UNDER THE TERMS OF THE SURRENDER DOCUMENT the heads of the German armed services were required to appear in Berlin on May 9 to sign a ratification in the Russian headquarters. The second ceremony was, as we understood it, to symbolize the unity of the Western Allies and the Soviets, to give notice to the Germans and to the world that the surrender was made to all, not merely to the Western Allies.1 For this reason we were directed to withhold news of the first signing until the second could be accomplished.
In order that American and British newsmen could have the full story of the Reims surrender, we invited a number to be present at the ceremony. In accepting the invitation they agreed to withhold publication until the story could be officially given out under the agreements among the Allies. One American reporter published the story before the release hour, which infuriated other newsmen who kept faith. The incident created a considerable furor, but in the outcome no real harm was done, except to other publications.2
The Western Allies were invited and expected to participate in the signing at Berlin, but I felt it inappropriate for me personally to go. The Germans had already appeared in the Allied Headquarters to accomplish their unconditional surrender and I thought the ratification in Berlin should be a Soviet affair. Consequently I designated my deputy, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, to represent me at that ceremony. It was difficult business to make all the detailed arrangements concerning timing, the numbers and classifications of individuals allowed to attend, and the routes to be followed by our planes over Russian-occupied territory. However, these were accomplished and Tedder kept the appointment, accompanied by two or three planeloads of officers, enlisted men, Wacs, and press representatives.3 Some months later I saw in Moscow a movie film portraying the highlights of the Berlin ceremony. No mention was made in the film of the prior surrender at Reims.
My “Victory Order of the Day” looked forward with hope to co-operative solutions of postwar problems. After thanking the troops and the home fronts for their unfailing support I said:
The route you have traveled through hundreds of miles is marked by the graves of former comrades. Each of the fallen died as a member of the team to which you belong, bound together by a common love of liberty and a refusal to submit to enslavement. Our common problems of the immediate and distant future can be best solved in the same conceptions of co-operation and devotion to the cause of human freedom as have made this Expeditionary Force such a mighty engine of righteous destruction.
Let us have no part in the profitless quarrels in which other men will inevitably engage as to what country, what service, won the European war. Every man, every woman, of every nation here represented has served according to his or her ability, and the efforts of each have contributed to the outcome. This we shall remember—and in doing so we shall be revering each honored grave, and be sending comfort to the loved ones of comrades who could not live to see this day.4
We had no local victory celebrations of any kind, then or later. When Jodl signed we merely went to bed for some much-needed rest, to get up the next day and tackle the multitude of tasks that followed upon the cessation of hostilities. Thereafter, however, all our work was done in the satisfying knowledge that the carnage in Europe had ended. Our problems were difficult but we were spared casualty lists.
The most intricate and pressing of our immediate problems was redeployment.
Ever since 1941 the global strategy of the Allies had insisted upon defeat of Germany before undertaking an all-out concerted offensive against the Japanese. The German surrender on May 7 marked the accomplishment of the first and greatest Allied objective.
Now it was time to turn with all speed to the second. Throughout the world Allied forces were released for operations against the oriental end of the Axis. Russia was still officially at peace with the Japanese but, according to the information furnished us, Generalissimo Stalin had told President Roosevelt at Yalta that within three months from the day of the German surrender the Red Army would join in the attack against Japan.
Against divided hostile forces more than one leader of the past has successfully employed mobility and surprise to concentrate his own forces first against one isolated portion of the enemy and, after defeating it, turned with overwhelming power to the destruction of the second. Never before, however, had this simple method of war been applied on a scale broader than continental in scope. But the conception was just as correct globally as it was locally, and the Allied leaders responsible for its application in World War II were not dismayed because the planned redeployment against the second enemy involved the transport of millions of men and unlimited quantities of equipment from Europe halfway around the world to Japan.
Russian redeployment meant the shifting of large forces from west to east over the long Trans-Siberian Railway. Because only the one railroad system was available, that task was laborious and would take time to accomplish. But for the Western Allies the transfer of their European armies and air forces to the Asiatic theater was a stupendous undertaking, involving hundreds of ships operating over sea routes ten thousand miles long.
As early as February 1945 we had begun to develop plans to accomplish this move. There was continuous consultation between members of my staff and the War Department. By V-E Day, schedules, priorities, and organizational preparation were sufficiently advanced for us to begin the mass transfer to the Pacific.
Several factors made still harder a problem that was at best a very complex business. Adequate strength had to be maintained in Europe for the occupation of conquered Germany. The immediately critical requirements in the Asiatic theater were for service units, while our own need for these same units was more acute than ever before if we were speedily to accomplish the shipment of combat divisions to the Far East. Even greater difficulty grew out of our policy of equalizing the burdens of combat service among the millions of individuals in the command.
