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I.
GENERAL ENVIRONMENT
.\
In spring 1945, World War II neared its end as Allied armies marched into Gennany_
From the east and from the west the advancing troops made a series of grim discoveries-the
Na:a-death camps established to carry out Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution" to rid Europe of Jews
and other ~nemie.s of National Socialism (Nazism). Fro:ro. April4 to May 7, 1945, United
States Annyunits invading Germany liberated eight major concentration camps and their subI
•
camps. Soldiers and officers alike were horrified at what they found-the emaciated bodies of
camp prisoners ravaged by malnutrition and disease, railroad cars .full of corpses, incinerated
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skeletons, filthy barracks, lice-infest~ bedding, and an overwhelming odor. On April 12, 1945,
Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, and George S. Patton visited Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald. Eisenhower" turned pale and Patton was sick to his stomach. Later,
Eisenhower ordered every army unit in the area not on front line duty to visit the camp so that
GIs knew why theywere fighting this war.l
These grim revelations dominated publio attention, but Simultaneously with these grim
reminders, as they the American combat troops who drove across Gennany and Austria, oombat
troops also uncovered stores of valuables-gold, artwork, financial instruments, as well as
everyday household items-hidden by the Nazis in barns, mines, and other locations. These
were the possessions stolen from the human victims ofthe Holocaust whose survivors the
'soldiers found in the camps.
1 Robert H. Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 27, 30; Bob Kesting, "Updated Lists of Certified Liberating Units,"
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�United States' responsibility for restitution to victims of these stolen assets stems from
the victory of the Allied military forces over Nazi Germany. Drawing on secondary literature
, this chapter briefly sketches the events of the 1930s and 1940s that address the following
questions. What conditions created the victims,' moved the United States out of its domestic
preoccupations into the war, and put agencies ofthe United States governp1ent in control of
victim assets? What can one say about the formulation of policies that shaped agency actions in
dealing with those assets? .The exploration of these questions here provides only a broad, general
orientation for a later, more detailed discussion of the conduct of the United States government
as it acquired assets, organized, inventoried and stored them, and finally dealt with their
restitution and distribution. '
The chapter traces the Nazi regime"s singular effort to persecute and exterminate entire
, categories of people. The death camps were the manifestation of a long-standing Nazi campaign
of discrimination against Jews and other "undesirables." After gaining power in 1933, Adolf
Hitler's party began to implement laws based on anti-Semitism, racism, and the Nazi concept of .
the Aryan ideal both to rid the Reich of its enemies and to expropriate their valuables. Over time
these policies escalated from forced emigration to "Aryaniz'ation" of business enterprises to the
"Final Solution" of genocide. While eradicating ''undesirable'' peoples from Europe , Nazi
officials took great care to seize anything of value from their many victims ..
PUT NEXT 5 PARAGRAPHS IN SUMMARY-CONCLUSION AT END
(Washington, DC: USHMM, Aug. 30, 1994), 1-3; Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World At Arms: A Global History of
World War'll (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994),834.
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�~or those in the United States, the atroCities came into full focus as soldiers, officers, and
.other officials who toured the camps reported back to the home front. By then, few questioned
why the United States had been at war with Nazi Germany. However, in the 1930s American
leaders and the American public were preoccupied with domestic issues, most notably the effects
of the Great Depression, and had resisted involvement in the growing troubles in Europe.
Isolationism ran strong, but, as the chapter shows, a concurrence of foreign events and the.
perseverance of President Franklin Roosevelt moved the government to assist America's allies as
one by one they suffered German aggression.
After the United States entered the war in late 1941-.united with a traditional friend,
Great Britain, and a new and unexpected ally, the Soviet Union-the government concentrated
on upholding the remarkable coalition and defeating the Nazi enemy. The three powers
maintained their alliance, won the war, and invaded and occupied a ruined Germany.
Even while troops were still fighting, the armies and other organizations set out to impose
order on a devastated society and economy, including the repair of roads, rail, waterways, and
housing. To function in Germany and Austria the occupiers had to repair roads, railways and
waterways, housing, and other infrastructure throughout the country. In addition allied armies
took over responsibility to care for the millions of Nazi victims and refugees in the two
countries. These vi ctims-·Jews and non-Jews, living and dead-and indeed many victims
elsewhere in Europe, had been stripped oftheir assets for the benefit of the Third Reich. The
United States came into possession of these assets in a variety of ways, in part through discovery
and seizure by invading troops, in part through Treasury Department action early in the war to
freeze foreign assets. The question ofhow to return valuables to their rightful owners had to vie
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�for attention of occupation officials with the problems of providing .food, shelter, medicine, and
other comforts to the millions of Nazi victims and other displaced persons in the former Reich.
During the war officials inWashington had addressed the subject of property looted 'by
the Nazis. After the victory in Europe they confronted the complicated and challenging tasks of
occupation and restitution. The executive and the Departments of War, State, and Treasury
struggled to formulate policies for the military and civilian government of Germany, including a
policy on restitution of victims' assets. Meanwhile, the United States Army on the ground in
Germany and Austria, lacking specific guidelines from Washington, issued its own set of
directives. The chapter shows that the army took the lead to bring order out of chaos in Germany
and Austria, to care for those p~rsecuted by the Nazis, and to begin returning stolen property.
Only later did other government and international agencies join the army as custodians of
victims' assets.
A.
Nazi Victimization
L
Race, Ideology, and Law
Nazi Germany's war against its internal and external enemies brought immense material
devastation and human suffering and material deyastation. A substantial part of the suffering
arose from the essence of the Nazi racial ideology.
