Read The Bitter Road to Freedom: The Human Cost of Allied Victory in World War II Europe Online
Authors: William I. Hitchcock
The Expulsion of the German Population, 62.
Andreas-Friedrich, Battleground Berlin: Diaries, 1945–1948, trans. by Anna Boerresen (New York: Para- gon, 1990), 16–17.
The question of how to integrate the Russian con- quest of eastern Germany, and the suffering it caused,
into a broader history of Germany during the Third Reich has long been a controversial subject for Ger- man historians, and indeed lay at the center of a long- running debate in German intellectual circles that has been termed the Historikerstreit, or “historian’s quar- rel.” See Richard Evans, In Hitler’s Shadow (New York: Pantheon, 1989).
Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City, translated by Philip Boehm (New York: Henry Holt, 2005), 61.
5: A Strange, Enemy Country
“Directive to Supreme Commander, Allied Expedi- tionary Force, Regarding the Military Government of Germany in the Period Immediately Following the Ces- sation of Organized Resistance,” September 22, 1945, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS]: The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945 (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, 1955). In relaying similar or- ders to his deputies in the field, Eisenhower restated the phrase even more precisely: “Germany will always be treated as a defeated country and not as a liberated one.” SHAEF Chief of Staff to Headquarters, 21st Army Group, 12th Army Group, 6th Army Group, November 9, 1944, NARA RG 84, Office of U.S. Political Adviser to
Germany, box 34.
Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York: Macmillan, 1948), 1621. This was in a memo to Hull on October 20, 1944.
Michael Beschloss, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Tru- man, and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941– 1945 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 85–86.
August 26, 1944, memorandum from Roosevelt to Stimson, in Morgenthau Diary (Germany), vol. 1 (Wash- ington, D.C.: Senate Judiciary Committee, 1967), 445.
Summary of Morgenthau Plan, in Henry Morgen- thau, Jr., Germany Is Our Problem (New York: Harper
& Brothers, 1945), frontispiece. For a detailed account of the origins and fate of the Morgenthau plan, see Bes- chloss, The Conquerors, and for the details of the Que- bec meetings especially, see 113–35. For the Churchill- Roosevelt agreement, see Morgenthau Diary, 620–21.
The American official history of the postwar occu- pation of Germany saw the Morgenthau plan as full of “black retribution,” and suggested that Morgenthau’s ideas were discredited early on: Earl Ziemke, The US Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944–1946 (Wash- ington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1975), 103. The
Senate Judiciary Committee, investigating the nefari- ous pro- Soviet activities of Morgenthau’s aide Harry Dexter White, believed the plan was in fact a Soviet- inspired plot to drive the German people into the arms of the Russians by destroying western Germany. See Anthony Kubek’s introduction to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s edition of Morgenthau Diary, 1–81.
In his memorandum to the president that sought to offer an alternative to Morgenthau, Secretary of State Hull had no trouble calling for demilitarization, de- nazification, and such economic dismantling and re- movals as would “eliminate permanently German eco- nomic domination of Europe.” To these ends, he called for factories to be destroyed and wanted to “eliminate [German] self-sufficiency by imposing reforms that would make Germany dependent upon world mar- kets.” Hull also sought controls over foreign trade and key industries, and the redistribution of wealth of large landowners and industrialists. No one could have claimed Hull wanted a “soft” peace. Hull, Mem- oirs, 1618–19; FRUS, Malta and Yalta, Hull to Roosevelt, September 29, 1944, 156–58. For JCS 1067, September 22, 1944, FRUS, Malta and Yalta, 143–54.
presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16456.
Memorandum for the President, November 10, 1944; and Memorandum of Conversation, November 15, 1944, FRUS, Malta and Yalta, 170–71.
FRUS, Malta and Yalta, “President’s Log at Yalta,” 550; Roosevelt- Stalin Meeting, February 4, 1945, 571.
FRUS, Malta and Yalta, Second Plenary Meeting, February 5, Bohlen minutes, 614, and Matthews min- utes, 632.
Report of the Crimea Conference, February 12, 1945, FRUS, Malta and Yalta, 970–71.
The President’s Log at Yalta, FRUS, Malta and Yalta, 560.
Pocket Guide to Germany (Army Information Branch, United States Army, 1944).
Germany: The British Soldier’s Pocketbook, fac- simile of the 1944 pocket guide (Kew: British National Archives, 2006).
“Conduct of Allied Troops and German Character- istics in Defeat,” from SHAEF G-1 Division, August 18,
1944, NARA, RG 331, SHAEF Headquarters, Entry 2, box
113. This memorandum was adopted as official policy by Eisenhower on September 12, 1944, and appeared in almost identical form as Chapter XIV, “Policy on Re- lations between Allied occupying forces and inhabit- ants of Germany,” in the Handbook Governing Policy and Procedure for the Military Occupation of Germany, April 1945, NARA RG 331, Entry 2, box 116. Eisenhower comment in letter from Major General J. F. M. Whiteley, D/A C of S, G-3, to A C of S, G-1, “Operation Talisman,” September 9, 1944, NARA, RG 331, Entry 6, box 12.