On the day of the surrender there were, in the great Allied Force, more than 3,000,000 Americans under my command. This force included sixty-one U. S. divisions, all except one of which had participated in actual battle.5
Men with the longest battle service were to be assigned to occupation duty or sent home; others were to go on to the Pacific. Many of our divisions were veterans of eleven months’ continuous fighting, while some, among them the 1st, 3d, 9th, 36th, and 45th Infantry Divisions and the 82d Airborne and 2d Armored Divisions, had entered the war in the Mediterranean campaign. The older ones had fought with only brief interruptions for two and a half years. The 34th Infantry and 1st Armored Divisions, still in the Mediterranean theater, had done likewise.
To make necessary adjustments required wholesale transfers from many of the veteran divisions and the filling up of vacancies by men with shorter battle service. At the same time we had to be extremely careful to preserve the efficiency of units; to have sent to the Pacific whole divisions of near recruits would have been senseless.
The individual soldier’s eligibility for duty or discharge was determined by an elaborate point system, based on credits for length of service, length of time overseas, decorations, parenthood, and age. Application of the system was tedious, but probably no better plan could have been devised to accommodate the conflicting considerations of fairness to the individual and the efficiency of units. An added difficulty arose when the War Department found it advisable to change the “critical point” score. This created additional work, to say nothing of confusion and some discontent.6
Our administrative machine in Europe had to be thrown into reverse. Bases, fields, depots, ports, roads, and railways were geared up to push men and supply forward into the heart of Germany. They had, figuratively, to face about and begin operating in the other direction. Supplies and munitions were scattered throughout western Europe and through much of Italy and northern Africa. These had to be collected, inventoried, packaged, and shipped. Speed was the primary consideration.
So vast and urgent was this single undertaking that we set up a special headquarters with no other responsibility than to guide, supervise, and expedite the movement. That headquarters was formally established on April 9, a full month before the German surrender.7
Because of his unequaled experience in the handling of vast bombing campaigns, General Spaatz was relieved from duty in our theater and sent to the Pacific. An experienced army commander was also desired in the Far East. General Hodges, whose First Army had accomplished its final task in Europe when it reached the Elbe, was selected. He was not only completely competent and experienced but, among our army commanders, could be earliest spared from our theater. He departed from the battle front for the Pacific, by way of the United States, before the surrender date in Europe.
This problem, big as it was, did not by any means comprise the bulk of the work devolving upon the American forces and responsible commanders. With the end of hostilities the Western Allies had to begin making arrangements for breaking up the great combat force into its national elements. The governments had rejected my repeated recommendation that the Western Allies occupy their portion of Germany on a unified basis. My plan was considered politically inexpedient, although I urged that, since occupation would be a residual task of the war and would require armies of the Western Allies for its accomplishment, there could be no reasonable objection to the maintenance, in western Germany, of the same Allied organization that had attained victory. The question was, however, clearly a political one, and our governmental leaders believed that my plan would be subject to unfortunate misinterpretation by the Soviet Union.8
Separation meant that we had to sort out all our complicated and highly integrated staffs, organizations, and procedures in order to meet the new requirements of national administration and responsibility. Almost all French and some British supply depended upon American stocks and facilities. With the anticipated end of Lend-Lease, detailed accounting systems had to be established in order to handle this work on a business instead of a war basis.
Military government had quickly to be installed over the recently overrun sections of Germany. Add to all this the never-ending volume of administrative detail incident to the control of the vast Allied Force in the West and it is easy to understand the remark of an overworked staff officer who said: “I always thought that when the Germans finally surrendered I would celebrate by going on a big binge. Now I’m taking aspirin every day—without the fun of looking back on the binge!”
We were so preoccupied in the daily grind of work that we were largely unaware of the enthusiasms sweeping our own countries.
My own failure to estimate popular reaction was typical of many others. Shortly after the German surrender it occurred to me that 1945 would mark the thirtieth anniversary of the graduation of my classmates and myself from West Point, and I planned a brief and private celebration for those of us who were serving in Europe. I believed that we could fly to the United States, spend one day at West Point’s graduation exercises, and be back on duty in Germany with a total absence of only three days. I thought that by doing this quietly no one in the United States except people at West Point would know about it until we were back again in Frankfurt. I developed a high-pressure enthusiasm for the project and suggested that each of my twenty classmates in Europe should send a secret message to his wife asking her to meet him for a one-day reunion at West Point.
While I was planning to carry out this idea we received word from Washington that, because circumstances prevented American units in Europe from returning to the United States to appear in the traditional parades of victorious troops, General Marshall wanted me to pick representative officers and enlisted men for return in groups of some fifty each, for a short tour of our country. He felt that through these representative celebrations America would have a chance to pay tribute to her fighting men in Europe.
