The Art of Occupation. Thomas J. Kehoe

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      The rapidity with which new MGOs pursued reconstruction encouraged the emergence of state- and zone-wide polices. Discussions on reinstating a state taxation system for Bavaria were underway by 10 July.³⁰ But the beginnings of transdistrict policies belied the continued isolation of detachments in the districts. The requirement that districts manage their own finances exposed detachments’ solitude. Transition to US administration was administratively difficult, and meeting payroll expenses was problematic. Although the reichsmark was nearly valueless in practical terms, it remained the official medium of exchange for transactions in the occupation and MGOs devoted considerable time to the finer points of budgetary management. In Obernburg, Logan was bothered by even a “slight deficit in the Landkreis financial statement” and when a severe storm hit Dillingen on the night of 27 July, one of Baker’s first concerns was the cost of repairs and damage to the district’s budget. Repairs were nonetheless “expedited” by a crisis team including the trade and industry MGO, the German town superintendent, and the mayor, revealing the effectiveness with which civil affairs had already been restored and the emergence of positive relations between MGOs and Germans.³¹

      Such collaborative efforts were not necessarily the norm, and tensions remained as MGOs attempted to develop collegial relationships with Germans while serving as autocratic military rulers. Denazification frequently exposed the fault lines. When, according to Baker, “thirty-six undesirable” former Nazis were found in one local finance office in Dillingen on 14 July, the American public safety officer Captain Harry Apple ordered them removed. The German district administrator objected, arguing that so many dismissals would force the office to shut down, which would harm the district’s financial viability. Commander Baker resolved the conflict by systematically firing and then rehiring the staff in question. Logan in Obernburg dealt with similar problems by delegating all staffing questions to German administrators, distancing the detachment from denazification questions. He did however monitor removals, resignations, and replacements of officials, intervening when he felt it was warranted.³²

      The comparatively rapid restoration of civil administration did not assuage MGOs’ persistent concerns about disorder. And alongside continuingly high levels of German anxiety, American fears further impeded better working relationships with locals by pushing officers to exercise their power preventively. Logan may have been content to allow Germans tacit oversight of denazification, but he responded with near draconian measures to any perceived threats to stability. These included rumor mongering and potential protest. On 8 July, he ordered twenty-two people detained “on suspicion of promoting a public gathering.”³³ Later in the month, he informed local priests they would be arrested if found discussing American soldiers or MG, either privately with local citizens or publicly from the pulpit.³⁴ Logan’s proactive restraint of potentially damaging speech and civilian organization suggests an appreciation for the tenuous social environment, even if tensions in the district were not expressed as overt social disorder or criminal behavior. Unfounded and disturbing rumors were common during the first year of the occupation and elicited near hysteria.³⁵ The MG Legal Code criminalized them; detachments monitored them closely. Some of the most persistent claimed that the Soviets would soon occupy the American Zone and seek violent revenge against Germans for the eastward invasion.³⁶ These ideas permeated all levels of German society. The majority of German administrators in rural district Dachau, for instance, believed that “the final forcing of Germany to communism” was “a pre-arranged plan” among the Allies. Despite the Dachau detachment’s best efforts to dissuade them officers found that there was a near constant “air of depression” among the Germans that hindered reconstruction.³⁷

      Fear was contagious in the cities as well, but there was frequently more overt social disorder and crime to support it. Major Everett S. Cofran arrived in Augsburg on 8 June 1945 and, according to military historian Earl F. Ziemke, later became renowned as one of the most hard-nosed commanders in the zone.³⁸ He began each daily report with an assessment of public safety. Like his rural counterparts, Cofran mostly dealt with curfew violations, but there was also more undisguised crime. Looting “by Germans and DPs” continued through July, though it was consistently decreasing.³⁹ Theft was common as well: over a number of nights, the local Dominican nunnery was repeatedly burglarized. Cofran was also alarmed by the size of the black market and the extent to which such trade was often flagrantly conducted. He responded to all this criminality aggressively, ordering soldiers to patrol around the nunnery and Augsburg’s German police to raid black market establishments, which they did with increasing intensity throughout June and July, netting numerous arrests.⁴⁰

      Crime was worse in larger Munich and dominated the detachment’s attentions. MG commander Lieutenant Colonel Walter H. Kurtz closely monitored its rise and fall. The records for Munich are fragmentary; the registers for at least two of the summary courts are missing, and Kurtz’s diary only begins on 8 August. Yet between the 8th and 28th of August, he recorded 2,643 criminal incidents. Violations of curfews and civil restrictions were a plurality (1,236). There were also, however, 1,050 property offenses, including 806 thefts, 151 cases of black market participation (charged under Section 43 of the MG Legal Code), and 93 cases involving possession of stolen Allied property. “Miscellaneous” offenses such as traffic violations accounted for 384 of the cases.⁴¹ This was an astonishingly high crime rate compared to historic trends in Germany, and it reveals the social strain that urban MG detachments faced, which resulted from economic collapse, shattered infrastructure, poor supplies and resources, and the influx of refugees and DPs.⁴²

      A black market was virtually inevitable in such conditions as people struggled to survive. Most MGOs viewed even this low-level crime as damaging to the social order because it exposed MG’s inability to meet people’s food and resource needs. MGOs frequently responded by imposing stricter rations, which drove resource hoarding, which MGOs in turn criminalized. In Munich, Kurtz made “Violation of Consumption Orders” a breach of Section 43. Similar actions were taken in Bremen and in major urban areas of the British Zone such as Cologne, creating a repressive cycle of desperation and criminalization of survival actions.⁴³

      All crime and social unrest emphasized the importance of policing, which along with nearly all questions of governance fell to district detachments. They had to rely on German police. The instructions were clear, as the Public Safety Manual emphasized: “German police … will be responsible for maintaining law and order.”⁴⁴ But this requirement placed detachments in an unenviable position between the occupation’s transformative aims and the requirements of local law enforcement. Reluctant to remove the German police who were vital to maintaining order, MGOs often forwent denazification in favor of ensuring the peace. CIC agents then took care of the matter for them, checking German police for Nazi histories along with other government officials and dismissing many of them.⁴⁵ These sweeps were often more far reaching than MGOs were comfortable with, leaving district police forces understaffed and amplifying concerns about local security, which led to persistent conflict in the districts between MG and zone-level agents of denazification.⁴⁶ When Andrews in rural district Nuremberg noted “some increase in crime” in early July 1945, he reversed denazification and ordered “all persons dismissed … for political background … back to work immediately.” He also granted the German police greater authority to resolve civil disputes in order to relieve pressure on his detachment.⁴⁷ One month later, Andrews reported that a CIC-led denazification sweep had once again “hit some departments of the city very hard.” Faced with few options for hiring new officers, some MGOs simply reemployed dismissed police when CIC agents left. Andrews, for instance, pursued an “intensive campaign for new employees” this second time, which included once again reassessing—to his benefit—the political status of dismissed Germans.⁴⁸