Th~
systematic victimization inherent in
Nazism began took, on an official dimension when Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist
German Worker's Party (NSDAP) took power in January 1933. Within weeks the racist
worldview of this once fringe group appeared in German law, openly expressed in the Civil
Service Law of April 7, 1933, that effectively barred Jews from state employment.
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�Hitler and the Nazi Party exalted a mythical conception ofan Aryan master race. A few
other "inferior" races could, like the pure Aryan race, alse-create culture, such as the Dutch,
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Belgians, Norwegians, and Danes, but "take away the Nordic Gennans," Hitler wrote, "and
nothing remains but the dance of apes.,,2 THe master race also was 'entitled to take ~'living space"
away from those they saw as subhuman, such as the Slavic Poles or Russians.
In hls-Hitler's cosmology, the master race was in a battle for world domination with the
Jews who used every instrument possible to subdue Aryan peoples to their rule.) These
instruments included democracy, capitalism, parliamentarianism, liberalism, Christianity,
modernism in art, prostitution, miscegenation and above all, Bolshevism. Jews were mortal
enemies, and Moscow directed the Jewish world conspiracy.4
Other racial, political, and social elements also threatened Aryan purity. Gypsies and
racially "less valuable" Gennans, such as the mentally and physically handicapped~ were early
targets of Nazi persecution on racial and biological grounds. Adherents to "Jewish" political
theories as well as Christian Scientists, Freemasons, Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses,
homosexuals, and othetswere victimized as well for engaging in: "asocial" activity.s During the
first few years after Hitler became Chancellor, Nazis and their sympathizers subjected members
of all these groups, but particularly Jews, to "spontaneous" riots and semi-organized boycotts.
2 Cited
in Leon Baradet, Political Ideologies, Sihed. (Englewood'Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994),246.
3
Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper, 1964),407.
4
Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper, 1964),365.,
5 See Michael Berenbaum, ed., A Mosaic a/Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis (New
York: New York University Press, 1990).
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�These actions adversely affected the German economy because they destroyed property and
aroused animosity abroad. The Party needed a more organized approach if the regime wanted to
profit materially from the persecution of its perceived enemies. 6
The Nazis employed so-called "Jewish experts" in the Reich Interior Ministry to write
, several laws (Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, the Reich Flag Law, and the
Reich Citizenship Law) that the Nazi controlled Reichstag (parliament) enacted on
September 15, 1935. Thesdaws, known collectively as the Nuremberg Laws, codified and
systematized the official separation of Aryan from non-Aryan. They explicitly identified those
against whom official discrimination could and" would be directed-the Jews. 7 An elaborate
scheme in these laws detailed three separate "degrees" of Jewishness. 8 The laws thus determined
the extent to which a Jew would be socially and professionally ostracized from the Aryan
community by officially designating one's degree of Jewishness. Among the legislation's most
"
important clauses were the prohibition against marriage and extramarital relations between
Aryans and Jews and the restriction of Reich citizenship 1QjJersons of "German or related
6 Avraham B~kai, From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle ofGerman Jews, 1933-1943, trans.
William Templer (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989), 56-57.
,
7
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction ofthe European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 27-37.
8 Andreas Rethmeier, "Nurnberger Rassegesetze" und Entrechtung der Juden im Zivilrecht (Frankfurt am
Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1995),88-100.
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�blood.,,9 Jews were henceforth no longer protected as citizens but were instead treated as
subjects. 10
The Nuremberg Laws served as a framework for further racial discrimination against
Gypsies and others defined as "non-Aryans." The Nazis victimized social and political
"undesirables" through at least 400 discriminatory laws, decrees, regulations, and amendments
during the next five years. II These executive decisions, often promulgated in the form of
vaguely worded crime prevention or public health measures, were always punitive, restrictive,
and confiscatory in nature and intended to segregate "asocial" elements from the "Aryan"
community.12 Once the Nazi regime had clearly defined tflei.f-its enemies, those enemies and
their assets could be more easily identified and targeted.
2.
Aryanization .
"The Jew must go-and his cash stays here!" the Nazi Volkischer Beobachter newspaper
blared on Ui-April 26, 1938, I3 the same day the Nazi regime promulgated a decree requiring
Jews to declare all the domestic and foreign property they held that was worth more than 5,000
9 Reichsbiirgergesetz yom 15. September 1935: Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen
Ehre yom 15. September 1935, Gesetz zum Schutze der Erbgesundheit des deutschen Volkes yom 18. Oktober 1935
(Munich: C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1936),31-37.
10
Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews, 1933-1945 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975),
II
Anold Paucker et aI., Die Juden 1m nationalsozialistischen Deutschland (Tiibingen: 1. C. B. Mo~, 1986),
67.
105.
12 Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippennann, The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 49; Guenter Lewy, "The Travail of the Gypsies" in The National Interest (Fall,
1999),82.
13 Botz
in Robert Wistrich, Austrians and Jews in the 2(jh Century (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992),208.
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�Reichsmark.
14
The stated purpose of the decree was·to ensure the utilization of any assets of
value in the interest of the German economy, but its secret purpose was "to achieve a final
exclusion of Jews from the German economy.HI,S From 1933 to 1939 the Naziregime attempted
to force Jews to emigrate from Germany by depriving them of their IiveIihoods, and to transfer
their assets-.by whatever means-into non-Jewish hands before they left.
