From Disarmament to Rearmament

The Reversal of US Policy toward West Germany, 1946–1955

Sheldon A. Goldberg

• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780821446225
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

At the end of World War II, the Allies were unanimous in their determination to disarm the former aggressor Germany. As the Cold War intensified, however, the decision whether to reverse that policy and to rearm West Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet threat led to disagreements both within the US government and among members of the nascent NATO alliance. The US military took the practical view that a substantial number of German troops would be required to deter any potential Soviet assault. The State Department, on the other hand, initially advocated an alternative strategy of strengthening European institutions but eventually came around to the military's position that an armed West Germany was preferable to a weak state on the dividing line between the Western democracies and the Soviet satellite states.

Sheldon A. Goldberg traces the military, diplomatic, and political threads of postwar policy toward West Germany and provides insights into the inner workings of alliance building and the roles of bureaucrats and military officers as well as those of diplomats and statesmen. He draws on previously unexamined primary sources to construct a cogent account of the political and diplomatic negotiations that led to West Germany's accession to NATO and the shaping of European order for the next forty years.

1

Operation Eclipse

The idea to disarm, demobilize, and demilitarize Germany was first enunciated in the Atlantic Charter of 14 August 1941, and began to take concrete form in May of 1943 when the Combined Chiefs of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (designate; COSSAC), under Lieutenant General Sir Frederick E. Morgan, were charged by the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) to plan, among other things, for the occupation of Germany in the event of a sudden German collapse.¹

This plan, originally called Operation Rankin and then Operation Talisman before it became Operation Eclipse, was two years in the making, and this chapter, which relates its history, also serves to establish a starting point from which to view the underlying theme of this book—the rearming of the Federal Republic of Germany—and the problems encountered by the United States as a result of reversing a long-standing policy to keep the Germans disarmed for decades. This chapter also speaks to the lack of government guidance given to US military forces as they prepared to occupy Germany and, to a lesser extent, the belated and misguided plans and preparations the government had for the occupation without a full understanding of what the occupation would entail.

The total demilitarization of Germany became a major undertaking requiring the development of agreed-upon guidance, policy directives, manpower, and time. Plans were developed at various levels and in various agencies on both sides of the Atlantic, which were embroiled in interdepartmental rivalries and tensions. Furthermore, they had also been left to act in the absence of authoritative guidance and, in the case of the United States, presidential decisiveness. During the Roosevelt administration, for example, decision-making was unstructured and interdepartmental coordination was both informal and haphazard. Additionally, the State Department had lost the president’s confidence and its influence waned while the military assumed considerable prestige.²

Two months later, in July 1943, the British War Cabinet revised its 1942 organization to create a posthostilities subcommittee under COSSAC to tackle the question of how Germany was to be treated after victory was achieved. The purpose of this new committee was “confined to the consideration of drafts for instruments to conclude hostilities and to enforce compliance with armistice or surrender terms.”³ It assigned Colonel T. N. Grazebrook to head the subcommittee and tasked it to “prepare drafts of documents . . . required in connection with the formal suspension of hostilities . . . and to submit plans for the enforcement of such instruments by armistice and disarmament commissions.”⁴

In December 1943, a British government report entitled Occupation of Germany outlined the cases for and against total occupation and asked whether it was necessary. The report specified that one of the United Nations’ (UN) objectives upon cessation of hostilities should be the “rapid and total disarmament of Germany and the breakup of the German military machine.” It made the case that the situation that existed following World War I should not again be tolerated and that sufficient armed forces should be distributed throughout Germany to prevent the delay in and difficulty enforcing the terms of surrender in the Versailles Treaty. The point was further made that the sooner Germany was disarmed, the sooner the work of reconstruction could begin. The authors believed it would take two years after the war ended to complete the total disarmament of Germany and the destruction of its armaments industries.

To ensure that the post–World War I scenario would not be repeated, the British proposed that eleven divisions of land forces, seven regiments of armored cars plus the necessary nondivisional units—a total of 310,000 personnel—supervise the first two years of the posthostilities period. To back this force up, twenty-eight air force squadrons, to include light and fighter-bombers as well as reconnaissance aircraft, would be needed.⁵ The assumptions made in the report show the level of distrust the British had for Germany, as well as British fears that a resurgent Germany would somehow find a way to circumvent the disarmament regime that would be imposed upon it.