Eisenhower to Bradley, September 17, 1944, NARA, RG 331, SHAEF Headquarters, Entry 2, box 113; Chief of Staff Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, signed by Eisenhower, to Allen, NARA RG 331, SHAEF Headquarters, Entry 6, box 12.
Drew Middleton, “Into Germany with the First Army,” New York Times Magazine, October 8, 1944, and “ The Great German Alibi in the Making,” New York Times Magazine, November 5, 1944.
“Das Deutsches Volk,” April 1945, in Martha Gell- horn, The Face of War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988), 162.
Clifton Daniel, “If You Should Meet a German,” New York Times Magazine, December 10, 1944; see also Ziemke, US Army in the Occupation, 138–39.
SHAEF G-1, “Non-Fraternization Spot Announce- ments,” March 29, 1945, NARA RG 331, Entry 6, box 12.
Stephen Spender, European Witness (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946), 14–15.
Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, Au- gust 20, 1940, reprinted in Winston S. Churchill, ed., Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speech- es (New York: Hyperion, 2003), 245.
Arthur Harris, Bomber Offensive (New York: Mac- millan, 1947), 88. Harris showed no remorse in his memoir. He believed that the results of the bombing campaign fully justified his wartime strategy, arguing that the bombing campaign made a decisive contribu- tion to the Allied victory by significantly eroding the German economy, communications, transportation, coal, oil and steel production, as well as the morale of the citizens and soldiers. He believed the bombing of Germany helped to shorten the war, and so saved the lives of Allied soldiers, and he claimed that bombing was no more morally despicable than any number of
acts of war that target civilians: siege warfare or naval blockades, for example, which kill through economic strangulation. For a recent indictment of Harris’s view and a summary of the moral case against bombing, see A. C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Ger- many and Japan (New York: Walker & Co., 2006).
The RAF and USAAF dropped 1.2 million tons of bombs on Germany during the war. The RAF dropped 955,044 tons, and the Eighth U.S. Air Force dropped 332,904. “Strategic Air Offensive,” in I. C. B. Dear, ed., Oxford Companion to World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), table on 1070–71.
Summary Report, September 30, 1945, as reprinted in David MacIsaac, United States Strategic Bombing Survey, vol. 1 (New York: Garland, 1976), 1–18.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey, “ The Effect of Bombing on Health and Medical Care in Germany,” January 1947.
The Dresden attack, though only one of numerous air attacks that killed tens of thousands, has generated particular controversy because of the intensity of the firestorm, the large numbers of casualties, and the lack
of significant military value of the target. Yet the debate rages. For an excellent overview of the debate, see Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang, eds., Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 (Chicago: Ivan Dee, 2006).
“Civilians in Cologne,” Times, March 7, 1945; “Ef- fectiveness of RAF Bombing,” Times, March 13, 1945.
Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s Six Great De- cisions (New York: Longman, Green & Co., 1956), 138; Sidney Olson, “Mission Accomplished,” Time, March 19, 1945; “Dead German Cities,” Times, April 20, 1945; “ Today in the Ruhr,” Times, April 28, 1945; Ben Hibbs, “Journey to a Shattered World,” Saturday Evening Post, June 9, 1945.
Time, “ Vanishing Points,” April 2, 1945.
“Frankfurt in Ruins,” Times, March 31, 1945; Per- cy Knauth in “Letter from the Editor,” Time, April 9, 1945.
“ The Battered Face of Germany,” Life, June 4, 1945; Richard J. H. Johnston, “Nazi Shrine City Now Hideous Spot,” New York Times, April 22, 1945.
Cornelia Stabler Gillam, letter dated June 20, 1945, to her family, American Friends Service Committee re-
cords, Philadelphia, Foreign Service/1945/Germany, box 2.
Ernest O. Hauser, “ Tame Germans are Headaches, Too,” Saturday Evening Post, June 2, 1945.
NARA, RG 331, SHAEF G-5 Division, Entry 47, box 29, Weekly Field Reports for weeks ending April 14, April 21, May 5, May 26, June 30, 1945; and RG 338, Re- cords of U.S. Army Commands, Headquarters Third
U.S. Army, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, box 6, weekly intelligence reports for weeks ending July 25, August 1, 1945.
Saul K. Padover, Experiment in Germany: The Story of an American Intelligence Officer (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1946), 297.
U.S. Army, Judge Advocate General, European The- ater of Operations, History Branch Office of the JAG with the United States Forces European Theater, 18 July 1942–1 November 1945, vol. 1 (1946), 242–49. For further discussion, see John Willoughby, “ The Sexual Behav- ior of American GIs during the Early Years of the Oc- cupation of Germany,” Journal of Military History 62, 1 (January 1998), 155–74.
Text of censored article, March 14, 1945, in NARA RG
331, Entry 6, box 12.