The process was gradual, with disbarred lawyers still able to work for a time as legal
counselors and with some initial exemptions for Jewish veterans from World War 1. But the
process was also inexorable, provoking the emigration of from 100,000 to 170,000 German Jews
.
,
(between 1933 and 1937/38), half of whom may have had significant assets. 16
The Nuremberg Laws applied to only a small segment of Germany's Jews, Galyabout
the -12 percent of JeVlS in Germaay who worked in the civil service and the professions. Most
Jews (61 percent) found employment in commerce and transport. 17 In 1933 as many as 100,000
Jewish enterprises of all kinds may have been active, but in November of.1938 when the Nazi
government prohibited Jews from owning retail businesses, only about 40,000 enterprises
14
Gordon Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980),635.
IS Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation. The Economic Struggle ofGfmnan Jews, 1933-1943
(Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989), 118.
16 Helen Junz, "How the Economics of the Holocaust Add" (Appendix S), in Report ofthe Independent
Committee ofEminent Persons (Volker CO,mmittee, i 999), A-171.
'
17 Helen Junz', "How the Economics of the Holocaust Add" (Appendix S), in Report ofthe Independe~t
Committee ofEminent Persons (Volker Committee, 1999), A-I64:
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�remained. IS After 1933, ~any pressures drove small Jewish owners to sell their businesses-
German boycotts, refusals by Germans to pay business debts to Jews, official harassment, the
denial of credit by banks, the intimidating ofbusiness owners when they were taken into'
"protective custody," and the desire to raise the necessary cash to einigrate. 19 As many as a
quarter of Jewish businesses may already have closed or been sold by 1935, particularly in the
, more rural areas and small towns. 20 While the details of many of these transactions are no longer
available, it is clear that Aryanization first targeted shopkeepers, while the larger Jewish
enterprises-,textile firms, department stores, banks heavily involved in export financing-'were
among the last to be ~Qld or transformed into limited partnerships or other forms of enterprise. 21
A decree of April 1938mandated'registration of Jewish property. In'November an
assessment identified the value of all Jewish assets in the Reich, including Austria, as 8.53
, billion Reichsmark, of which RM 1.4 billion was debts and other liabilities. Of the remaining
RM 7.12 billion, about one-sixth (17~2 percent) was business capital, more than one-third (35.8
percent) was real estate, and close to two-thirds (61.5 percent) were in firiancial assets
18 Ano1d Paucker et ai., Die Juden im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland (Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr, ] 986),
156; Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation. The Economic Struggle ofGerman Jews, 1933-1943
(Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989), 11 L
'
19 Karl Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz. Nazi Policy Toward GermanJews 1933-1939 (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1990), 143.
20 Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation. The Economic Struggle ofGerman Jews, 1933-1943
(Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989), 70.
21 Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation. The Economic Struggle ofGerman Jews, 1933-1943 '
(Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989),72-77.
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�including inflated pensions, salaries, insurance, bank notes, securities and other "vulnerable
assets ... readily seizable.,,22
After 1938, the veneer oflegality that had characterized at least some Aryanizations
disappeared, and the process of putting property and enterprises into non-Jewish hands became
indistinguishable from outright theft and expropriation, with old Nazi Party members often the
beneficiaries. Nowhere was this more blatant than in post-Anschluss Vienna, home to 90 percent
of Austria's Jews, where "by the end of 1938, 3,500 party members had become
'commissioners' over seized Jewish properties.,,23 By mid.,. I 939, over 18,000 Austrian Jewish
firms had been purchased, confiscated or closed, and many other assets, including, valuable
paintings, simply stolen. 24 After May, 1940, in occupied France, Holland, and Belgium, special
teams involved in so-called M-Aktionen, packed up the libraries and art objects of Jews who had
fled and sent these assets to Germany. By 1942, Nazi officials had confiscated property from
Jews whom they had deported to concentration camps. By the end of July 1944, the relevant
office proudly reported that over 69;500 "complete Jewish apartments" (worth RM 1.5 million)
had been packed up and transported, in 674 trains full of containers sometimes marked "Jewish
goods," from the occupied territories to the Reich. Officials in Cologne, Diisseldorf, Mainz,
Berlin, Hamburg and other cities publicly auctioned off furniture and all usable goods to replace
22 Helen JUllZ, "How the Economics of the Holocaust Add" (Appendix S), in Report ofthe Independent
Committee ofEminent Persons (Volker Committee, 1999), A-l66; AvrahaIn Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation.
The Economic Struggle ofGerman Jews, 1933-1943 (Hanover, NIl: University Press of New England, 1989), 113.
23
Gordon Craig, Germany 1866-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980),636.
24 Richard Chesnoff, Pack ofThieves. How Hitler and Europe Plundered the Jews and Committed the
Greatest Theft in History (New York: Doubleday, 1999),27,31; Lynn Nicholas, The Rape afEuropa. The Fate of
Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Vintage, 1995),38-44.
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�what Gennans had lost in Allied bombing raids. This special operation M-Aktion thus netted
RM_-ll.7 million: worth of currency and other securities from Jewish residences?5
Beginning in 1931, emigres had to pay a Reich Flight Tax, which the Nazis later
expanded to extract even more assets from Jews. By 1934, the regime levied a Capital Flight
Tax on any transfers of more than RM 50,000, and by 1936 the government further restricted the
free export of securities. After 1937 exchange control violations carried the death penalty.
