on 1 November 1943 when, after a series of meetings in Moscow, a European Advisory Commission (EAC) was established to oversee intergovernmental planning for Germany’s occupation. Though in reality little more than diplomatic window dressing, the EAC crystallized the Allies’ shared intention to transform Germany into a nonaggressive, democratic member of the international community, and it laid the groundwork for a three-power Control Commission in which the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union would jointly govern Germany after the war. Fundamental questions on how transformation would occur, what it meant, and even what “democracy” meant remained unanswered. This lack of shared understanding on crucial issues hampered coordinated planning. The three Allies also had fundamentally different perceptions of Nazism’s root causes, the Soviets viewing it as unbridled capitalism and the British as imperial competition. For the Americans, Nazism was the inverse of Jeffersonian-style democratic capitalism.17
The Allies were clear, however, about their desire to replace Nazism, agreeing that it was an expression of systemic cultural and moral deviance in Germany, though without agreement on fundamental questions about the cause of Nazism and the character of a transformed Germany, their only agreement was that some form of radical transformation should be enacted. Political scientist Adam Roberts has recently labeled this sort of forced change through military occupation as “transformative occupation,” a concept that originated with the Allies during World War II, though none of them (nor the US military) used the term.18 Defining such an occupation as distinct from nation-building, postconflict reconstruction, and straight military occupation remains a challenge. Roberts’s definition of such projects as “[those] whose stated purpose (whether or not actually achieved) is to change states that have failed, or have been under tyrannical rule” is useful, but we can go further.19 A transformative occupation fuses the other three missions (nation-building, reconstruction, and military occupation). Following conquest, victorious states seek to reconstruct anew a conquered state through an occupation that is militarily enforced (or at least military-backed), which necessitates addressing all aspects of governance and building a new nation while subjugating the occupied people.20 For Roberts, the occupier’s vision is paramount to isolating transformative occupation as a discrete event. It is characterized by viewing as feasible the ability to forcibly change a state’s character in fundamental ways, which separates it from simple occupation, reconstruction, and even nation-building based on existing social and societal infrastructure. The Allies tacitly agreed on this more radical interpretation of the occupation of Germany. They sought not merely to end Nazism, but to create an entirely new state.21 They agreed to remove the existing political, social, and cultural structures and replace them so as to refashion the very character of Germany.
The Military’s Approach
Shortly after the Nazi surrender in May 1945, the outspoken General George Patton questioned Eisenhower over the reach of denazification, arguing that the program was removing too many decent German administrators. Patton was the hero of the North African campaign, the capture of Sicily, and the Battle of the Bulge, but he had also earned a reputation for indiscretion and impulsiveness, and both were on display here. Eisenhower disagreed: “Victory is not complete until we have eliminated from positions of responsibility and, in appropriate cases, properly punished, every active adherent to the Nazi Party.” For the SHAEF commander, Nazism was more than a distasteful set of political views; it was a morally and mentally corruptive system of state control that had infected Germany and required excision.22 This view accorded with the prevailing attitude in Washington, but Patton disagreed and, in September 1945, publicly criticized the program as misguided and likened members of the Nazi Party to Democrats and Republicans.23
Patton’s assertion appeared to absolve many Germans of the regime’s crimes, which was profoundly distasteful for Americans within and outside the military, and he was made to apologize for it. Patton may have been indiscrete, but his opposition to denazification exemplified one strand of thinking within the US officer corps. In this view, the occupation of Germany was little different from other US occupations and existing strategies could be employed successfully. Moreover, transformative aims did not align with the arch-occupier—“minimum change … maximum control”—approach. This position was not easily reconciled with the popular hatred of Nazism that many (if not most) US officers shared.24
The tension between pursuing transformative ends and taking a more traditional approach to MG played out on the ground in Germany as MGOs took radically different actions. Some MGOs in Patton’s mold were pragmatic and eschewed denazification, while others eagerly removed Nazi Party members and sympathizers. Both approaches were problematic, and MGOs struggled to find the right balance. The retention of former Nazis created animosity among DPs and non-Nazi Germans, but removing too many people left administrations understaffed. The MG commander in Dachau district, on the outskirts of Munich, described in his diary a debate with the local German regional administrator about the nature of government. The German opposed Nazism yet claimed to support “benevolent dictatorship” because the masses lacked good judgment.25 The nature of Nazi governance had been the problem, in his view, rather than its particular racial, dictatorial vision. Therefore, the Americans could retain former party members who accepted the new regime.26 This was a disturbing position for the American officer to face, not least of all because the region was home to the infamous original Nazi concentration camp, which was publicly opened in March 1933, shortly after the Nazis gained power. The American officer’s forceful disagreement appears to come from an understanding of this history. He argued that removing Nazis was necessary for securing democracy. But he added a caveat, acknowledging that for the US military, ideological transformation of Germans came second to the establishment of security and order.27
MGOs across the zone echoed this preference for order and security. During the first eighteen months of the postwar occupation (1945–46), most district MG commanders reiterated Eisenhower’s sentiments while actually prioritizing stability of government. This divergence between action and rhetoric stemmed from tension in the military’s approach to occupation and, in turn, from the instructions MGOs received. Military planners had spent three years from December 1941 attempting to balance the perceived uniqueness of the Nazi threat against existing American strategies for MG. Their initial plans reflected an understanding of how American occupation was previously conducted during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ideas initially codified after World War I.28 Planners focused on short-term, wartime pacification of the enemy to protect frontline operations. The SHAEF Handbook for Military Government in Germany: Prior to Defeat or Surrender retained this limited approach despite being published in December 1944, after the invasion of Germany was underway. The “prior to defeat or surrender” addendum expressed the planners’ continuing effort to distinguish wartime occupation from postconflict governance. In their view, MGs existed to assist combat operations. MG detachments ensured social order and prevented resistance. Restoring local government and a semblance of normal life was only important insofar as it supported this primary objective.29
Separating wartime strategies for MG from postwar governance allowed planners to maintain the American myth of apolitical occupation in which US military operations overseas were different from European imperialism. In this self-glorifying narrative, the United States was a liberationist world power, projecting force only out of vital necessity, even in co-opted European colonies like the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.30 This division allowed military strategists planning for the occupation of Nazi Germany to avoid thinking about postwar concerns, which were pushed onto the State Department, the intended leader of Germany’s social, political, and cultural transformation.31
In the past, there had been good practical reasons to separate wartime occupation from postwar aims. The US military was historically small compared to its European counterparts, and prior to World War II regular combat units primarily conducted occupation. The US military had therefore sought to minimize the number of soldiers employed in rear areas in order to maintain frontline combat effectiveness. From the Rhineland experience after World War I, Smith recognized that this minimalist
