In late December, Colonel William Whipple, chief of the SHAEF Logistics Plans Branch, wrote to SHAEF’s assistant chief of staff (G-4) to inform him that the second running of the disarmament school would end on 30 December and that present plans called for it to be disbanded. Whipple continued that a study undertaken by Colonel Karl F. Hausauer, chief of the Logistics Plans Branch, Post-Hostilities Section, and the 12th Army Group’s operations and logistics staffs saw a need for a third course. The 12th Army Group wanted to permanently augment their staffs with officers trained in disarming enemy armed forces and disposing of enemy war matériel, possibly train French officers of the 6th Army Group, and provide an orientation course for the 15th Army Group officers responsible for Eclipse planning and planning for the occupation of the Rhineland.117
However, Brigadier General R. G. Moses, assistant chief of staff (G-4) for the 12th Army Group, wrote SHAEF that he could not at that time justify diverting additional officers for training. He recommended that the present school be discontinued, with the possibility of investigating the establishment a school on the continent when the tactical situation eased (US forces were heavily engaged in the Battle of the Bulge at that time).118
Aftermath
Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945 (VE Day) and less than a month later, on 5 June, the ACC assumed responsibility for Germany, relieving Eisenhower of his disarmament responsibilities. At 0001 hours, 14 July 1945, SHAEF was dissolved and its US elements became part of US Forces European Theater (USFET) under Eisenhower, who became commander in chief of the US Forces of Occupation in Germany and the US representative on the ACC for Germany.119
The plans laid out by SHAEF and contained in the Eclipse memoranda to disarm, disband, and demobilize German forces were put into operation following VE Day. By late June, just over six million German troops had surrendered and between 15 May and 6 July, six disbandment directives were issued, giving the army groups authority to discharge both POWs and “disarmed German troops”120 in groups according to age, sex, nationality, occupation, area of residence, and so on—except for those considered war criminals, security suspects, or certain members and ranks of the SS.121
Much remained to be done, especially regarding the disposal of enemy war matériel and the destruction and demilitarization of German fortifications and war industries. For the most part, however, these issues were recognized early on as long-term problems to be handled by the ACC. In February 1945, for example, Brigadier W. E. van Cutsem addressed a meeting of the Standing Committee on War Materiel and suggested that it needed to differentiate between disarming Germany and preventing Germany from rearming. The disposal of Germany’s war industries fell under the rearming issue, which was a long-term matter best handled at a later time when there might be a clear economic policy.122
Disarming the German forces was relatively easy: most simply dropped their weapons, raised their arms, and surrendered. According to a trip report written by Lieutenant Colonel A. F. S. MacKenzie, assistant G-1 in SHAEF’s German Affairs Division, following his visit to the headquarters and units of the US 3rd Army, the disbandment process as directed by Eclipse Memo No. 17 was working relatively well. MacKenzie concluded that “Eclipse Memo 17, as written is essentially sound, operationally, and should be continued in effect ‘as is.’” He found, however, that although 3rd Army was not complying with the spirit of Eclipse Memo 17, its operating units appeared to be and that Germans were being discharged at a rate of 25,000–30,000 per day. The report highlighted several administrative and procedural problems but stated that as of 8 June, the 3rd Army had discharged approximately 550,000 Germans.123
As van Cutsem stated, the remainder of the demilitarization program, which was primarily directed at preventing the remilitarization of Germany, was more involved and took longer. However, Allied forces were given little to no guidance regarding the destruction of enemy fortifications other than it was to be accomplished during the occupation period. It was not until the end of July 1945 that orders to destroy German fortifications and defensive works were issued by USFET with a completion date of 31 January 1946.
Even more remained to be done regarding the disposal of enemy war matériel, the destruction and demilitarization of German fortifications and war industries, and especially the eradication of militarism from the German psyche. The memoranda prepared for Operation Eclipse had begun that process and showed the way for its completion. By mid-1946, more than eight million prisoners had been discharged and two years later, in early 1948, the ACC reported to the Council of Foreign Ministers that the western occupation zones of Germany had been effectively disarmed and demilitarized as of mid-1947.124 This notwithstanding, negotiations within the quadripartite commission over establishing a disarmament commission, which began in earnest in July 1946 and continued into February 1948, remained partially unresolved.125 Ironically, while this thoroughly invasive inspection proposal to ensure that a German military potential could never be re-created was being pushed forward by the western Allies, the US Army staff was beginning to draft its first studies on rearming the western part of the soon-to-be-divided Germany.
2
The Diplomatic Path to 12 September 1950
Heinrich August Winkler wrote that the successful Allied invasions and aerial bombardments that took place during World War II brought Germany to its knees. The bombs, the expulsions, and the internal collapse changed German society far more than the first ten years of the Reich had.1 Still, despite the advent of the Cold War and the increasing hostility of the Soviet Union, the United States (and the State Department in particular) was slow to recognize the significant transformation that had taken place among the war-weary Germans in the western zone and continued to view them with distrust.
Nonetheless, US policy toward Western Europe underwent a major alteration beginning in early 1949. It was a change that precluded the United States from returning to its prewar isolationism and pushed it, by necessity, into a deep and lasting involvement in Western Europe. It resulted, furthermore, in vigorous debates within the Department of State and between it and the Department of Defense over the direction of US–West European and West German policy. This change, in the middle of President Truman’s second term, caused several senior State Department officials (including Secretary of State Acheson) to revise their long-held opposition to German rearmament, leading the United States to reverse its European policy completely and formally demand on 12 September 1950 that West Germany be armed.
Throughout this period, the “German problem” remained at the forefront of US policy deliberations regarding Western Europe. The Department of State’s position regarding the possibility of German rearmament was contained in the answer to a question posed by the Foreign Assistance Correlation Committee in June 1949. When asked “What will be the relationship of Germany . . . to the problem of increasing the defensive military strength of the Western European countries?” the State Department responded thus: “The United States Government does not envisage that Germany will be in a position to undertake cooperative military efforts with other Western European Governments, as we are fully committed to the complete and absolute disarmament and demilitarization of Germany. She will not have military forces of her own. She will not have industrial capacity for the production of armaments.”2 In Europe, however, the question of German rearmament was on the table during the formation of the Brussels Treaty Organization in 1948 and influenced decisions regarding the duration of the occupation and the need to keep US forces in Germany. Nonetheless, the focus of the Department of State remained on West Germany’s political and economic integration and continued disarmament.
Beginning in 1946, relations with the Soviet Union began to deteriorate and the United States increasingly saw the Soviet Union as a real military