The Loneliness of MG in the Districts
Fear was contagious among officers in the districts during the summer of 1945, in part because they rarely had a broader context within which to place their immediate experiences or the reports they received from Germans. For many, their first experience of Germany was during the months following the war. Most had not seen combat. And in the weeks after the German surrender, many of those who had fought achieved sufficient points on the military’s Adjusted Service Rating system to return home, leading to an overhaul of men during June and July. This transition marked a new phase of postwar MG. The first occupiers often knew they were leaving soon and limited their efforts to keeping the peace until relieved.21 The officers that replaced them had a different view. They were just beginning their deployment and proactively addressed restoring a normal society including physical infrastructure and civil concerns such as public health, the economy, postal services, and telecommunications.22
One such detachment was GI G3, which arrived on 1 July 1945 in rural district Dillingen—in central Bavaria between Ulm and Augsburg. Security was their first priority, but the district was peaceful and the commander, Major Claude F. Baker, noted little crime.23 Most offenses were curfew violations and other minor infractions.24 Criminality was so infrequent in fact that the trial of a young man for stealing food from military stores became a local event, drawing public interest from across the district. So instead of crime, the detachment focused on local administration and finance for most of July and August. Where possible, they also prepared new building projects to create employment, though the district was mostly unscathed and there was limited money for them.25
Most detachments similarly pursued a more holistic reconstruction of their districts. This was mostly slow-going, arduous work. The new MG commander in rural district Nuremberg (the area surrounding the city of Nuremberg), Charles H. Andrews, arrived at the end of June and doggedly worked to resurrect his district and also help reconstruction of Nuremberg city, going so far as to source glass for damaged government buildings from Czechoslovakia.26 It took until 3 July before streetlights were turned on in Augsburg, but an arts and crafts exhibition followed two days later in the central square. It showcased new business opportunities and helped engender some much-needed conviviality between local Germans and American soldiers.27
Although disorderly American soldiers remained one major social problem through the summer, the new MG detachments tended to proactively curtail their worst behaviors. Controlling them complemented other restoration efforts. In Munich, for instance, MGOs found American soldiers living in the Prince Regent Theatre, which lies across from the English Garden near the city center. Their presence prevented its reopening to the public, and they had to be forcibly removed.28 Once the theater was reopened, however, the first performance was a success, boosting German morale. In a report to MG for Bavaria, local MGOs described the prevailing sentiment among the audience as “satisfaction that at least something had been done to start cultural life again.”29
The rapidity with which new MGOs pursued reconstruction encouraged the emergence of state- and zone-wide polices. Discussions on reinstating a state taxation system for Bavaria were underway by 10 July.30 But the beginnings of transdistrict policies belied the continued isolation of detachments in the districts. The requirement that districts manage their own finances exposed detachments’ solitude. Transition to US administration was administratively difficult, and meeting payroll expenses was problematic. Although the reichsmark was nearly valueless in practical terms, it remained the official medium of exchange for transactions in the occupation and MGOs devoted considerable time to the finer points of budgetary management. In Obernburg, Logan was bothered by even a “slight deficit in the Landkreis financial statement” and when a severe storm hit Dillingen on the night of 27 July, one of Baker’s first concerns was the cost of repairs and damage to the district’s budget. Repairs were nonetheless “expedited” by a crisis team including the trade and industry MGO, the German town superintendent, and the mayor, revealing the effectiveness with which civil affairs had already been restored and the emergence of positive relations between MGOs and Germans.31
Such collaborative efforts were not necessarily the norm, and tensions remained as MGOs attempted to develop collegial relationships with Germans while serving as autocratic military rulers. Denazification frequently exposed the fault lines. When, according to Baker, “thirty-six undesirable” former Nazis were found in one local finance office in Dillingen on 14 July, the American public safety officer Captain Harry Apple ordered them removed. The German district administrator objected, arguing that so many dismissals would force the office to shut down, which would harm the district’s financial viability. Commander Baker resolved the conflict by systematically firing and then rehiring the staff in question. Logan in Obernburg dealt with similar problems by delegating all staffing questions to German administrators, distancing the detachment from denazification questions. He did however monitor removals, resignations, and replacements of officials, intervening when he felt it was warranted.32
The comparatively rapid restoration of civil administration did not assuage MGOs’ persistent concerns about disorder. And alongside continuingly high levels of German anxiety, American fears further impeded better working relationships with locals by pushing officers to exercise their power preventively. Logan may have been content to allow Germans tacit oversight of denazification, but he responded with near draconian measures to any perceived threats to stability. These included rumor mongering and potential protest. On 8 July, he ordered twenty-two people detained “on suspicion of promoting a public gathering.”33 Later in the month, he informed local priests they would be arrested if found discussing American soldiers or MG, either privately with local citizens or publicly from the pulpit.34 Logan’s proactive restraint of potentially damaging speech and civilian organization suggests an appreciation for the tenuous social environment, even if tensions in the district were not expressed as overt social disorder or criminal behavior. Unfounded and disturbing rumors were common during the first year of the occupation and elicited near hysteria.35 The MG Legal Code criminalized them; detachments monitored them closely. Some of the most persistent claimed that the Soviets would soon occupy the American Zone and seek violent revenge against Germans for the eastward invasion.36 These ideas permeated all levels of German society. The majority of German administrators in rural district Dachau, for instance, believed that “the final forcing of Germany to communism” was “a pre-arranged plan” among the Allies. Despite the Dachau detachment’s best efforts to dissuade them officers found that there was a near constant “air of depression” among the Germans that hindered reconstruction.37
Fear was contagious in the cities as well, but there was frequently more overt social disorder and crime to support it. Major Everett S. Cofran arrived in Augsburg on 8 June 1945 and, according to military historian Earl F. Ziemke, later became renowned as one of the most hard-nosed commanders in the zone.38 He began each daily report with an assessment of public safety. Like his rural counterparts, Cofran mostly dealt with curfew violations, but there was also more undisguised crime. Looting “by Germans and DPs” continued through July, though it was consistently decreasing.39 Theft was common as well: over a number of nights, the local Dominican nunnery was repeatedly burglarized. Cofran was also alarmed by the size of the black market and the extent to which such trade was often flagrantly conducted. He responded to all this criminality aggressively, ordering soldiers to patrol around the nunnery and Augsburg’s German police to raid black market establishments, which they did with increasing intensity throughout June and July, netting numerous arrests.40
Crime was worse in larger Munich and dominated the detachment’s attentions. MG commander Lieutenant Colonel Walter H. Kurtz closely monitored its rise and fall. The records for Munich are fragmentary; the registers for at least two of the summary courts are missing, and Kurtz’s diary only begins on 8 August. Yet between the 8th and 28th of August, he recorded 2,643 criminal incidents. Violations of curfews and civil restrictions were a plurality (1,236). There were also, however, 1,050 property offenses, including 806 thefts, 151 cases of black market participation (charged under Section 43 of the MG Legal Code), and 93 cases involving possession of stolen Allied