Universitätsprofessor, Dr. phil Klaus Schwabe
Special publication of the Aachener Geschichtsvereins (Aachen Historical Society) Aachen 2000

Introductory note:

As early as September 2, 1944, the first American units crossed the city limits of Aachen and thereby also the German national border. The city was encircled in a wide pincer-like movement and captured on October 21. For nearly half a year Aachen was the only large German city to be controlled by the victorious powers. Having gradually liberated Western Europe and forced the Nazi-aggression back to the territory of its origin, the Americans were confronted for the first time with the task of bringing freedom and democracy to the Germans themselves. Professor Schwabe's successful accomplishment is an analysis of the American “experiment” in Aachen, the historical and political significance of which goes far beyond mere local or military history. He is commended for having based his account on unpublished American sources. It is highly appropiate that this abriged version of Professor Schwabe's essay, available as a special edition on paper and in the internet, should be presented to the American public in their own language in the year which the American President is awarded the “Karlspreis”.
Not far away from Aachen in the military cemetries of Henri-Chapelle and Margraten, tens of thousands of graves bear whitness to the enormous human sacrifice the American people made, in order to bring peace and democracy not only to liberated Europe, but also to conquered Germany. It seems fitting that Aachen, the place where Americans had their first experience of a population exposed to criminal dictatorship for a long time, pay a special tribute to America's ongoing commitment to Europe.

Dr. Jürgen Linden, Lord Mayor (Oberbürgermeister)
Dr. Thomas R. Kraus, Chairman (Vorsitzender)

“Setting up the Right Kind of Government”
American Occupation Experiences in Aachen before Germany' s Surrender

For a long time it had been an integral part of America's political tradition to believe that American institutions had the character of a model and that peace in the world would be assured if this American model was copied by the less enlightened rest of mankind. To be sure, Vietnam has undermined this confidence to an extent, but still has not really invalidated it. Witness the Western world's hope for democracy in Russia as a guarantee for future peaceful East-West relations. [1]

It was this conviction that inspired American troops reaching France's shores in June 1944 and fighting against Nazi Germany's troops; it was the hope that world peace would be assured once the Nazi dictatorship had been destroyed and Western style democracy was introduced to Germany; it was this belief that gave meaning to the Allied sacrifices, the conquest and the ultimate administration of Nazi Germany. The first place where this experiment of transfering the American model to the German field was carried out was Aachen, internationally known as Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany's Western most city - three miles away from the Dutch, four miles away from the Belgian borders, - and still a place deeply rooted in German history. Aachen, where once upon a time Charlemagne had resided, had for hundreds of years been the site where German emperors were crowned; it had been an imperial free city (freie Reichsstadt) like Frankfurt (not unlike Washington, D.C.). Later on it became a center of German catholicism, loyal to the German Republic even in the dark hours after World War One, when it looked as if the Rhineland would be incorporated into France.

In mid-September 1944, when American troops reached Germany's border, Aachen assumed symbolic value in a twofold manner: To the Nazis the imperial city became the first German stronghold, the place where the Allied offensive would definitely be halted - a German Stalingrad for the Americans.

To the Americans Aachen was the first larger German community where American occupation policies as planned to the whole of Germany could be tried out. Aachen was to demonstrate to what extent it was possible to re-educate the Nazi-infested Germans, to what extent their thinking and their political behavior could be transformed in a way that assured a future peaceful attitude of the German people. In Aachen it could be found out to what extent American concepts for a civil-military administration of Germany were suitable for use for the rest of the former Reich.

In part, the success of this American experiment in re-educating the Germans depended, of course, on the attitude of the German population submitted to it. This will be the first issue to be addressed in the present essay; the reader’s attention will have then be directed to the first impressions the American authorities gained in dealing with a conquered German population, and the first steps they took to ”reconstruct” them; thirdly and finally, an attempt will be made to show to what extent the Aachen experiment reflected and/ or influenced American occupation policies at large on a higher level.

I.