When the war broke out the regime prohibited all capital transfers. 26 The Nazis introduc~d
numerous other devices to extract assets from Jews who fled Gennanyinthe 1930s, including
blocking accounts, manipulating the exchange rates, confiscating insurance monies, forcing them
. to pay "atonement" fines, taxing Jews on their "right" to sell their own property, and making'
them pay into a fund to support the emigration of poor Jews .. Even a wealthy banker such as
Max Warburg was ooly-left with only 2-3 percent of his wealth when he fled. 27
3.
Extermination Policies
.
.
Hitler wanted a Gennany "cleansed of Jews" (Judenrein). Initially the official policy
encouraged emigration. As the Reich expanded into Austria (1938), Poland (1939), France
(1940), and other nations. and territories, it acquired additional resources and laborers but also
more ''undesirables.'' The Nazi government quickly introduced its discriminatory laws and
2S S~e Tuviah Friedmann, Das Vermiigen der ermordeten Juden Europas (Haifa: Institute of Documentation,
1997); Wolfgang Dressen, Betriffi: "Aktion 3 '~ - Deutsche verwerten judische Nachbarn (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag,
1998), 45-61.
.
26
·27
Junz, "How the Economics," A-20 1; Barkai, From Boycott, 100.
Kopper, Zwischen Marktwirtschaft, 266-67.
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�regulations into the German:·oontrolled territories to exclude Jews and other "asocials" from
economic and public life and to encourage them to emigrate while leaving their wealth behind.
But by autumn 1941, neither J~ws in German-occupied Europe nor Jews in Germany could
emigrate. 28
The Nazi government beg~ early in1940 to concentrate and ghettoize Jews in. closed
districts in Polish cities. By September 1941 Adolf Eichmann had organized his first
deportation, sending 20,000 Rhineland Jews and 5,000 Gypsies to the Lodz ghetto in Poland. 29
Polish ghettoization was largely complete three months later. 3o More ominously, in November
1941 the regime began building and operating extermination ca.rnps at Belzec and Chelmno, soon
to be followed by Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek. 31
The invasion of Russia in the early summer of 1941 marked the beginning of
extermination, the police and SS (Einsatzgroppen) sent mobile killing units into areas close
behind the front lines. Their Job was to kill Jewish inhabitants on the spot, at a rate of 100,000 a
month by the end of 194 i,32 using methods applied in Germany since .1939 in killing the
,
28
.,,'
Uwe Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (DUsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1972),310.
29 Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York: Penguin, 1982),93-95; Avraham Barkai, From Boycott
to Annihilation. The Economic Struggle ofGerman Jews, 1933-1943 (Hanover, NH: University Press ofNew
England, 1989), 175.
30
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction ofthe European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986), 79-84.
31 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction ofthe European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986),228-30; Gudrun
.
,
Schwartz, Die nationalsozialistischen Lager (Frankfurt:. Campus, 1990),210-16.
32
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction ofthe European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986), 125.
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�mentally handicapped and other undesirables. 33 The "Commissar Order" directed German Army
units to execute Coinmunist Party functionaries found among captured Russians. According to a
June 3, 1941 German Army Headquarters directive of June 3, 1941, entitled "Guidelines for the
I
Conduct of Troops in Russia," the struggle "demands ruthless and energetic measures against
Bolshevik agitators, guerrillas, saboteurs, Jews, and the complete elimination of every active or
passive resistance.,,34 In practice, this meant mass executions of Russian prisoners of war and
civilians, in violation of international agreements.
So, although Nazi leaders met at the Wannsee Conference to coordinate a "Final
Solution" only in January 1942, the large-scale murder of Jews and Russians at the front had
started at least six months earlier. These policies were the fulfillment of Hitler's public call in
early 1939 for"the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.,,35 Nazi officials at the Wannsee
Conference still discussed expelling Jews from German life and accelerating their emigration
through deportation or evacuation to the East. 8till, according to The minutes of the meeting
also show, by contrast, that they Nazi leaders planned to put able-bodied Jews to work building
roads, "in the course of which doubtless many will be eliminated by natural causes," while those
that survived, who would ''undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion," would have to be·
"treated accordingly" since they "would, if released, act as a seed of a new Jewish revival."
33 Gudrun Schwartz, Die nationalsozialiStischen Lager (Frimkfurt: Campus, 1990),53-55; Hannah Arendt,
Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York: Penguin, 1982), 107.
34 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction ofthe European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986), 99; Falk Pingel,
Hiifilinge unter SS-Herrschafl (Hamburg: Hoffinan und Campe, 1978), 119-22; Lucy Davidowicz, The War
Against the Jews 1933-1945 (New York: Bantam, 1986), 123-25.
35
Lucy Davidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945 (New York: Bantam, 1986), 106.
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�"Treated accordingly" was a euphemism for execution by firing squad or death by
gassing. The killing camps at Che1mno, Be1zec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek used gassing
techniques that Nazi officials had learned from the mobile killing commandos. The last of these
death camps closed in November 1943 after an estimated 1.7 to 1.9 million victims of genocide
died in these five locations. 36
Only two assets remained to those victims sent to the camps: what they carried with
tpemand their labor power. Odilo Globocnik, an.SS-officer in charge of killing centers around
Lublin, seems to have been particularly eager to secure from the victims whatever wealth he
could for use by the Reich. On February 3, 1943, he submitted a list of expropriated "Jewish
items" that includes the following valuables (valued in Reichsmark) in an enumeration that goes
on for several pages:
RM 1,452,904.65
Bills in 29 currencies; largest single currency Y:&U. S.
dollars
843,802.75
Coin in 27 currencies; largest single currency l:f.:.&.u. S.
dollars
4,942,870.00
Gold bars, 1,775 kilos at RM 2,784lkilo
Silver bars, 9,639 kilos at RM 40lkilo
385,573.00
25,500.00
Platinum, 5 kilos at RM 5,000lki10
Other items, the largest of which, by '1alue, \veretotaled
26,089,800.00
and included:
-_Gold rings with diamonds, (l1,675}
RM11,675,000.00
.