The British also believed that once the Allies entered Germany they would find a significant amount of civil disorder as well as large numbers of German troops who would need to be disarmed, hence the need for the large number of ground forces. The report also indicates that the presence of a large Allied air force as well as occasional mass formation flights would have a considerable effect on German morale by reminding the Germans that they had been defeated.⁶

It was not until 1944, however, that the broader concepts of occupation began to be reflected in Allied planning. With the establishment of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) under General Dwight D. Eisenhower in January 1944, the disarmament and demilitarization issue became the responsibility of the deputy chief of staff for operations (G-3), Major General Harold R. Bull (US), and, following the cessation of hostilities, the deputy chief of staff for civil affairs (G-5, Civil Affairs Division), Lieutenant General A. E. Grasset (UK).⁷ What little direction SHAEF could get came from the US War Department, the British War Office, and the joint European Advisory Commission (EAC) established by the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers in October 1943.⁸ It was, however, in the posthostilities subcommittee under Colonel Grazebrook, now part of SHAEF’s Operations Division (G-3), that many of the most important demilitarization staff studies and memoranda were developed.

Among the various agencies responsible for formulating presurrender and postwar policy for Germany, those in Washington were slowest to recognize the need for postwar planning and most severely plagued by serious divisions and fundamental differences in outlook. The Working Security Committee (WSC), composed of war, navy, and state department representatives, was created in December 1943, but agreement on the function of the committee was never really reached. In addition, the perspectives of the state and war departments regarding the tasks to be performed by Allied military forces during the occupation were greatly at odds with one another and began long before the war in Europe ended. In fact, until 1948, the State Department maintained liaison with the War Department on German issues through an “Occupied Areas” office, as it did not have a German division.⁹

As an example, when the EAC held its first meeting in January 1944, three months after it was formed, Ambassador John G. Winant, the US representative, had yet to receive any guidance from Washington concerning the main task of the meeting (i.e., preparing surrender terms for Germany). Furthermore, according to Winant’s biographer, the ambassador received only one policy directive with authoritative clearances between March and October 1944. During this period, Winant sent his political advisor, George F. Kennan, to Washington to seek guidance, to no avail, and in July 1944, Winant’s military advisor, Brigadier General Cornelius W. Wickersham, also personally appealed to the WSC for policy guidance with little apparent success. Washington’s failure to provide guidance was also felt by Eisenhower, who, following the entry of US combat forces into Germany in September 1944, urgently requested guidance from Washington regarding the control and occupation of Germany.¹⁰ The infighting within the WSC precluded any effective communication or coordination until early March 1944.¹¹

It appears that the multiplicity of agencies, both military and civilian, in the United States and Great Britain made the posthostilities planning process thorough and extremely broad in its coverage, but also overly bureaucratic, cumbersome and, to some degree, duplicative. From the end of the war in Europe until the USSR walked out of the Allied Control Council (ACC) in 1948, the disarmament and demilitarization process was increasingly encumbered by political obstacles that left many tasks unresolved. Thus, as will be seen, it was left to SHAEF to formulate the plans that would permit Eisenhower to carry out the tasks required to disarm German soldiers, disband and demobilize Germany’s armed forces, dispose of German war matériel, and begin the process of demilitarizing Germany.

Initial Thoughts on Disarming Germany

In late November 1943, using the initial posthostilities plan Operation Rankin Case C,¹² COSSAC drafted an initial study that provided suggestions for the composition of the disarmament detachments that would supervise the process to be effected by the German High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH). This was, of course, predicated on the belief that German troops remained subject to the discipline of the OKH. The proposed disarmament detachments were to be small and consist only of the personnel needed to communicate the orders of the Allied High Command and supervise their observance. A follow-up study highlighted several areas of concern, such as the guarding of dumps and the responsibility for disarming the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and Navy (Kriegsmarine). It was also brought up that as the naval ports and facilities were on land, creating points of contact with land forces, they should not be the unilateral responsibility of the Admiralty.¹³

On 23 December 1943, the first full draft of COSSAC’s disarmament study was forwarded to general staff officers (GSOs 1) for review. Its objective outlined the steps to be taken by the supreme commander to enforce disarmament of the German Army in his area of responsibility (AOR) between the time of the envisioned armistice and the transfer of responsibility to a disarmament commission. The scope of this paper covered German forces outside Germany, German forces in transit over the frontiers of Germany, and German forces in Germany. Contrary to the initial study, it stated that naval disarmament was an Admiralty responsibility and thus would not be considered in the paper.¹⁴

The draft disarmament study also indicated that the posthostilities subcommittee was drafting a paper on the composition and functions of a European disarmament commission for consideration by the COSSAC and, upon approval by the British government, submission to the EAC. That said, the study postulated that the supreme commander, Allied Forces (SCAF) would be responsible for the complete disarmament of the German armed forces until the transfer of responsibility to the disarmament commission took place—a period expected to be approximately two months. It absolved the SCAF of any responsibility for the disbanding of the German armed forces or the dismantling and destruction of German fortifications and similar works.