These orders knocked my personal scheme out of the picture. I think that all the men who were selected to go home to participate in the series of celebrations during the month of June 1945 experienced a feeling of amazement and astonishment at the enthusiasm with which they were greeted.
For every man the experience was inspiring and heartwarming. The generosity, cordiality, and hospitality poured out upon those groups by the people of the United States were overpowering. For me, it was a far cry from the modest one-day reunion I had so hopefully planned for a June day at West Point. The interlude was a happy one; but a quick return to the grind of work was inescapable. During the months succeeding V-E Day I went to various European capitals for similar celebrations, among them London, Paris, Brussels, The Hague, and Prague; other invitations I found it impossible to accept. My later visits to Moscow and Warsaw did not involve “victory celebrations.”
At the Moscow Conference attended by Secretary Hull in 1943 it had been agreed among the three principal Allies to establish immediately a European Advisory Commission in London. This body was to begin the study of postwar political problems of Europe and to make appropriate recommendations to the governments.9
Beginning early in 1944, the Commission worked in London and agreed on recommendations for future surrender terms for Germany and upon national zones of occupation, along with machinery for joint control. The United States military adviser to the Commission, Brigadier General Cornelius Wickersham, later became my deputy in organizing the United States group of the Control Council.10
Under the protocols developed by the European Advisory Commission each of the four Allies was to be responsible for the occupation of a portion of Germany and the military government of that country was to be entrusted to a quadripartite council, to be composed of the four military commanders, with a co-ordinating committee to assist them. The control authority was to include, also, groups of officers and civilians with specific missions relating to the disarmament and demobilization of the German armed forces, political and economic affairs, legal, financial, and labor questions, and other activities in military government of a conquered country.11
While SHAEF existed the British and American efforts in military government were combined. The British had established a training school in England similar to ours at Charlottesville, Virginia. The latter school had already furnished the American contingent of the military government organization in Sicily and Italy.
Final training of the officers needed for military government in the American Zone in Germany was conducted in England. We established in SHAEF a general staff division charged with co-ordination of the whole effort. It was headed by Lieutenant General A. E. Grasett, of the British Army, and Brigadier General Julius C. Holmes, of the American Army.12
Our first military government experience in Germany was gained at Aachen before the crossing of the Rhine. This showed us the kind of problem that we were apt to meet later on when the occupation had extended deep into Germany. The situation was new and difficult, and became more acute because of our policy of non-employment of Nazis for any governmental work. In much of our necessary public utility work it was only the local Nazis who had sufficient knowledge to be of assistance. The question at once arose as to whether we should use them or non-Nazis, who knew little or nothing about the particular facility. It was difficult, but as quickly as possible we got rid of party members and trained others for necessary operation of public works, public utilities, sanitary service, posts, telegraphs, and telephones.
The life of a military government officer was never dull. Usually he had been commissioned in the Army because of his administrative or technical background. But with the housekeeping of a whole town or city on his shoulders, the officer had to meet every conceivable kind of problem in human relations, to keep local peace and order while ferreting out those wanted by the Allies for trial, to begin restoration of productive activity while carrying out his share of broad Allied policy as it was given to us from Washington in a document known as JCS/1067.13 He was often forced, in the beginning, to act as a referee in personal feuds. As soon as the Germans learned of our de-Nazification program every complaint by an individual against another was on the basis of “He is a Nazi.” In the chaos of postwar Germany errors were inescapable, and this applied to features of general policy as well as to details of execution by local functionaries. But by and large, the military government group of Americans did a remarkable job—one that reflected their sincerity and intelligence as well as the soundness of their special training.
Lieutenant General Lucius Du B. Clay came to Europe in April 1945 to act as my deputy for the military government of Germany. For a brief period, earlier in the war, he had performed invaluable services in the European theater in our logistics system. From the beginning he agreed with me that a civil agency of government should eventually take over the control of Germany, and his whole organization was definitely separated from the military staff. In this way we were prepared to turn over military government to the State Department with no necessity for complete reorganization.14 General Clay later succeeded General McNarney as American commander in Germany, and always maintained this distinction in organization. More than any other two individuals, Clay and Wickersham deserve credit for the initial establishment of American Military Government in Germany—a performance that, in view of the frustrations, obstacles, divided counsels and responsibilities, and difficulties in postwar Allied co-operation, must be classed as brilliant.
By agreement on the political level, SHAEF went out of existence on July 14. To mark the occasion I sent a final message of thanks and good-by to the entire command. For the first time in three years I ceased to be an Allied commander. Thenceforth my responsibilities were American only.15
My personal staff was now joined by Lieutenant Colonel James Stack. Sergeant major in the 3d Division when I was with it at Fort Lewis, later commissioned and transferred to the Operations Division, where he became executive officer, Colonel Stack had served as my personal representative at the War Department throughout the Mediterranean and European campaigns.