Firstly, the German perspective should be mentioned- the feelings of the German population of Aachen, that witnessed the end of the Nazi rule in September/October 1944 , that is more than half a year before Germany's final surrender. Taken all in all, the Hitler regime had left a rather unfavorable impression with those Germans who, despite of rigorous evacuation measures taken by the Nazis, managed to stay in Aachen during the battle raging around and in the city from mid-September until October 21, 1944. No other than Heinrich Himmler, who had visited Aachen briefly a few days before the battle began, had boastfully discarded any idea of clearing the city from its inhabitants, as the Americans would never show up within its confines. Only two days afterwards Aachen was shelled by US artillery, American troops were expected in hours, and Hitler ordered the total evacuation. The first to obey this order using the few cars that still were available, were the Nazi brasshats (”Goldfasane”). Meanwhile, the rank and file population was left behind, sometimes panicking. However, as the American forces did not enter the city immediately, the SS and the police returned. The Nazi officials tried hard to force every civilian out of the city, at times at gun point, until Aachen was encircled by US troops and this was no longer possible. In the end 18 ooo ”Aacheners” were evacuated, only 6000 managed to stay on in hiding. (More than 15o ooo inhabitants had left earlier on account of the allied bombings).

The Nazi authorities proved not only unable to evacuate the city in an orderly manner, they also refused even to consider the idea of an orderly transfer to the American authorities of the city administration. All representations by some courageous “Aacheners” to ensure this were in vain. When the military situation had become hopeless, their pleadings to give up fighting, remained unheard. Unmoved, Hitler himself ordered the defense of the city to the last ruin.

No wonder then that the 6000 “Aacheners”, who survived bombings and street fighting, sensed a feeling of deep relief when the German troops finally gave up on October 21, 1944, leaving behind them the ruins and the rubble of a settlement of which about 70 % was destroyed. Only the more than a thousand years old.cathedral miraculously escaped major damage. The “Aacheners” felt relieved because for them the war, the daily danger of being killed, was over. But it was not only that - they no longer had to fear reprisals by their own Nazi fellow men, whose orders to leave the embattled city they had defied.

In the eyes of the secret Nazi police,the GESTAPO those “Aacheners” who had stayed behind were, of course, a bunch of criminal traitors. To their disgust no one less than the catholic bishop of Aachen belonged to that “scum” of society. Staying in Aachen the bishop Johannes van der Velden had remained faithful to an agreement the Catholic church in the Rhineland had secretly concluded in August 1944. This agreement instructed all church leaders to remain with their congregation when the Allies arrived.

By and large, the surviving Aachen population was thus thoroughly fed up with the Nazi regime, and some of them did not hesitate to sincerely welcome the American conquerors as liberators, even more so as they seemed, by and large and despite some looting, to behave correctly, sometimes even courteously.

Thus the cooperation between victors and vanquished - or rather liberated -began quite auspiciously. It is true that the American military had cleared the city of Aachen of the remaining civilians , who were interned nearby, while the battle was raging and Nazi underground activities were suspected. But soon after Aachen’s surrender and after having been individually questioned by the CIC the “Aacheners” were permitted back to what was left of their home town. At the end of the year the Aachen population had grown to about 12 000 persons. Assisted by the Bishop of Aachen American occupation officers quickly managed to establish contact with a group of “Aachener” business people, one of whom was willing to become the first German city mayor under American rule. This was a lawyer, named Franz Oppenhoff, 42 years old. When he was sworn into office no press photos were permitted. His name was not divulged for the obvious reason that he had relatives in Nazi Germany, who had to fear reprisals, at the very least confinement in a concentration camp, if it became known that one of their family collaborated with the enemy. He and his American superiors were aware that in accepting this position he took a personal risk, as Nazi guerrilla activities were announced by the Hitler regime and the death sentence was threatened to any German who collaborated with the enemy in any way.

As far as Oppenhoff was concerned he proved to be no stooge of the American occupation authorities. He tenaciously defended the interests of the Aachen population, whether the opening of roads for revictualling the city was at stake or the reopening of banks or the introduction of taxes. A sort of solidarity in practice grew between American authorities and the German population of Aachen. This was confirmed when Aachen was threatened to be retaken by German troops during the Battle of the Bulge in late December 1944. In this tense situation, in which many ”Aacheners” feared the return of their fellow countrymen, the American authorities assured the mayor that he would get a seat in one of the trucks that were scheduled to evacuate American troops from Aachen, if necessary. Christmas was celebrated in common by vanquished and victors in the venerable Aachen cathedral.

