Occupation of Germany
- 1944 Sept. 12-16 - Morgenthau Plan at 2nd Quebec
- "corrective" rather than "constructive" policy
- to strip Germany of industry and extract large reparations
- made US as conquerors rather than liberators
- plan would be changed over the next year, but represented a strong anti-German attitude that continued through the Nuremberg trials
- 1944 Oct. 1 - JCS 1067 preliminary draft - finalized 1945/05/10
- denazify, demilitarize, democratize, dismantle industry & government
- assumed all Germans were guilty of war crimes
- no provisions for relief or rehabilitation
- prohibited fraternization - 160 women for every 100 men
- 1945 May 8 - VE Day
- 1945 July - Potsdam Conference
- decisions: unconditional surrender of Japan, Council of Foreign Ministers to write peace treaties, occupation of Germany by 4 military zones, trial of war criminals, reparations allowed
- OMGUS created - Office of Military Government - U.S. Zone
- Truman shocked at devastation: "A more depressing sight than that of the ruined buildings was the long, never-ending procession of old men, women, and children, wandering aimlessly along the autbahn and the country roads carrying, pushing, or pulling what was left of their belongings." (Memoirs v.1 p. 341)
- Byron Price report - "constructive" rather than "corrective" policy - need to reeducate, rehabilitate Germans who were victims of war, not guilty of war
- 1945 Oct. 1 - end of fraternization prohibition
- sexually transmitted diseases averaged 19% in 1945 - joint treatment allowed
- 94,000 German-American babies borne 1945-50
- 1945 Nov. 18 to Oct. 1, 1946 - Nuremberg trials
- 1945 Dec. - Warbrides Act allowed immigration of German war brides into U.S.
- By 1950, 14,175 German war brides entered US (only 758 Japanese brides)
- Fiancee Law of June 1946 allowed immigration of fiances for the purpose of marriage
- 1946 April - relief began to arrive from Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Operate in Germany (CRALOG) and in June from private citizens donating to Co-Operative of American Remittances to Europe (CARE)
- 1946 May 27 - military governor Lucius Clay stopped removal of reparations from West Germany
- 1946 Oct. - Clay invited Herbert Hoover to tour Germany, both urged rehabilitation policy
- 1946 Dec. 2 - US and British zones merged
- 1947 June 5 - Marshall Plan announceded
- 1947 Oct. - op. Talk Back to use media for a "vigourous information programs" against communism
- 1948 Feb. 9 - Frankfurt Charter - bizone for West Germany
- 1948 June 24 - Berlin Blockade for 11 months until May 12, 1949
- 1949 May - Basic Law adopted by Bonn Parliamentary Council to create a federal government
- Sept. 7 - Parliament convened after elections won by Christian Democratic Union led by Konrad Adenauer as new Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
- Sept. 21 - High Commissioner John J. McCloy replaced military occupation goverment
- Oct. 7 - East Germany proclaimed the German Democratic Republic
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