Preliminary agreements for an initial meeting of the Allied Council in Berlin were accomplished with difficulty. Complications included differences in language and laborious methods of communication, the lack of intimate contacts between senior commanders, and the destruction in the city of Berlin which so stringently restricted accommodations. It was not until June 5 that we progressed far enough with all these tortuous negotiations to hold the first formal meeting of the Allied commanders in Berlin.16
The purpose was merely to sign our basic proclamation, a document announcing the formation of the Council and assumption of joint responsibility for the administration of Germany. We thought that the papers in the case had been completely agreed upon before we went to Berlin, but when we reached there we discovered that there were questions which the Russians still considered unsettled.
The meeting was arranged for the middle of the afternoon and before it began I seized the opportunity to call at Marshal Zhukov’s headquarters to present him with the Chief Commander grade of the Legion of Merit, awarded him by the American Government. I thought Marshal Zhukov an affable and soldierly-appearing individual.
When I got back to my own temporary quarters in Berlin I found that there was an unexpected delay in convening the meeting, at which Marshal Zhukov was to act as host. This was annoying, as I had to return to Frankfurt that evening. Through the long afternoon hours we waited, but the English-speaking liaison officer from Zhukov’s headquarters could give us no explanation for the delay. Finally, late in the afternoon, I determined to force the issue. Because I knew that all the documents to be handled had been previously studied and revised by each of the governments concerned, I could see no valid reason for a delay that began to look deliberate. I therefore asked the liaison officer to inform Marshal Zhukov that, much to my regret, I should be forced to return to Frankfurt unless the meeting began within thirty minutes. However, just as the messenger was ready to depart word came that we were expected at the conference room, to which we all instantly repaired. The marshal tendered an explanation for the delay, saying that he had been awaiting final Moscow instructions on an important point. The rest of us accepted the statement in good part and the Berlin Council got off to a start in an atmosphere of friendly cordiality.
The circular conference table was the largest I have ever seen. Each national delegation was assigned a ninety-degree quadrant at the table. The commanders were surrounded by a crowd of military and political assistants, photographers, newsmen, and others who seemed merely to be present. My political adviser was Robert Murphy, of North African days. Mr. Vishinsky, who had attracted considerable publicity some years earlier as the prosecutor in Russian purge trials, was Marshal Zhukov’s first political adviser. There were four copies of each of the documents before us and each copy had to be signed by all four Council members; after some little discussion on minor details of wording the laborious business was completed.17
It then developed that Marshal Zhukov had arranged an elaborate banquet for his guests, but I was not prepared to spend the night in Berlin. Moreover, I had allowed so many people to accompany me to Berlin that there was no possibility of taking care of them in the cramped quarters allotted us. I therefore told Zhukov that I would have to go back to Frankfurt that evening, sufficiently early to land before dark. He asked me to compromise by coming to the banquet hall for a toast and to hear the Red Army choir sing two songs. He promised me a speedy trip through the city to the airfield, saying he would go along himself to see that there was no delay.
Because of the marshal’s hospitable gesture toward his Allies I regretted my inability to stay. The singing of the Red Army chorus was remarkable, and the table was piled with Russian delicacies. Before I left Marshal Zhukov announced that he had just received a message from Moscow instructing him, with the approval of Generalissimo Stalin, to confer upon Field Marshal Montgomery and me the Russian Order of Victory, a Soviet decoration that had never previously been given to a foreigner. The marshal asked me when I should like to have the decoration presented and I invited him to visit my headquarters at Frankfurt for the ceremony. He accepted and I was pleased when Montgomery tactfully suggested that since he had served throughout the European campaign under my command he would also like to receive his decoration in my headquarters.
I invited Zhukov to bring to the ceremony at Frankfurt a number of staff assistants and to stay as long as he pleased, with the assurance of a warm welcome. He replied that he would come on June 10 and would be accompanied by no more than ten staff officers, but could stay for the day only. Consequently I planned a state luncheon for him and his party. Just a few hours before his arrival I received a telegram saying that in addition to the ten staff officers he was bringing five officer bodyguards. An officer bodyguard was a functionary of whom I had never heard and I was somewhat puzzled as to what to do with five at a luncheon. I directed the mess officer to keep his arrangements flexible and said I would let him know what to do after the marshal arrived.
We met Zhukov at the airport with a guard of honor and the United States Army Band, and we then, with an interpreter, got into my car for the trip back to headquarters. I promptly brought up the question of the proper place for officer bodyguards at a luncheon. I told him that he could have them seated immediately around him, standing behind him, or at the far end of the table. When all this was interpreted to him he blurted out: “Please tell the general he can put them wherever he pleases. I brought them along because I was told to do so.” That settled the question of the officer bodyguards very satisfactorily.