II.

Around about the same time the climate between American occupiers and the German population began strangely to deteriorate. American officers watched ever more closely over a strict implementation of the antifraternization orders. There were no more handshakes between American officers and German officials, Oppenhoff included. Then on February 2, 1945, the Aachener Nachrichten - the first German language paper to be issued under American rule - published 27 names of city employees who had been fired, because they were pronounced to have been more or less active members of the Nazi party. In the following weeks this purge continued. Nearly all of the people affected by it had only been nominal card-bearing party members, as those who had exposed themselves as Nazis had, of course, left the city. Oppenhoff himself sensed that the Americans no longer really trusted him, although he could not explain why.

What had happened? How could this more rigid American attitude be explained in face of the fact that the Aachen population had proved "docile" and friendly vis-à-vis the American authorities? Had this new hard line something to do with the Battle of the Bulge or the bitter trench fighting that was going on in the hills (Hürtgenwald)some15 miles to the South of Aachen ? Was it related to the discoveries of German concentration camps ? All these guesses were wrong. There was much more behind the Aachen purge - in fact, its background reached all the way to the American capital.

III.

This brings us to the American perspective of the American experiment , their attempts to introduce democratic behavior to the Aachen Germans. Two preliminary points will have to be made in advance: First, there was a whole hodgepodge of administrative institutions that claimed to be responsible for how conquered Germany would be administered: In the first instance, of course, there was the Supreme Allied Headquarters (SHAEF) under Eisenhower`s orders, and under SHAEF the division G-5 (civil administration) and the Division for Psychological Warfare; then there was the State Department represented by the career diplomat Robert Murphy, Eisenhower's political advisor. Furthermore, there was the Treasury which was in charge of all financial questions. Finally, Congress and the American Press felt a sense of responsibility, and both were keenly interested in what was happening in Germany under American occupation. Some later celebrities like Henry Kissinger and the German emigrant novelist Stefan Heym passed through Aachen.

The second preliminary point that has to be made is that, when the first American troops set foot on German soil, only an interim directive existed for the administration of a conquered Germany during the period of hostilities. Of course, the American.administration in Germany had to do everything to support the military operations; but it had also the assignmment to eradicate all traces of Nazism, intern all representatives of the Nazi regime, abolish all specifically Nazi legislation, and facilitate the return of law and order among the German populace by resorting, wherever feasible, to German officials. All adults had to fill out questonnaires, in order to document their political past. The American troops were admonished that ” the German people are engaged in a total war against you and are individually and collectively your enemy. Conduct yourself in their presence with such military bearing ... and soldierly efficiency, that they will appreciate at once the power that is within our army. Germany has long been a nation of military tradition; her people will ...be impressed with these outward demonstrations of genuine soldierly qualities ”(15.9.).

The Germans were told in Eisenhower's Proclamation Nr.1 that ”the Allied forces serving under my command have now entered Germany. We come as conquerors but not as oppressors. In the area of Germany occupied by the forces under my command, we shall obliterate Naziism and German Militarism ” (Nov.1944).

American plans for the occupation of Germany were based on two premises: first on the expectation that the Germans were on the whole Nazi-infected and hostile towards the American conquerors, secondly on the assumption that a more or less functioning German administration could be taken over by and serve under the direction of the military government.

Both premises, as the Americans at once discovered in Aachen, were quite off the mark. Actually, the civilian population in Aachen proved to be docile and cooperative, and every German claimed to have had nothing to do with the Nazi regime. It was only the fear of Nazi reprisals against relatives in Germany that held some Germans in reserve vis-à-vis their new masters. Contrary to what one had expected there was no trace of underground activities. A few weeks after the city had been captured, the security situation in Aachen was judged to be excellent. One officer summed up his experiences as follows :[Compared with Germany] "We find it [our task] much more difficult in Belgium, because, thanks to the training of German people by the German army, they do what we tell them to do. The Belgians do not.”

As we will see , this picture was just a touch too rosy.