. 4,000,000.00
-_Pearls, (49 kilos}·
-_Gold brooches, (l,974}
3,948,000.00
-_Women's gold wristwatches, (7,313}
1,828,250.00·
-_Men's gold pocket watches, (2,874}
1,427,000.00
13,294,400.00
Textiles and fabrics (462 freight cars of rags, 251 freight
cars of bedding, and 317 freight cars of clothing)
36 Raul Hilberg, The Destrnction ofthe European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986),239; Gudrun
Schwartz; Die nationalsozialistischen Lager (Frankfurt: Campus; 1990),212-16 ..
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�In addition to the RM 15.9 million cash on hand, and the RM 37 million delivered to the
SS Economic Administration offices in Krakow and Berlin, the total came to 100 million
Reichsmark worth of items delivered to the Reich. The "Reinhardt Action" in Lublin that
covered April 1942 to -l-§...December ~1943 (thus likely including the amounts just noted),
produced a more inclusive list of 178 million Reichsmark, including 1,901 freight cars of
clothing and textiles. 37
.
Labor power constituted the only other remaining asset that victims possessed. A
.
.
temporary "reprieve" awaited those judged strong enough to work. Still, according to a directive
of ~April 30, 1942, the exploitation of prisoners in concentration camps took place thereafter
I
without regard to life and health because the Reich needed prisoner labor. In September 1942
both Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels had another idea, according to Justice Minister
Otto Thierack, that "extermination through work would be the best" for both Jews and Gypsies. 38
In short, those who were spared from gassing were to be worked to death.
B.
United States Engagement
1.
Overcoming Isolationism
The United States remained largely impervious to the Nazi horrors materializing in
Germany and Europe during the 1930s. In 1936, one of the earliest national Gallup polls ever
37 Tuviah Friedmann, Das Vermogen der ermodeten Juden Europas (Haifa: Institute of Documentation in
Israel, 1997), 16-21.
38 Bernd Klewitz, Die Arbeitssklaven der Dynamit Nobel (Schalksmiihle, Germany: Verlag Engelbrecht,
1986),432-34.
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�conducted found that 60 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement "if there is another
general war in Europe, the tJ.£.U. S. can stay out.,,39 President Roosevelt thus reflected national
sentiment when in a speech he gave in August 1936 he declared.. "We shun political.
commitments which might entangle us in foreign wars,:/, in a speech he gave in August 1936.40
Many cited George Washington's warning in his Farewell Address against "pennanent alliances
with any portion of the foreign world,,41 to bolster an isolationist position.
Domestic problems loomed far larger in the early 1930s than international concerns, in
particular unemployment and the sagging economy ofthe Depression. Manyfelt that it was
futile to intervene abroad when the nation's strength was so sapped. In 1932, when
unemployment stood at 13.7 million in the United States, the isolationist Senator William E.
Borah wrote that Americans should "look after our own interests and devote ourselves to our
own people.,,42 Furthennore, popular distrust ofbanks, big business, 'llld munitions
manufacturers, all of whom were perceived as profiting from foreign trade (if not actively
promoting war),supported inward-looking attitudes. 43 Senator George Norris, opposing
. . 39 H. Schuyler Foster, Activism Replaces Isolationism: l:J.£u. S Public Attitudes 1940-1975 (Washington,
D.C.: Foxhall Press, 1983), 19.
40 New York Times, ~ug. 15,1936,4:2, reprinted in Paul Holbo, Isolation and Interventionism, 1932
1941 (Chicago: Rank McNally & Co., 1967), 17.
41
Charles Beard and Mary Beard, The Rise ofAmerican Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 372.
42 Thomas Guinsburg, The Pursuit ofIsolationism in the United States Senate from Versailles to Pearl Harbor
(New York: Garland Publishing, 1982), 135.
. .
43
Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America 1935-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966),26.
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16
�American intervention in 1917, said in Congress that "the object in having war and in preparing
.
. .
for war is to make money." That sentiment remained widespread in' the. 1930s.44
Roosevelt's efforts until 1938 focused on ways to undermine aggressor nations .by
.
encouraging disarmament and restricting trade, as well as by suggesting blockades or other ways
of controlling the seas. His efforts were stymied by Congressional passage of the Neutrality Acts'
(1935-37) that mandated arms embargoes and prohibited loans to all belligerents, making it
impossible to favor those considered allies. It remained possible to supply food, raw materials,
and manufactured goods as long as a country paid for them in cash and carried them away on
foreign ships. This permitted a trans-Atlantic trade with Great Britain to flourish, one which
would subsequently require the \::h&U. S. Navy to protect ship convoys. Though the
:ygUnited States remained officially neutral in 1940-41, Roosevelt appears to have wanted to
draw German submarine fire on tJ.SU. S. ships. On May 17~ May-1941, he confided to Treasury
.
.
