Memories of German troops marching home following the 1918 armistice and of the expansion of the Wehrmacht following Germany’s withdrawal from the Geneva Disarmament Conference in October 1933 led to a decision that the mistakes made in the armistice agreement and Treaty of Versailles would not be repeated.12 Even before World War II ended, it became the seemingly unalterable policy of the United States that Germany would be completely and totally disarmed and demilitarized following its surrender. This policy was made very clear on numerous occasions following the war, the last of which ironically came only weeks before Acheson presented the US demand that West Germany be armed to the foreign ministers of Great Britain and France on 12 September 1950.13
Perhaps the first and most definitive enunciation of US policy toward the defeated Germany came at the 1946 Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Paris on 30 April when Secretary of State James F. Byrnes presented the text of a draft treaty on the disarmament and demilitarization of Germany. In the preamble, which indirectly referred to the Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany of 5 June 1945, the four Allied Powers “declared their intention to effect the total disarmament and demobilization of Germany” and promised that this total disarmament and demilitarization would “be enforced as long as the peace and security of the world may require.”14
The body of the draft treaty reflected and expanded upon that declaration by stating that all German forces “shall be and shall remain completely disarmed, demobilized and disbanded” and it specifically included the German General Staff Corps. The final article, Article V, specified that this proposed treaty was to remain in force for a period of twenty-five years and be renewable, if deemed necessary. It was meant to be incorporated in a future peace treaty with Germany, thereby making it the law of the land and binding Germany to it.15
Byrnes subsequently addressed keeping Germany disarmed and demilitarized for a generation in an address delivered in Stuttgart, Germany, on 6 September and again in a speech he gave to the American Club in Paris in October.16 In that latter speech, he repeatedly cited the proposed draft treaty and stressed that there should be no doubt as to American foreign policy toward Germany. He emphasized the US government’s firm opposition to any revival of German militarism and proposed that the occupation of Germany not end until a German government accepted the disarmament and demilitarization clauses of the Four-Power Treaty he had proposed. Byrnes then underscored the need to maintain “limited but adequate Allied armed forces” to ensure compliance, and suggested the use of Allied bombers “from France, Britain, the United States or the Soviet Union” to enforce immediate compliance should the German government fail to do so. While the United States initially proposed to continue the disarmament and demilitarization of Germany for forty years after the peace settlement, Byrnes asked only that the Allies agree to keep Germany disarmed and demilitarized for at least a generation. This, he indicated, would assuage the fears of France and the other European nations as Germany rebuilt its powerful industrial economy.17
Byrnes’s replacement as secretary of state, retired US Army general George C. Marshall, also proposed Brynes’s treaty in Moscow in 1947. Although it was rejected by the USSR on both occasions, US policy remained unchanged. This continuity is evident in the summary of the February–March 1948 London Tripartite Conference, which refers to several agreements made by the Allies that the occupation of Germany and the prohibition on the German armed forces and general staff would continue for a long time. Further, it was agreed that the military governors should continue to exercise control pertaining to disarmament and demilitarization, and that a working party should be established to decide which industries should remain prohibited and set production levels for those that were no longer prohibited. The summary also stated that a military security board would be established in the western zones of Germany whose function would be to cover the entire spectrum of disarmament and demilitarization. The summary concluded that even after the occupation ended, Germany would not be allowed to become a military threat and that an inspection mechanism should be created to ensure that it remained disarmed and demilitarized.18
By 1947, the United States had decided it had to move forward on Germany without agreement from the USSR. The idea then developed in higher policymaking circles that Western Europe should develop a political personality of its own and that Western Germany could be integrated into that community, which might in time develop into a third force able to stand up to the Soviets without direct US involvement.19 It was believed that so integrated, West German freedom of action would be sufficiently constrained and no longer pose a threat.20 In discussions regarding what became the Brussels Treaty Organization and its relation to Germany, Hickerson told Lord Inverchapel that the US envisioned the creation of a European organization capable of standing up to both the United States and USSR.
President Truman and his advisors were ambivalent about the emergence of Soviet power. On the one hand, they saw a need for cooperation; on the other hand, they saw that Soviet actions could endanger US security. These officials did not fear a Soviet attack on the United States—at the time, the Soviet Union lacked both long-range strategic bombers and atomic weapons. What were causes for concern were the increase in Communist party membership in some nations of Western Europe such as France and Italy and the possible takeover of key Western industrial power centers, which would end US hopes for Western Europe’s political and economic integration and the continuation of democratic forms of government.21 Soviet actions in Berlin and Czechoslovakia led Robert Lovett, then undersecretary of state, to opine that “all the Russians [needed] to get to the Channel were shoes.”22
Western Europe’s Search for Security—The Dunkirk and Brussels Treaties
As the gulf between East and West became both wider and sharper, West Europeans began to acquire a ‘European’ consciousness.23 What was initially a political struggle, however, increasingly came to be seen in military terms. The military situation in Europe by this time was not what it had been at war’s end.24 Several proposals and discussions between Europe’s leading statesmen had taken place during the war concerning Europe’s future and the possibilities of some form of Western European Union (WEU).25 One of the key topics was how to contain a resurgent Germany in the future and the 1947 Franco-British Dunkirk Treaty was an attempt to do just that.
Among the studies and proposals regarding Europe’s postwar future was a study by Sir Nigel Ronald, an undersecretary in the Foreign Office, written in 1945. Ronald suggested that a Franco-British alliance, to include Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, and Spain, would be the keystone of a European defense system. He believed this system would both contain Germany and protect the smaller Allies from falling under Soviet influence.26 The British Foreign Office was skeptical because it felt that without US assistance, defense against the Soviet Union was unrealistic. Alfred Duff Cooper, British ambassador to France, however, contended that US interference would prevent the United Kingdom from achieving a position of equality between the two new superpowers. A federation of western European seaboard states plus the major Mediterranean powers could become “an alliance so mighty that no power on earth would . . . dare to challenge it.”27
The Anglo-French alliance idea was not followed up, however. Churchill did not believe that France—or any other West European country—would be of value to British security. Current Franco-British relations, moreover, were less than ideal. French and British troops had narrowly avoided a clash in Syria, and Charles DeGaulle, chairman of the provisional government of France, incensed over his wartime treatment by the Allies, was demanding the resolution of several Franco-German border disputes before discussions about an alliance could take place.28
The 1946 election of a Socialist caretaker government in France under Léon Blum allowed much Franco-British hostility to be put aside and on New Year’s Day 1946, Blum wrote Foreign Minister Bevin that he was willing to sign a Franco-British treaty. The problems that exercised DeGaulle remained, but Blum assured Bevin that they would not present a barrier.