Of course, the Americans basically distrusted the German population that met them in such a surprisingly forthcoming way. Long black lists ( identifying Nazis) and much shorter white ones (showing anti-Nazis) had been provided by the intelligence services, in order to help select the right kind of Germans for administrative positions. In Aachen these list were not yet available. Instead, the bishop came to the Americans’ assistance by recommending Oppenhoff and his crew for the city administration..Robert Murphy, Eisenhower's top political adviser, who visited Aachen in late November, highly praised Oppenhoff for having the courage to accept this difficult job despite of the threat of Nazi reprisals. About the same time, however, the spirit of mutual cooperativeness suffered some set-backs. The "Stars and Stripes" came out with an editorial that sharply criticized the friendly attitude some American soldiers displayed to people in occupied Germany. "Don't get chummy with Jerry ", it advised these overly gullible American G.I.’ s .(20.10.44).

But this was only the beginning. What later came to be called the "Aachen scandal" actually occurred through the activities of some civilian members of the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD). It was their job to sound out the German population for their political views, their attitude to the Nazis, to the German soldiers and even to the local situation. They had, in other words, to gather intelligence that could be fed into the war propaganda. In addition to this, the Psychological Warfare Division was responsible for informing the Germans themselves both within and outside of the zone controlled by American troops.

Entrusted with these duties a group of P.W.D. officers descended on Aachen in December 1944 for the first time. Their work was coordinated by a young historian by the name of Saul Padover. Padover had left Vienna with his parents in the early twenties and had emigrated to the U.S. He had taught at some smaller university and had published a few popular books on 18th century history. Compared to other officers, he held one precious advantage: He was fluent in German, and could thus get first hand information by interviewing Germans.

This he did getting results that he found quite remarkable. [2] Above all, the ”Aacheners” he talked to, showed hardly any sign of moral contrition, as they disclaimed any involvement with the Nazi rule. Oppenhoff seemed to behave like the citizen of a victorious, and not a vanquished country. All of them professed to a fear of communism, some advocated German-American cooperation in fending off that danger.

Not all of the Germans Padover interviewed shared this somewhat smug, self-complacent attitude. There were a few among them, Padover reported, who were prepared to admit a general guilt of the German people - with the exception of themselves, of course, for they had actually never conceded anything to the Nazis. These, Padover stated, were the members of the German Left, Social Democrats and the few Communists he met. This impression coincided with what Padover always had believed, as he wrote in retrospect:” I felt that despite their disastrous and morally criminal passivity, the Left workers, being the only non-militaristic and non-fascist elements in the [German] Reich, were the sole hope of Germany's future...If ever Germany was to be rendered decent and harmless, it must be done through the Left.” [3]

It should be stressed that Padover thus expressed a conviction that was widely shared in the American government - all the way up to the head of the OSS William Donovan, who advised President Truman in a similar vein, although he himself certainly did not display a trace of “leftishness”. But these political preferences also seemed to be justified by the first political opinion polls that were taken among the Aachen population - polls that confirmed a nearly exclusive trend to the Left among the Germans. Armed with this conviction Padover was all the more struck to find out that the Aachen city administration included hardly any representative of the Left within its ranks - be it Social Democrats, Trade Unionists, or Communists. How could this be explained? Was there something rotten in the city of Aachen? Critical German leaflets circulated; rumors flared up. An investigation seemed necessary. Padover was appointed to do the job - to investigate the Aachen city administration and, by implication, the American officers who had created it.

Padover lost no time in starting. While the Battle of the Bulge was still on, he interrogated a whole range of German and American witnesses in Aachen. The final result he arrived at in January 1945 was altogther alarming. He felt he had uncovered a wholesale political conspiracy in Aachen - the conspiracy of diehard rightists who under American eyes had formed the Aachen city administration, guided by the single purpose of keeping the Left out. This conspiracy, Padover believed, centered around the mayor Oppenhoff. Padover reported to his superiors that the Aachen city administration consisted of technicians, lawyers, engineers, businessmen, manufacturers, and churchmen."This elite", he continued," is shrewd, strongwilled, and aggressive..Its leader is Oberbürgermeister Oppenhoff...behind Oppenhoff is the bishop of Aachen, a powerful figure with a subtlety of his own... All of these men managed to stay out of the Nazi party, most of them were directly connected with the town's leading war industries, [Veltrup and Talbot ]..These men are not democratically minded... They are planning the future in terms of an authoritarian highly bureaucratic state...Politically it is conceived as small-state Clericalism...".