Secretary Henry Morgenthau that he was "waiting to be pushed." Moigenthau understood the
president to mean being pushed into war. 45
Of course, Roosevelt had been sly. In 1936 he said, "I can at least make certain that no
act of the United States helps to produce or to promote war,'.46 implying that provocative acts by
other nations were a different matter. During his reelection bid in 1940, still under pressure from
,
.
isolationists, Roosevelt declared that American "boys are not going to be sent into any foreign
44 Ronald PowaSki. Toward an Entangling Alliance. American Isolationism, Internationalism and Europe,
1901-/950 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 11,66.
4S
Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance, 58-88; the quote is on 96-7.
WORKING DRAFT - NOT FOR CIRCULATION
17
�war." On other occasions he added a key qualifier, "except incase of attack.,,47 By January .
1941 the United States had become the "arsenal of democracy." The introduction ofthe Lend
.
.
Lease bill-symbolically entitled House Resolution 1776-was a turning point. The bill
permitted the United States to lend or lease Great Britain the weapons,. munitions, food, or other
supplies needed to fight Hitler without requiring payment in return. The measure, Roosevelt
said, was "key to the security of the Western Hemisphere" and to the security ofthe United
States. 48 The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on :f..December 1...1941 finally ended American
isolation, and three days after declaring war on Japan, the United States was also at war with
Germany and Italy.49
2.
Foreign Political Events
Hindsight tends to see ultimate victory as practically inevitable, but for contemporaries
the liberation of Europe and the destruction of German military capabilities remained uncertain.
Only the cohesion of the Grand Alliance--indoubt until the last months of the war-that linked
the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union
in doubt until the last months of the
war:-:-brought the victory that gave U. S. forces and agencies the occasion to acquire victim
assets.
46 New York Times; ~ug. 15,1936,4:2, reprinted in Paul Holbo, L~olation and InterVentionism, 1932
1941 (Chicago: Rank McNally & Co., 1967), 17. .
47
Holbo, Iso/ation, p. 51.
48
Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance, 95.
49
Powaski, Toward an Entangling Ailiance, 110.
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�During the war both the western powers, the United States and Great Britain, and the
Soviet Union worried that the Grand Alliance might split and that Hitler would succeed in
making a separate agreement with east or west. In such a scenario, the Germans could have
marshaled their forces on one front and possibly reversed the tide of the war. The successful
efforts to maintain the partnership between the Big Three not only ensured victory, therefore, but
also made possible the United States' role in recovering and then restituting victim assets after
the war.
An uneasy mixture of suspicion and good will characterized the relationship between the
United States and the Soviet Union prior to 1941. President Roosevelt fOrmally recognized the
Soviet Union as a nation in 1933, thus removing something of the pariah status that country held
throughout its immediate post-revolutionary era of the 1920s. Nevertheless, Soviet aggression
against Finland and the agreement with Hitler t&-violently to partition Poland in 1939·(the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) and exert hegemony in Eastern Europe strained relations between the
two nations.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 rapidly turned the attacked nation
. into a beneficiary of American assistance. President Roosevelt immediately dispatched his
closest advisor, Harry Hopkins, to Moscow to coordinate the supply of materials necessary to
help defeat the Germans. 50 The United States' entry into the European conflict at the end of
1941 after Hitler's declaration of war against America on December 11 resulted in the formal
alliance which eventually crushed Nazi Germany.
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�From the,outset of the alliance, Roosevelt sought to: assuage the Soviets and to allay their
fears that the British and Americans would be tempted into concluding a separate peace with
Hitler. President Roosevelt and General Marshall both advocated in 1942 a quick blow'in
northern Europe, thereby forcing Germany to realign its troops and to relieve pressure on fronts
in Russia.
51
When this plan proved logistically impractical, Roosevelt again endeavored to
mollify the Soviets, declaring with the British in Casablanca in January 1943 that the Allies
would accept only "unconditional surrender" from Germany, Italy, and Japan.
52
This formula for ''unconditional surrender" failed to reassure the Soviet Union that its
western partners were doing everything possible to crush Germany rapidly. FormerAmbassador
to the Soviet Union, Joseph E.Davies, observed from Moscow in May 1943 that "many Soviet
leaders believed their Anglo-American allies wanted 'a weakened Russia at the peace table and a
Red Army that is bled white. ",53 Fottheir part, the Western Allies continued to fear that the
I,
Soviet UnionlJ.8.8R might agree to cease hostilities once the Germans had been pushed out of
Soviet territory. Both the sudden withdrawal of the Soviet Union from the First World War and
the pact with Hitler in 1939 ~were "ever present in the thinking of British and American
leaders.,,54
50 Gerhard L. Weinberg, A Wo~ld at ~s. A Global History of World War II (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994),243-244.
51 Stephen E. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism. American Foreign Policy Since 1938. Eighth Revised Edition
(New York: Penquin Books, 1997), 15-17.
52
John Keegan, The Second World War (London: Hutchinson, 1989),317-319:
53
Quoted in Gaddis, 73.
54
Weinberg, 289.
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�Since 1942 the Soviets. had pressed the Western Allies for a second front against the
Gennans in Europe; in June 1944 the successful Allied invasion ofNonnandy made a second
front reality. Officials both in the United States and in Great Britain began considering more
closely what the map of postwar Europe (and the world, for that matter) might look like,and
several worried about Soviet designs in the East. In the State Department, George Kennan
believed it time (late 1944) for a "full-fledged and realistic political showdown with the Soviet
leaders" t6 discuss their territorial intentions. 55
Yet "President Roosevelt showed little inclination to let such postwar considerations
affect his plans for operations against Gennany. ,,56 The primary tasks remained to crushffig Nazi
Gennany, and thereaftera to obtainffig Soviet assistance in the final campaigns against Japan in
the Pacific. To realize these ends, Roosevelt followed his own convictions, believing that Stalin
had no pernicious designs apart from obtaining security on the western Soviet border. 57
Although strained, the Grand Alliance remained intact, thus ensuring the total defeat of Gennany
by May 1945.