Memorandum titled “Fraternization between Ger- mans and American officers and men,” Major Arthur Goodfriend, no date but written in late fall 1944, NARA RG 331, Entry 6, box 12. This memo is also discussed in Ziemke, The US Army in the Occupation of Germany, 142–43; and in Petra Goedde, GIs and Germans: Culture, Gender and Foreign Relations, 1945–1949 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003), 58–59.
Padover, Experiment in Germany, 263.
Goedde, GIs and Germans, 91; Harold Zink, The United States in Germany, 1944–1955 (Princeton, N. J.:
D. van Nostrand Co. 1957), 132–40.
Franklin M. Davis, Come as a Conqueror: The Unit- ed States Army’s Occupation of Germany, 1945–1949 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 138–39; Oliver J. Freder- iksen, The American Military Occupation of Germany, 1945–1953 (Historical Division, U.S. Army, Europe, 1953), 115–17.
“ US Fraternization Rule Faces a Show-Down,” Her- ald Tribune, May 15, 1945; for figures, Medical Depart- ment, U.S. Army, Preventive Medicine in World War II, vol. 5, Communicable Diseases (Washington, D.C.:
Department of the Army, 1960), 250–66; 324–29; “Fly Penicillin from US to Germany,” News of Germany, No- vember 17, 1945.
Eisenhower to Marshall, June 2, 1945, and Marshall to Eisenhower, June 4, 1945, NARA RG 331, Entry 6, box 12.
Sunday Express, “ The order is broken every hour,” June 3, 1945; “British Troops Flout Rule,” New York Times, June 5, 1945.
Drew Middleton, “Officers Oppose Fraternizing Ban,” New York Times, June 25, 1945; Percy Knauth, “Fraternization,” Life, July 2, 1945; “German Girls,” Life, July 23, 1945.
Joe Weston, “Ban Lifted,” Time, July 30, 1945.
“It’s Got to Work,” Time, June 25, 1945.
USSBS, NARA RG 243, 64b, interview numbers 62442, 62400, 62339, 62148, 62149, 62146, 62135, 62046, 61850.
USSBS, NARA RG 243, 64b, interview numbers 62032, 62011, 62007.
USSBS, NARA RG 243, 64b, interview numbers 61989, 62147, 62136, 62007. The interview with the twenty-six-year-old from Darmstadt was unnum- bered.
USSBS, NARA RG 243, 64b, interview numbers 62143, 62032, 61945, 62893.
Tania Long, “Pro- German Attitude Grows as US Troops Fraternize,” New York Times, September 29, 1945. Newsweek thought fraternization had opened the GI to appeals from Germans: “Do the Fräuleins Change Our Joe?” Newsweek, December 24, 1945. A critical as- sessment of American tolerance for the Germans was offered by a recently returned veteran, Robert Engler, “ The Individual Soldier and the Occupation,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sci- ence 267 (Jan. 1950), 77–86.
“Report on the Tripartite Conference of Berlin (Pots- dam), July 17–August 2, 1945,” in Documents of Germa- ny under Occupation, 1945–1954, ed. Beate Ruhm von Oppen (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 40–50.
Lucius D. Clay, Decision in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950), 67; Zink, United States in Ger- many, 157–60.
Ziemke, The US Army in the Occupation of Ger- many, 446. The Patton affair was reported by Raymond Daniell in the New York Times: “Nazis Still Hold Key Jobs in Reich,” Sept. 20, 1945; “Denazification Hit by US Officers,” Sept. 21, 1945; “Patton Belittles Denazifi- cation,” Sept. 23, 1945; “Patton Alters Stand on Nazis,” Sept. 26, 1945; for detailed critiques of the denazifica- tion program, see William E. Griffith, “Denazification in the United States Zone of Germany,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 267 (Jan. 1950), 68–76; Joseph F. Napoli, a former military government official, “Denazification from an American Viewpoint,” Annals of the American Academy of Politi- cal and Social Science, 264 (Jul. 1949), 115–23; John H. Herz, “ The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany,” Po- litical Science Quarterly 63, 4 (Dec. 1948), 569–94.
News of Germany, July 19, August 2, August 21, Au- gust 30, September 11, September 13, November 17, De- cember 13, 1945.
Eisenhower speech of August 6, 1945, in Military Government, Weekly Information Bulletin no. 3, August 11, 1945, G-5 Division, U.S. Forces, European Theater.
F. S. V. Donnison, Civil Affairs and Military Govern- ment, Northwest Europe, 1944–46 (London: HMSO,
1961), 328–39; “Montgomery on Future of Germany,” Times, November 11, 1945; “Organizing against the Rig- ors of Winter,” Times, November 26, 1945.
Graham A. Cosmas and Albert E. Cowdrey, Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations (Wash- ington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1992), 587–88.
Military Government, Weekly Information Bulletin no. 5, August 25, 1945, G-5 Division, U.S. Forces, Euro- pean Theater.
Stuttgarter Zeitung, November 14, 1945; and the