The luncheon at Frankfurt was a great success. It was a beautiful summer day and we first took our guests to a large gallery, open to the sky, where wines and pre-luncheon refreshments were served. For this interval we had arranged a parade of a large segment of our Air Force, on the assumption that Marshal Zhukov would consider it a compliment. From nearby fields we brought over hundreds of fighter planes, followed by bombers ranging in size from the lighter types on up to the heaviest equipment we possessed. In the bright sunlight it was a tremendous show and Zhukov seemed much impressed.
Conforming to the Russian custom, as far as we knew it, the luncheon period included a series of toasts. The marshal was an accomplished speaker, or at least he sounded so to us, and the sentiments he expressed through the interpreter were complimentary to the Allies and hopeful of success in our co-operative purposes. Everybody had his turn at offering a toast—British, Americans, Russians, and French. We must have risen to our feet at least a dozen times but I noticed that most of the Americans soon followed my example and filled their glasses with water, colored only sufficiently with red wine to give the drink an appropriate appearance.
The decorations presented to Montgomery and me were among the few I have seen that have great intrinsic rather than exclusively sentimental and symbolic value. Designed in the form of a star, each contains some eighty or ninety diamonds surrounding a group of synthetic rubies, in the center of which is a small enameled representation of the Kremlin.
On the part of Zhukov and his assistants there was discernible only an intense desire to be friendly and co-operative. Looking back on it, that day still seems to have held nothing but bright promise for the establishment of cordial and close relations with the Russians. That promise, eventually lost in suspicion and recrimination, was never to be fulfilled. But so far as the friendly association between Marshal Zhukov and myself was concerned, it continued to grow until the moment I left Europe in November 1945. That friendship was a personal and individual thing and unfortunately was not representative of a general attitude.
From the record of Russian contacts with the Western Allies during the war, Generals Smith, Clay, and I believed in the early summer of 1945 that success in joint government of Germany would be measured almost exclusively by the degree to which the Western Allies, both generally and locally, overcame Russian suspicion and distrust. There was a vast gulf to be bridged between governmental systems, and manifestly it could never be crossed unless, on highest political levels, mutual confidence and trust were achieved. But, assuming that the heads of states would be reasonably successful, a great responsibility still devolved upon us in Berlin. We were in daily and hourly contact with problems on which unanimous agreements had to be reached—and we felt that a record of local achievement would have a happy and definite effect upon the whole question of whether Communism and democracy would find a way to get along together in the same world. Consequently, in personal as well as in official relationships, we spared no pains or trouble to demonstrate good faith, respect, and friendly intent.
At the time, however, the difficult problem of displaced persons pressed more immediately on my attention than my personal relations with the Russians. A displaced person was defined as a civilian outside the national boundaries of his or her country by reason of war, who was desirous but unable to return home or find a home without assistance, or who was to be returned to enemy or ex-enemy territory.18
Hundreds of thousands were quickly evacuated. These were in addition to prisoners of war and were those civilians who had homes somewhere in Europe and desired to return to them at once. We organized camps to take care of these classes temporarily and fed them while we worked out transportation plans.19
But those that we soon came to designate particularly as Displaced Persons, DPs for short, did not include these easily dispersible thousands. The truly unfortunate were those who, for one reason or another, no longer had homes or were “persecutees” who dared not return home for fear of further persecution. The terror felt by this last group was impressed on us by a number of suicides among individuals who preferred to die rather than return to their native lands. In some instances these may have been traitors who rightly feared the punishment they knew to be in store for them. But in many other cases they belonged to the oppressed classes and saw death as a far less terrifying thing than renewed persecution.
The Allies had, on the political level, worked out formulas for distinguishing between displaced persons who were to be returned to their own countries and those who were to be cared for by the occupying powers. These policies and agreements we first tried to apply without deviation, but we quickly saw that their rigid application would often violate the fundamental humanitarian principles we espoused. Thereafter we gave any individual who objected to return the benefit of doubt.20
Of all these DPs the Jews were in the most deplorable condition. For years they had been beaten, starved, and tortured. Even food, clothes, and decent treatment could not immediately enable them to shake off their hopelessness and apathy. They huddled together—they seemingly derived a feeling of safety out of crowding together in a single room—and there passively awaited whatever might befall. To secure for them adequate shelter, to establish a system of food distribution and medical service, to say nothing of providing decent sanitary facilities, heat, and light was a most difficult task. They were, in many instances, no longer capable of helping themselves; everything had to be done for them.21
Other groups of unreturnables included former citizens of the Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—which had been incorporated into the U.S.S.R. Thousands of the Balts we found in western Germany were classified as stateless; they had fled because of a record of opposition to the seizure of their countries and could not return. They were relatively healthy, strong, and quite ready to work to improve their buildings and surroundings. Along with these were also Poles, Ukrainians, Rumanians, Yugoslavs, and others.22
As soon as the news spread about eastern Europe that the Western Allies were treating displaced persons with consideration, additional thousands began seeping into our zones. Facilities were always overcrowded, food could be issued only at a subsistence level, and in spite of everything we could do progress was slow.
