is the topic of this book. Starting with the total disarmament of Germany and continuing to the entry of the new Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, the following chapters describe the paths taken by the US State Department and Defense to reach a common goal.
Chapter 1 tells the story of Operation Eclipse, the Allied plan to completely disarm, demobilize, and demilitarize the German nation, first enunciated in the 1941 Atlantic Charter. This plan stemmed from the beliefs that militarism was ingrained in the German soul and that this had made Hitler’s rise to power inevitable. It was further believed that only by uprooting this militarism could Germany ever be a productive and peaceful neighbor in Europe. Thus, the total demilitarization of Germany, a goal never before imposed on any other nation, became a major undertaking that required the development of agreed-upon guidance, policy directives, manpower, and time.
Chapter 2 describes and analyzes the State Department’s approach to the rearmament of Germany, its approach to European efforts to find security in the Dunkirk and Brussels treaties and, in 1949, its approach to the Washington Treaty that created NATO. The relationship between John J. McCloy and Colonel Henry Byroade and the development of an American plan for a European army is brought to light before arriving at the crisis year of 1950, the Korean War, and a detailed explanation of Acheson’s “conversion” and demand to arm the Germans in September 1950.
Chapter 3 mirrors chapter 2, highlighting the military’s approach to the “German Question,” the thinking within the joint and army staffs on making use of German manpower, and the efforts of the Department of Defense to convince the government that the Germans should be armed. This chapter also discusses the problems with and evolution of different plans to defend Western Europe between 1946 and 1949, the Defense Department’s analysis of Europe’s defense needs, and the initial weakness of the NATO organization. It concludes with the impact of the Korean War on the rearmament question and the JCS’s response to President Truman’s letter containing eight questions, the answers to which would help him decide the issue of German rearmament.
Chapter 4 brings the paths taken by state and defense together, presents their joint answer to President Truman’s eight questions, and segues to the 12 September 1950 tripartite meeting and the demand to rearm Germany that led to the development of the French Pleven Plan (which soon became the EDC) and the problems that confronted it. This chapter also addresses the Eisenhower administration’s plans and attempts to save the EDC from rejection by France and its inability to come up with an alternative.
Chapter 5 continues the narration to the defeat of EDC and the US quandary over what to do next in light of the administration’s belief that there was no alternative to EDC. It concludes this history with the solution to the “German problem” found and implemented through the efforts of the British foreign minister, Sir Anthony Eden, who brought West Germany into NATO and opened the way to create a German military force.
The epilogue that follows addresses the activities undertaken and obstacles faced by the three US military services during the EDC phase (as they prepared to train what would become the new West German Bundeswehr) until the FRG’s admission to NATO in 1955.
Seven appendices follow that provide additional information on the European Advisory Commission (EAC), a list of the Eclipse memoranda and other directives relating to German disarmament, the Himmerod Conference, an essay on Acheson and the “Single Package,” and the “Great Debate” over the power of the president to send troops overseas.
The evidence presented in this book calls for a revision of certain conventional views about West German rearmament and the beginnings of the Cold War. First, once the decision was made to change standing US national policy and arm the Germans, the US government lost effective control of the process when it voluntarily ceded leadership of the implementation of German rearmament to France. Second, despite the efforts of two US administrations, neither pleas nor threats were able to save the EDC from defeat. Third, the United States’ total commitment (at the highest levels of the US administration) to German rearmament within the EDC precluded consideration of an alternative. Lastly, when a solution to the German rearmament problem was found following the defeat of the EDC, the United States found itself pledging an open-ended troop commitment on the European continent, a pledge that remains in force today, albeit somewhat diminished from what it was prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
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
