Development of Postwar Policy in Germany

• DOI: 10.1177/106591296401700110
• Author: Diane Manchester Allen
• Date: 01 March 1964
• Published date: 01 March 1964
• Subject Matter: Articles

DEVELOPMENT OF POSTWAR POLICY IN GERMANY
DIANE MANCHESTER ALLEN
Harvard University
LTHOUGH
most of the major policy decisions of World War II have been
well documented and thoroughly analyzed, the series of steps preceding the
~L
final directive for American occupation of Germany has remained blurred by
inadequate information and emotional bias. The information recently made avail-
able by the release of the papers of wartime Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson pro-
vides relevant factual material, as well as the personal reflections and opinions, of the
men
who were instrumental in formulating policy of the postwar period. His own
bias notwithstanding, Secretary Stimson noted the actions of the policy-makers with
depth and understanding which make his diaries well worth the scholar’s attention.
The Third Reich died ingloriously in the spring of 1945, leaving an inheritance
of chaos and controversy between those who demanded a peace settlement which
would inflict severe punishment upon the German people and those who asked that
constructive steps be initiated immediately to re-educate and rehabilitate them,
which extended from high-level inter-Allied conferences to the policy-makers in
Washington. The confusion caused by the rigidity of the thinking of those who
espoused these divergent views, and nearly every shade of variation between them,
served to frustrate policy planners on all levels of the government and to ignite one
of the most violent interdepartmental explosions of the entire wartime period.
American consideration of the German problem was, in the early years of the
war, confined to the Departments of State and War. By 1944 both Secretary of State
Cordell Hull and Secretary of War Henry Stimson agreed that the best approach to
the German problem would be a moderate one, stressing re-education of the German
people and reorientation of German industry toward peaceful production. Policy
planners on lower levels of both departments had produced a series of proposals upon
which a constructive occupation program could be based. However, seeds of dis-
trust and rivalry which had been planted by the individual actions of the two depart-
ments prevented them from forming a solid front to those who would assail their
proposals as soft and foolhardy.
Dissension had arisen in October 1943 when, at the Moscow Conference, Hull
had agreed to the establishment of the European Advisory Commission (EAC), a
board to coordinate Allied postwar planning. While Hull was most enthusiastic
about the newly created commission, Stimson felt that a transfer of the policy-mak-
ing center from Washington to London (where Ambassador John G. Winant would
represent the United States on the EAC) would be detrimental to the interests of
American planners. Stimson thought that Hull had acted without deliberation and
noted in his diary: &dquo;The main thing that is in the foreground now in foreign relations
is the British having pulled Mr. Hull’s leg into consenting, without reference back
to this government, to the formation of the EAC.&dquo; 1
1
Henry L. Stimson, unpublished diaries, part of the collected papers of Henry L. Stimson (New
Haven: Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University), Diary 8 November 1943.
109

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In the area of postwar planning Hull felt that Stimson and the War Department
attempted to lead where their traditional role suggested they should not. Hull was
certain that Stimson was usurping initiative which was rightfully his. While Stimson
argued that the occupation of conquered territory had been historically the preroga-
tive of the military, Hull complained to Henry Morgenthau: &dquo;I don’t have a chance
to do anything. I am not told what is going on. That’s on a higher level. I am told
that is a military affair. I have consultations with the War Department every day
on the immediate objectives, but when they talk about the state of Germany, I am
not even consulted.&dquo; 2
Despite the dissent as to means of actual planning, unanimity of ends persisted
between the two departments. Their projected plans for the military occupation
were based on the premise that the determining factor in deciding whether or not
a nation is a threat to world peace is not the mere possession of war potential but also
the will to use it. To the end of a rehabilitated Germany, they proposed elimination
of the hegemony which prewar Germany had exercised over the European economy
(with gradual reabsorption of Germany into the world economy), removal of Nazis
from office, and Allied supervision of the so-called heavy industries, all to be imple-
mented during a period of Allied occupation. While such projections did not offer
the soon-to-be-appointed occupation commander a coherent policy for administer-
ing territory, they did suggest the basic framework within which a general directive
could be written. In September 1944 the consensus was, both in Washington and at
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), that the definitive
directive could wait. One reason for this was...