As usual, individuals with no responsibility in the matter, their humanitarian impulses outraged by conditions that were frequently beyond help, began carrying to America tales of indifference, negligence, and callousness on the part of the troops. Generally these stories were lies. The thousands of men assigned to the job of rescuing the DPs and organizing relief for them were Americans. They were given every facility and assistance the Army could provide, and they were genuinely concerned in doing their utmost for these unfortunate of the earth. But because perfection could not be achieved some so-called investigators saw a golden chance for personal publicity. They did so at the expense of great numbers of Americans who labored night and day to alleviate the average lot of people who had suffered so much that they seemed at times beyond suffering.
With commanders and members of my staff I made frequent visits to these camps. We would spend hours in each, discovering at first hand what was needed or most desired, and supplying these whenever possible.
In the months since, great improvements have gradually been made; but the problem is not yet solved. Of all the distressing memories that will forever live with American veterans of the war in Europe, none will be sharper or more enduring than those of the DPs and of the horror camps established by the Nazis.
THESE WERE HITLER’S ELITE
“… within eighteen days of the moment the Ruhr was surrounded it had surrendered with an even greater number of prisoners than we had bagged in the final Tunisian collapse …” This page
Nazis Taken Prisoner in the Ruhr Pocket (illustration credit 22.1)
DOUBLE-LOADED FOR HOME
This plan required “one man to sleep in the daytime so that another could have his bunk during the night.… I never afterward heard of a single complaint …” This page
The Queen Elizabeth Brings Them Home (illustration credit 22.2)
The first business meeting of the Berlin Council was held on July 10. Chairmanship of the Council was to rotate monthly and a fine spirit was initially noticeable. Differences of opinion developed but most of these involved details of procedure or method, and in the prevailing co-operative atmosphere none of them seemed to threaten great difficulty.
In early July we received word that the Potsdam Conference would soon convene. Again we had to prepare accommodations and protection for the reception of VIPs (soldiers’ language for Very Important Persons), but in this instance my task was limited to that of receiving and caring for the American delegation only. I went to Antwerp to meet the cruiser on which President Truman and Secretary Byrnes came to Europe. There I had an opportunity to discuss with them a few points which I thought important.
First, I urged that civilian authority take over military government of our portion of Germany at the earliest possible date. I pointed out to the President and the Secretary that, while the Army would obviously have to stay in control until order was assured, the government of individuals in their normal daily lives was not a part of military responsibility. I felt that no matter how efficiently and devotedly the Army might apply itself to this task, misunderstandings would certainly arise. In the long run American concepts and traditions would be best served by the State Department’s assuming over-all responsibility in Germany, using the American Army there merely as an adjunct and supporter of civil authority and policy. In principle both the President and the Secretary emphatically agreed with me and I was encouraged to believe that this development would come about within a period of a few months.23
When I returned to the United States in late 1945 as Chief of Staff of the Army, I continued to urge the wisdom of this move upon Secretary Byrnes, but learned that he had undergone a change of heart. Though always agreed in principle, he would not agree to implement the idea because of the administrative and financial burdens that would thus be placed upon the State Department.
Another item on which I ventured to advise President Truman involved the Soviets’ intention to enter the Japanese war.24 I told him. that since reports indicated the imminence of Japan’s collapse I deprecated the Red Army’s engaging in that war. I foresaw certain difficulties arising out of such participation and suggested that, at the very least, we ought not to put ourselves in the position of requesting or begging for Soviet aid. It was my personal opinion that no power on earth could keep the Red Army out of that war unless victory came before they could get in. However, I did not then foresee the future relentless struggle born in ideological antagonisms, or the paralysis of international co-operation because of that struggle. I merely feared serious administrative complications and possible revival of old Russian claims and purposes in the Far East that might prove very embarrassing to our own country.
A third suggestion I made to the President was that we preserve some flexibility in the termination of Lend-Lease arrangements with the French and British. I was unfamiliar with the exact provisions of the law covering the matter, but I knew that the mere cessation of hostilities did not instantly and appreciably lessen French and British need for quantities of food and supplies from us, upon which they had counted with confidence. I thought that arbitrary and sudden termination of the agreement should be avoided in favor of a scheme that would give those countries a chance for prompt readjustment.
