts of Germany. Pending the negation of a peace treaty with Germany, Poland was to administer the German provinces of Pomerania, Silesia and the southern portion of East Prussia. The forcible “transfer” to the west of Germans living in these provinces was likewise approved. The congeries at Potsdam also decided that each occupying power was to receive reparations in the form of goods and industrial equipment in compensation for its losses during the war. Because most German industry lay, outside its zone, it was agreed that the Soviet Union was to take industrial plants from the other zones and in exchange supply them with agricultural products. The Allies, remembering the political costs of financial reparations after World War I, had decided that reparations consisting of payments in kind were less likely to imperil the peace of World War II. The final document of the Potsdam Conference, the Potsdam Accord, also included provisions for demilitarizing the denazifying Germany and for restructuring the German political life on democratic principals. German economic unity was to be persevered. The boundaries of the four occupation zones established at Yalta generally followed the borders of the former German states. Only Prussia constituted an exception: it was dissolved altogether, and the remaining German Lander in northern and western Germany absorbed its territory. Prussia’s former capital, Berlin, differed from the rest of Germany in that it was occupied by all four Allies—and thus had so-called Four power status. The occupation zone of the U.S. consisted of the Hesse, the northern half of the present-day Baden- Wurttemberg, Bavaria and the southern part of Greater Berlin. The British zone consisted of Schleswig- Holstein, Lower Saxony, North Rhine- Westphalia, and the western sector of Greater Berlin. The French were appointed Rhineland- Palatinate, the Saarland- which latter received a special status—the southern half of Baden- Wurttemberg, and the northern sector of Greater Berlin. The Soviet Union controlled Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Saxony, Soxony-Anhult, Thuringia, and the eastern sector of Greater Berlin, which constituted almost half the total area of the city. The Allied 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 its population. To facilitate German economic self- sufficiency, United States and British occupation policies soon merged, and by the beginning of 1947 their zones had been joined into one economic area—the Bizone. The Allies agreed that Germany should never again have the opportunity to destroy European peace as it had in the two world wars. A principal aim of the Allies was to prevent the resurgence of a powerful and aggressive Germany. As a first step toward demilitarizing, denazifying and democratizing Germany, the Allies established an international military tribunal in August 1945 to jointly try individuals considered responsible for the outbreak of the war and for crimes committed by the Hitler regime. Nuremberg, the city where the most elaborate political rallies of the Hitler regime had been staged, was chosen as the location for the trials, which began in November 1945. On trial were twenty-two men seen as principally responsible for the National Socialist regime, its administration, and the direction of the German armed forces, the Wehrmacht. Among the defendant’s accused of conspiracy, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes were Hermann Goering, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, and Albert Speer. Although many Germans considered the accusation of conspiracy to be on questionable legal grounds, the accusers were successful in unveiling the background of developments that had led to the outbreak of WWII, as well as the extent of the atrocities committed in the name of the Hitler regime. Twelve of the accused were sentenced to death, seven received prison sentences, and three were acquitted. The trails received wide publicity in Germany and throughout the world. Although many Germans maintained that it would have been better if the defendants had faced a German tribunal rather than one imposed by the war’s foreign victors, they agreed that the trials made public much information about the mass murders and other crimes that otherwise might not have come to light. The German people and the rest of the world reacted with horror and dismay to the revelations. The trials of these prominent figures of the Hitler regime were followed by the trials of thousands of lesser offenders. The Allies did not seek merely to punish the leadership of the National Socialist regime, but to purge all elements of National Socialism from public life. One phase of the denazification process dealt with lower-level personnel connected with the Nazi regime, Their pasts were reviewed to determine if the parts they played in the regime were sufficiently grievous their exclusion from roles in a new Germany’s politics or government. Germans with experience in government and not involved in the Nazi regime were needed to cooperate with occupation authorities in the administration of the zones. The process of Denazification was carried out diversely in the various zones. The most elaborate procedures were instituted in the U.S. zone, where investigated individuals were required to complete highly detailed questionnaires concerning their personal history and to appear at hearings before panels of German adjudicators. In the British and the French zones, Denazification was pursed with less vigor because the authorities thought that it was more important to reestablish a functioning bureaucracy in their sectors. Denazification was most rigorous in the Soviet sector. Civil servants, teachers, and legal officials with significant Nazi pasts were thoroughly purged. Denazification was also used as an instrument for seizing the resources of the so-called “class enemy.” Former Nazis who owned factories or estates were denounced and their property confiscated. After participating in the social transformation, some formed Nazis were pardoned and even gained high positions within the new communist ruling class. The Denazification process mandated that simpler cases involving lesser offenders would be tried before more complicated cases involving officials higher up in the Nazi regime. With time, however, prosecution became less sever and the U.S. became more concerned with the Cold War. When Denazification ended in March 1948, the most serious cases had not yet been tried. As a result, numerous former Nazi functionaries escaped justice, much to the regret of many Germans. Harry S Truman who was president, believed in "talking tough" to the Russians when he thought it necessary, but at first he continued Roosevelt's policy of preserving good relations with Stalin. He did not threaten Stalin with using the atomic bomb at the Potsdam Conference in July-August, though he informed him of the successful test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16th. Truman was surprised that Stalin took the news calmly. Of course, like Roosevelt, Truman wanted Soviet cooperation against Japan, because he could not be certain that the atomic bomb would suffice to knock her out of the war. In March 1946, Winston S. Churchill visited the U.S. and made his famous Iron Curtain speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He deplored Soviet domination over Eastern Europe and warned of the Soviet threat to Western Europe. Some quotes from his speech are: “If now the Soviet government tries, by separate action, to build up a pro-Communinst Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious difficulties in the American and British zones, and will give the defeated Germans the power of putting themselves up to auction between the Soviets and the Western democracies. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts--and facts they are--this is certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace…Twice the United States has had to send millions of its young men across the Atlantic to fight the wars. But now we all can find any nation, wherever it may dwell, between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with its Charter. That, I feel, opens a course of policy of very great importance.” Although Churchill's view was shared by some members of the U.S. administration (in February, George F. Kennan proposed that the United States adopt a policy of "containment" toward the USSR in Europe), his speech had a mixed reception. Senator Arthur Kapper of Missouri accused Churchill of trying to secure U.S. support to preserve the British Empire. Bibliography: Alfred, Right. What is Germany, Whitmanhouse Publishing, California, 1985. Word Count: 1944
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