To make matters worse this clerical-semi fascist clique had displayed a telling leniency in accepting ex-Nazis for jobs in the city administration. Was this to be a model for Germany as a whole ? Were not the Germans in the first German city conquered by American troops totally deprived of the chances of the democratic revival that Roosevelt and Churchill had promised them?

At this point the historian feels called to intervene. There is no doubt that Padover was grossly unfair in denigrating the character of Oppenhoff who, after all, was risking his life in the service of his ruined city and who certainly had no fascist leanings and was no conspirator.

It must be added, however, that there was more than a grain of truth in what Padover reported of Oppenhoff's general political orientation. It was true that Oppenhoff openly despised the miscarried experience of the Weimar Republic, and it was equally true that he did not limit Left- wing participation in his administration to a minimum by accident, while at the same time tolerating some nominal Nazis. Whatever the truth may have been, what counted in the winter of 1945 was that Padover's version of the Aachen scandal was widely believed within the higher ranks of the American Military Command. Above all, Padover saw to it that his story was leaked to the press so as to create sufficient uproar in the American public. As for Aachen, there can be no doubt that the purge of the city administration, the purge that had puzzled the Germans so much, went back to Padover's activities. In fact, as Padover strongly demanded Oppenhoff`s dismissal, even the mayor`s days seemed to be numbered.

Therefore, it was historic irony how the case of Oppenhoff was finally disposed of - not by any action on the part of American authorities in Aachen , but by an act of vengeance of which the dying Nazi regime was guilty. On March 20, 1945, a terrorist squad parachuted on the forests near Aachen. Five days afterwards, at 11 o`clock in the evening, a member of this group shot and killed Oppenhoff in his own premises. Himmler himself had given the order to "execute the traitor". In Himmler’s eyes it was evident that Oppenhoff had no Nazi leanings... Oppenhoff's successor in Aachen belonged to the people (Padover’s ”clique”) from which the former mayor’s own administration had been recruited. So, ultimately Padover only partly saw his policy implemented in Aachen.

IV.

This brings up our third point - the question as to what extent the events in Aachen both reflected and influenced top governmental occupation policies of the United States in Germany. Did, in other words, the local events in Aachen reverberate outside Aachen and did they have any bearing that reached beyond the confines of the old free city? How did the locally responsible American military authorities react to the unsolicited activities of the Psychological War Division in Aachen, to begin with these activities had touched upon three fundamental issues: First, there was the problem regarding the degree to which the Military Government should get involved with German affairs at all; secondly, it had to be decided what was more important: The efficiency or the political spotlessness of a given German administration acting under American rule. In other words,the question that had to be solved was whether - under wartime conditions- primary emphasis was to be put on expertise, using nominal Nazis, if unavoidable, or whether some administrative and technical inefficiency on the.German side had to be allowed for in the name of political correctness. Thirdly, Padover had confronted the military with the question of the general political orientation that was to be fostered by the Americans in defeated Germany. Was it advisable to copy Padover’s example who, as we have seen, had squarely opted for the Left ? The American local military administration in Aachen, naturally, responded to Padover's investigations with some irritation and a good deal of uneasiness, and it was with a clear sigh of relief that one of the officers noted that the "tenor" of Padover's report was "better than might have been expected". In any case, these American officers were hardly prepared for dealing with any such critical political options. In reacting to Padover's challenge they, characteristically, split into two "camps". One group stuck to the decision made right after Aachen's surrender, that is they defended Oppenhoff and his collaborators, regardless of their seemingly reactionary leanings and regardless of the fact that Oppenhoff had employed some nominal Nazis. Another group took Padover more seriuly. One officer succinctly pinned down the alternatives, writing:..."Efficiency [of a German Administration], as far as our concern goes, is not nearly as important as integrity... It seems to me that we must keep a long range point of view in mind , that the work of this [Aachen] detachment will be judged not on whether shoes were made available for sale this month rather than the next or even whether we can get 100 labor[er]s to work today instead of 5o, but whether we are setting up the right kind of Government with the right men in it... A new Germany has got to be built free from all the evil influences of her past. If we lose sight of our principles, gloss over shady backgrounds of civilian appointees, put in backsliders and turncoats, if we hold out the true fighters of Naziism -those who had the courage of their convictions - if we give no representation to the workers, to the small people who are Germany, we are not carrying our cause forward... If we have allowed a clique to get in power we must break it... We should constantly try to free this government of every Nazi trait and any other aspect that militates against the democratic ideals we are fighting for...". [4]