The domination of Eastern Europe that the Soviet Union achieved after the war certainly
affected restitution efforts. On the other hand, the development and perseverance of the Grand
Alliance (or "Strange Alliance," as it has been dubbed58 ) was instrumental in defeating Gennany
55
. 56
Ambrose, 27-31.
Gaddis, 75.
57
Ambrose, 30..
58
Ambrose,
15.
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21
�and concomitantly putting American forces in a position to recover and ultimately restitute
Holocaust victims' assets.
3.
American Command Structure in Europe
The American military command organizations that assumed control of victim assets
after Germany's defeat underwent considerable restructuring and redesignating during and
immediately after the Second World War. Rather than operating independently of one another,
the British and American armed forces in Europe united under one combined command
structure. The first of these. organizations, Chief of Staff, Suprerrie Allied Commander
(COSSAC), was absorbed into the newly established Supreme Headquarters, Allied
.
.
Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in January 1944. SHAEF, staffedby both American and British
o'fficers, directed combat operations throughout the war. A shadow organization, European
Theater of Operations, U. S. Army (ETOUSA), supplied and administered the effort, but unlike
SHAEF, ETOUSA was an entirely American organization. SHAEF and ETOUSA paralleled
one another and operated in unison because General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower headed
both organizations.
As victory over Nazi Germany neared, the U. S. Army began to separate itself from its
British counterpart. This rapid transition from combined to independent command was brought
about by expanding the responsibilities ofETOUSA, the solely American organization, and
reducing the responsibilitiesofSHAEF; the combined British-American organization. 59 On July
59 Oliver J. Frederiksen, The American Military Occupation of Gennany 1945-1953 (Dannstadt, Gennany:
Historical Division, Headquarters, United States Army, Europe, 1953),23.
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�J, 1945, ETOUSAwasredesignated U. S. Forces, European Theater (USFET); aRd-SHAEF was
dissolved two weeks later. Eisenhower headed USFET, headquartered in Frankfurt, llntil
November 11, 1945, at which time General George S. Patton took temporary command .. General
Joseph T. McNamey soon replaced. Patton on November 26, 1945. Another figure, Lieutenant
General Lucius D. Clay, loomed large over this period and would play and even greater role
later. Clay became Deputy Military Governor, SHAEF, in March 1945. and Deputy
Commanding General, ETOUSA, in April 1945. He retained these positions under USFET.
The commanding general ofUSFET also'served as the United States representative to the
Allied Control Council (ACC). The Allied CQntro~Council was a quadripartite commission
made up of the comman?ers in chief of the four allied anned forces. Although devised at the
Yalta Conference and fonned on June 5, ] 945, the Allied Control Council did not officially meet'
until July 30, 1945. The.commanders of the four occupying annies acted for Genn~y as a
whole, but each commander exercised complete authority within hi,s own zone. The ACC was
.
.
intended to exercised supreme authority in Gennany and had two missions: to administer'
Gennany as a single economic unit, and to establish a subsistence level for Gennan industrial
production with reparations taken only from production that exceeded that level. Due to serious
unresolved disagreements over economic policy and .the issue of reparations, qowever, the Allied
Control Council resembled a negotiating rather than a governing body.6o Although it could enact
legislation; it was unable to enforce its decisions in each separate zone. Governing a prostrate
Gennany would have been challenge enough for a single conquering.power; coordinating four
6°Earl F. Ziemke, The {-/,S,·U. S. Army in the Occupation o/Germany, 1944-/946 (Washington, D.C., Center of
Military History, 1975),344.
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23
�different approaches created myriad possibilities for complications and misunderstanding. The
four-power government of Germariy never worked; each zonal commander became the sovereign
authority in his zone.
Eisenhower and his successors directed the U. S. Amiy~!s transition from a combat force
to an occupying force and, finally, to a governing force in the U. S. zone. They soon pushed to
relieve the Army of the responsibilities for military government that it had exercised in the
combat theaters. No civilian organ~zation could match the Army~!s ability to organize and '
impose, stability in an environment as desperate as that of postwar Germany. In order to promote
a transition, the Army launched a rapid civilianization of military government. This process,
largely completed by summer 1946, continued even after USFET was replaced by the European
Command (EUCOM) on March 15, 1947. The Department ofState did not take over these
responsibilities until, a civilian High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG) was appointed in
1949.
The return to civil government took much less time in Austria. For matters concerning
,military government and political issues the commander ofU. S. Forces Austria (USFA),
General Mark W. Clark, operated directly under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in'
'Washington, as did his USFET counterpart. USF A established h,eadquarters in Salzburg on
'I
August 10, 1945 and was-depended upon USFET headquarters in Frankfurt for supply and
administration. The United States Allied Council for Austria (USACA) played a role similar to
the United States Group Control Council (USGCC) in Germany.
The country presented an anomaly for the four powers. Austria had fought the war as a
part of the German Reich, and, like Gennany,'Austria was occupied ~d divided into
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24
�.'