Among the several main considerations in this paper was the admonition that disarmament was to be immediate and that no German should be allowed to enter Germany bearing arms. Citing the circumstances that followed World War I, the paper stated that “after the last war it was possible for the Germans to pretend that the German Army had never been beaten in the field because it returned to Germany still bearing its arms. This is another mistake which must not be repeated.”¹⁵ It also reminded its readers that the German Army had been able to hinder the effectiveness of the Military Control Commission after the last war, which was why total disarmament needed to be carried out immediately after the armistice, without exceptions. By 1 January 1944, the second draft of this study had grown in size and detail, adding sections for action by the air commander in chief as well as ground and air force commanders.

An unofficial assessment of this disarmament issue by the land forces subcommittee estimated that the British alone would need to provide 270 officers and 1,300 other ranks to man the necessary disarmament detachments, both fixed and mobile. Aside from the security of dumps, depots, and stores of war matériel, two key concerns were that it would prove difficult for Allied forces to enter Germany fast enough to ensure the rapid disarmament of the German forces already inside Germany, and that their ability to supervise the expected millions of disarmed German soldiers found in barracks and camps both inside and outside Germany would be insufficient.¹⁶ That said, the British appear to have believed that creating new staff for disarmament at this time was a waste of already scarce manpower. Instead, it was decided that a number of personnel from the Staff Duties Section would form the nucleus of a disarmament staff until Rankin C conditions were obtained. Colonel Grazebrook was named to undertake this task.¹⁷

German evasions of the terms of the Versailles Treaty and their protestations that the war had not been lost were themes repeated both in Washington and London. According to the terms of the World War I armistice, the Germans were required to evacuate German-occupied territories on the Western Front within two weeks. Any troops remaining in these areas were to be interned or taken as prisoners of war (POWs). Allied forces were to occupy the left bank of the Rhine within a month, and a neutral zone was to be established on the right bank. In terms of military equipment, the Germans were to turn over to the Allies 5,000 artillery pieces, 30,000 machine guns, 3,000 trench mortars, 2,000 aircraft, 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 railway wagons, 5,000 trucks and its entire submarine fleet. The majority of Germany’s surface naval fleet was interned; the remainder was to be disbanded.¹⁸

A memo by a prominent German lawyer who had fled to the United States and joined the US Army, prepared for Major General John H. Hilldring, chief of the newly formed Civil Affairs Division in the War Department, and written from personal knowledge, stated that when the armistice was signed in 1918, it was signed “at Compiegne at a time when the German armies were holding in Russia, Turkey, the Balkans, Belgium and France. The German soldier did not realize he was defeated. . . . After the proclamation of the Armistice the German troops going back through France and Belgium gave the appearance of well-organized fighting units. They had observed good marching discipline, and were fully equipped with rifles, machine guns and cannons. Their flags were flying and their bands were playing.”¹⁹

On 14 January 1944, Major General C. A. West (UK), deputy chief of staff (G-3), highlighted in a COSSAC memo the fact th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• Introduction
• 1. Operation Eclipse
• 2. The Diplomatic Path to 12 September 1950
• 3. The Military Path to 12 September 1950
• 4. From EDF to EDC to NATO
• 5. 1954–55: EDC Defeated, “German Problem” Solved
• Epilogue: The Role of the Three US Military Services
• Appendix A: The European Advisory Commission (EAC)
• Appendix B: Operation Eclipse Memoranda
• Appendix C: Eradication of Nazism and Militarism
• Appendix D: US-Approved Draft Directives of the US Joint Advisors to the US Representative to the European Advisory Commission
• Appendix E: The Himmerod Conference and the Bonn Report
• Appendix F: Acheson’s “Single Package”
• Appendix G: The Great Debate
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index