I informed the President of my belief that we should handle the German economy, and particularly the problem of reparations, in such a way as to insure Germans an opportunity to make a living, provided they were ready to work. Of this readiness there was no doubt. From the day we entered Germany the willingness of the ordinary citizen to work from dawn to dark for a meager living was noticeable. Even before we crossed the Rhine, I had seen German women and their children in the fields, under sporadic gunfire, spading the ground and planting seed in order to produce some semblance of a crop that year.
Clay and I were convinced that rehabilitation of the Ruhr was vital to our best interests. Nowhere else in Europe were there coal deposits equal in quality and so easily workable. And already it was apparent that coal would be the key to successful administration of Occupied Germany. Without coal, transportation could not be restored and without transportation the whole country would remain paralyzed. I told the President that unless we emphasized Ruhr rehabilitation Germany would soon be starving. Americans, of course, would never permit even their former enemies to starve and would voluntarily assume the costly task of feeding them. But I thought that this financial burden could be prevented. It appeared to me that if Ruhr coal production were pushed and transportation restored Germany could soon be exporting products of light industry not in any way related to the banned war industries. Payment for these would enable her to buy and import from others enough food stocks to meet inevitable shortages.
At Potsdam, I called several times upon various members of the American delegation, but because the European war was over I did not participate in the conference either as an official witness or as an adviser.
I had a long talk with Secretary Stimson, who told me that very shortly there would be a test in New Mexico of the atomic bomb, which American scientists had finally succeeded in developing. The results of the successful test were soon communicated to the Secretary by cable. He was tremendously relieved, for he had apparently followed the development with intense interest and felt a keen sense of responsibility for the amount of money and resources that had been devoted to it. I expressed the hope that we would never have to use such a thing against any enemy because I disliked seeing the United States take the lead in introducing into war something as horrible and destructive as this new weapon was described to be. Moreover, I mistakenly had some faint hope that if we never used the weapon in war other nations might remain ignorant of the fact that the problem of nuclear fission had been solved. I did not then know, of course, that an army of scientists had been engaged in the production of the weapon and that secrecy in this vital matter could not have been maintained. My views were merely personal and immediate reactions; they were not based upon any analysis of the subject. In any event it was decided that unless Japan surrendered promptly in accordance with the demands communicated to the Japanese Government from Potsdam the plan for using the atomic bomb would be carried out.25
While the President was in Germany he expressed a desire to inspect some American troops. I arranged for him to come into the American area and by good fortune the 84th Division was selected as one of those he was to see. In that division his cousin, Colonel Louis Truman, was chief of staff; and so the meeting was not only a pleasant official experience for the President but held a nice personal touch as well.
One day when the President was riding with General Bradley and me he fell to discussing the future of some of our war leaders. I told him that I had no ambition except to retire to a quiet home and from there do what little I could to help our people understand some of the great changes the war had brought to the world and the inescapable responsibilities that would devolve upon us all as a result of those changes. I shall never forget the President’s answer. Up to that time I had met him casually on only two or three occasions. I had breakfasted with him informally and had found him sincere, earnest, and a most pleasant person with whom to deal. Now, in the car, he suddenly turned toward me and said: “General, there is nothing that you may want that I won’t try to help you get. That definitely and specifically includes the presidency in 1948.”
I doubt that any soldier of our country was ever so suddenly struck in his emotional vitals by a President with such an apparently sincere and certainly astounding proposition as this. Now and then, in conversations with friends, jocular suggestions had previously been made to me about a possible political career. My reaction was always instant repudiation, but to have the President suddenly throw this broadside into me left me no recourse except to treat it as a very splendid joke, which I hoped it was. I laughed heartily and said: “Mr. President, I don’t know who will be your opponent for the presidency, but it will not be I.” There was no doubt about my seriousness.
The co-operative note, on the international political level, which marked the end of the Potsdam Conference was echoed on the levels of military administration. In all our dealings with the Russian authorities in Berlin we were particularly careful to carry out to the letter every commitment and engagement, even where these were only implied or understood. During the months of August, September, and October there prevailed, locally, a general attitude that encouraged us to believe that eventual full success was possible. This does not imply an absence of annoying details. On the contrary, there were many occasions when patience wore thin in the attempt to achieve the unanimous agreements necessary to progress of any kind. Normally the British and ourselves were in general agreement, although naturally we had occasional sharp differences. With the French we always differed on the basic question of centralized German government—we on the affirmative and the French on the negative. But with the Soviet authorities, in addition to the same occasional basic differences, there seemed to be an unending stream of paltry details to provide reason or excuse for complaint and consequent explanation.
One of the subjects concerning which the Soviet authorities wrote us frequent letters of complaint was what they claimed to be unauthorized flights of American airplanes over Russian-occupied Germany. For flights in and out of Berlin the Russians had allotted us a narrow corridor, within the limits of which all our planes were supposed to stay. Often a new pilot, unfamiliar with the country, got slightly outside the established boundaries; and in cloudy weather even the most experienced pilot might violate the agreement, technically and temporarily. Periodically the Russians submitted to us a detailed list of these alleged violations, in such numbers that specific investigation was completely futile.