As we have seen, this group prevailed as far as the purge of the Aachen administration of formal Ex-Nazis was concerned, but, for reasons that are not altogether clear, did not get its way when Oppenhoff's successor was appointed. At any event, the Aachen scandal helped to sensitize the upper echelons of the American Army command as to the real problems American Military government in Germany would have to face. It was not only the question of the degree of American involvement in German politics, not only the question of sorting former minor Nazis out of responsible administrative positions; it was the crucial question as to what kind of Germans were initialy to be selected to assume political reponsibility. Obviously, this process had not worked to full satisfaction in the case of Aachen. It was necessary to do better. Referring to the Aachen scandal a high ranking officer in SHAEF summed up the problem in the following way:”The clarification of de-Nazification instructions does not solve the problem. ...We are going to be criticized for the way the political situation develops [in Germany] even when the question of Naziism is not involved... If we allow right-wing figures to dominate a civil administration we will be criticized by the left wing and vice versa ..".

This was a real predicament, a dilemma, behind which loomed a problem that had not really been solved even by highest authorities in Washington: The question as to whether a positive, constructive, political program would have to be pursued by the United States in defeated Germany, and what this program would look like. Asking for guidance in this respect, SHAEF touched upon a controversy that had been raging in Washington since the summer of 1944. Put briefly, it revolved around making a choice, the alternative being either a more ideologically or a more pragmatically oriented American occupation policy in Germany. The ideologues had their stronghold in the Treasury. Henry Morgenthau not only advocated the “pastoralization” of Germany, but, more importantly, a decided policy of hands-off as far as any German politics were concerned. Morgenthau's adversaries were concentrated in the Pentagon (but also in the State Department). Here, pragmatic aspects always had to be taken into consideration - pragmatic aspects that really ruled out the kind of wholly destructive policy which Morgenthau and his supporters advocated. Psychological warfare required that the Germans were offered somewhat more than the wholesale destruction of their heavy industries, unless one wanted them to fight to the very last ditch. Administratively, it was necessary to establish a certain degree of civil order in the German areas behind the front lines; cooperation with some Germans, therefore, was unavoidable. As soon as this was acknowledged, the question of some political guidance for this cooperation came up.

In Washington the conflict between ideologues and pragmatists continued until March 23, 1945. This was the date when the ever vacillating FDR could be persuaded to put his initials under a compromise that left all options open to the pragmatists. It was this compromise that paved the way for a preliminary guideline for the political reconstruction of occupied Germany. Robert Murphy, the State Department representative at SHAEF and Eisenhower's most prominent political adviser, who had visited Aachen three weeks after its surrender, assumed the responsibility for issuing the guidelines the military officers had asked for in preparation for their occupation duties in Germany. It is a key document of the early history of America's occupation of Germany. Explaining the interdepartmental compromise initialled by Roosevelt of March 23, 1945 Murphy wrote:

”The new policy...draws a distinction between active and nominal members of the Nazi Party...in the direction of permitting the use, through retention or appointment, of.persons who were only nominal members of the Nazi Party.... The denazification directive, however complete and detailed..., is essentially negative in its approach to the problem of governing Germany. It gives no positive guidance for the Military Government officer who not only wants to know whom he should not appoint, but whom he should appoint, ...in order to promote and encourage a regrowth of democratic forces...Old [German] political labels are indicative though not decisive. Thus, it is a presumption that former trade unionists, Social Democrats, and many of the Center Party are reasonably pro-democratic and anti-Nazi. Parties to the right of the former Center Party ... may have been anti-Nazi; but they were so generally imbued with German nationalism...as to make their members unsuitable for all purposes... Stress must be laid on considering carefully the background of each individual... Appointments should especially avoid giving too much prominence to elements of the extreme left or the extreme right of the Anti-Nazi section of the population. This is important in order to avoid charges of favoring a too radical or too conservative policy and also in order to lessen the chances of appointing persons who are not genuinely pro-democratic..." (May 7,1945)

V.