All we could do was urge all air units to be careful in this regard, but finally I went to Marshal Zhukov and told him that I thought these inconsequential and unintentional violations were far too petty to engage the constant attention of us both. I remarked that in each case he had to write a letter, which I then had laboriously to answer. He instantly agreed that they were minor matters and should not take up our time, but he explained that all these violations were reported to Moscow by the Russian anti-aircraft organization. This organization, he said, was separate from the other ground forces, and not under his command. When these reports reached the capital they were sent back to him and he was then required to ask for a reply from me. It seemed an astonishing sort of system but somewhat in line with what we considered to be the Russian practice of overcentralization. In any event I told Marshal Zhukov to keep sending the letters and that I would keep sending him the same stereotyped replies. He said that was quite satisfactory.
We encouraged the exchange of social visits, particularly between Americans and Russians, and these affairs seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed by both sides. The Russians love entertainment and genuinely appreciate any kind of music; so the jokes, companionship, and the orchestras at a dinner made all these occasions successful.
We learned another lesson when at the Council of Foreign Ministers in London sharp official differences reportedly developed between Secretary Byrnes and Mr. Molotov. Instantly a strained and stiff attitude became apparent among the Russians in Berlin. Red Army officers who had already accepted dinner invitations from Americans either sent their regrets or failed to keep the engagement. Formerly pleasant faces clouded up; it seemed that no Russian was any longer allowed to smile at, or talk pleasantly with, an American. This lasted for some days, but then, just as mysteriously as it had begun, it completely disappeared. However, its occurrence did not affect Marshal Zhukov and me. We continued our friendly association and conducted our business on that basis.
During those months of the summer and early fall I maintained contacts and friendships with many of my British wartime associates. The British War Office allowed me to keep, until the last of August, my personal British military assistant, Colonel James Gault. He was a devoted, loyal, and efficient officer who for more than two years daily took on his own shoulders a multitude of detailed, sometimes exasperating problems which otherwise would have fallen to me.
Another Briton, with whom I still had occasional conferences and who had been a stalwart support in the most trying days of war, was General Sir Hastings Ismay. One of the prominent military figures in Great Britain, he was the immediate associate of Mr. Churchill in the latter’s capacity as Defense Minister. Ismay’s position as head of the secretarial staff to the War Cabinet and the British Chiefs of Staff was, from the American point of view, a critical one because it was through him that any subject could at any moment be brought to the attention of the Prime Minister and his principal assistants. It was fortunate, therefore, that he was devoted to the principle of Allied unity and that his personality was such as to win the confidence and friendship of his American associates. He was one of those men whose great ability condemned him throughout the war to a staff position. Consequently his name may be forgotten; but the contributions he made to the winning of the war were equal to those of many whose names became household words.
When Mr. Churchill’s political party was defeated in the British summer elections of 1945 and he ceased to be Prime Minister he decided to go on a short vacation. He had withstood well the wear and tear of his great responsibilities throughout the war years, but now, with official responsibilities ended, Mr. Churchill wanted and needed a short rest. I was pleased and honored that he asked me to put him up; his suggestion implied that he felt for me some little fraction of the great respect, affection, and admiration I had developed for him. I made arrangements for his vacation in one of the pleasantest parts of our theater. I have always felt myself fortunate that I could, as his personal host for a few days, repay in a small way part of the debt I owe him for staunch support and unwavering courtesy, to say nothing of personal hospitality.
I sometimes saw Field Marshal Brooke, General Frederick Morgan, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, Sir Andrew Cunningham, Field Marshal Montgomery, and others of the British service heads and high commanders with whom I had served during the war. All were my good friends. Strangely enough our conversations rarely turned backward, in the habit of old soldiers, to incidents of the war. Even then we seemed to sense that the future problems of peace would overshadow even the great difficulties we had to surmount during hostilities. Consequently our talk nearly always dealt with the probabilities of the future: particularly the prospects for establishing clear and mutually observed understandings between the Western Allies and the Soviets.
During those months we had also at our headquarters a constant stream of visitors from the United States. Among these were congressional committees and various official and semiofficial bodies gathering material on the conduct of the war or informing themselves as to details of current administration. These visitors we were always delighted to have. We gave them every needed facility for the conduct of their investigations and explorations, and opened up to them every kind of information in our possession. They, on their part, always brought us news of the homeland, and frequently were good enough to carry personal letters from families at home to members of the command. This, in particular, was a distinct kindness on their part, for letters sent through them would take only one or two days for delivery, whereas in the ordinary mail, because of its volume, two or three weeks were sometimes required.