,
four zones. Austria was not a defeated state, but neither was it a liberated state. The Moscow
61
Declaration of 1943 had stated that Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression: , The four
powers in Austria quickly turned political and economic authority over to the Austrians, who
formed an indigenous c'entral goveIllllient in Vienna. All four powers retained a military
presence both in Vienna-wholly within the Soviet zone and divided like Berlin-and in their
-
.
.
.
four zones, but Allied military government ended when the occupying powers recognized the
Austrian government in June 1946. ,
C.
Occupation and Stabilization
1.
Agencies 'of the United States Army
The first Allied military organization responsible for securing, safeguarding, and
registering victims~! assets was 0-5 Division, Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force
SHAEF (SHAEF). The U. S. Army had created the staff position designated as 0-5, civil
affairs/military government, i~ 1943 to supplement the traditional staff dIvisions serving a
cOminanding general-O-l for personnal, U·2 for intelligence, 0-3 for operations, and 0-4 for
logistics and supply. The 0-5 Division~~s primary duties were to establish property and financial
controls, care for and repatriate DPs, and organize military government in occupied enemy
territory.62
61 Kurt Tweraser, "Von der MiliHirdiktatur 1945 zur milden Bevorrn~ndung des 'Bargaining-Systems' der
fiinfziger Jahr~" in Alfred Ableitinger, Siegfried Beer, Eduard Staudinger, eds. Osterreich unter Alliierter Besatzung
1945-1955 (Vienna: B6hlau Verlag, 1998),302.
62 Earl F. Ziemke, The U. S. Army in the Occupation of Gerrnany 1944-1946 (Washington, D. C.: Center of'
Military History, 1975), 164.
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25
�Detachments from G-5 accompanied allied'tactical troops as they liberated Europe and
overran enemy territory in 1944-45. 'These small G-5 units were organized and'staffed according
",
to five different levels of responsibility ranging from the state level (approximately 60 men) to
the local level (approximately 10 men).63 they relied on the tactical (i.e. combat) troops to help
them make contact with the civilian population, establish order, and set up the first rudimentary
semblance of military government. 64 Consequently, they follow~d close behind the tactical
, . '
.
troops and were never in one pl~ce foryery long. These G-5 detachments were often the first
military units to conwinto contact with victims~! assets and to be responsible for them.
However, the obstacles G-5 faced on the ground were manifold, particularly when setting
up civil government. Acting civilian officials in Germany were either members of the Nazi Party
, or, at the very least, compromised by the fact that the Nazis permitted them to hold power. G-5
units were forbidden to "fraternize" or even cooperate with them, although they often did so out
of necessity. Frequently combat had destroyed the offices that housed local civilian government.
G-5 detachments requisitioned, public and private buildings to take their place as well as to billet
soldiers. Water,electricity, and telephone services were cut off and it was the responsibility of
G-5 to get them restored. G-5 detachments repaired or arranged for the repair of damaged roads
and railroad tracks so that shipments of military equipment, medical supplies, food, and coal
could be delivered. These small G-5 units had to prevent the outbreak of deadly diseases, feed
and provide shelter for displaced persons of all varieties, dismiss and appoint civilian officials
63
Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Die amerikanische Besetzung Deutschlands (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1996)"
240
64 Oliver
Frederiksen, TheAme~ican Military Occupation ofGermany 1945-1953 (Darmstadt, Germany:
Historical Division, Headquarters, United States Army, Europe, 1953),9.
1.
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26
�according to strict'de-Nazification guideli!1es, organize German police to help keep order, and
remove all obstacles in. the way of the war effort. In short, G-5 detachments had awesome
military and humanitarian responsibilities and little time in which to catTy them out. Highly
mobile and severely overburdened, they had to meet immediate needs in' a.chaotic environment.
Chaos on the ground had a counterpart in overlapping responsibilities and apparent
confusion within the military structure. The United States, Group Control Council (Germany)
(USGCC) was established under ETOUSA on August 9, 1944 withthe'mission, almost identical
.
,
to
th~t
of G-5 Division, to make plans for military government in Germany. As a result it also
acquired a~l the responsibilities that that mission entailed. The USGCC, ,although belonging'to
ETQUSA, was subordinate to SHAEF until the combined command terminated. 65 Originally its
composition
i~cluded
only three divisions, which were responsible for German disarmament and
demilitarization, the repatriation of allied prisopers of war, intelligence gathering, economic
matters; and political matters. In Novem1;>er 1944 USGCC was reorganized into twelve divisions
including a Reparations, Deliveries,and Restitution Division. 66 The Monuments, Fine Arts, and
Archives Subcommission (MFA&A), fOrmerly a part ofG-5, SHAEF, ?ecame a branch of this
'new division. 67 MFA&A held primary responsibility for the identification and subsequent
65 Christoph Weisz, OMGUS-Handbuch,' Die amerikanische Militiirregierung in Deutschland, 1945-1949
(Munich: R, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994)? 11.
66 The Reparations, Deliveries, and Restitution Division was under Lieutenant Colonel C, S:Reid (at least as of
NovemberNov, 1944).
67 Earl F. Ziemke, The U. S:Anny in the Occupation of Germany 1944-1946 (Washington, D. C.: Center of
Military History, 1975), 56.
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27
�safekeeping of art and cultural property coming under United States Army contrb1. 68 Its mission,
as it developed over the years, was 1) where possible to prevent damage to or destruction of
.
t
l
'
. monuments, buildings, statues,artworks,and so forth while warfare'still raged in Western
Europe; 2) to inventory and safeguard cultural art,ifacts, arid property once it ha4 become subject'
.
.,
.
to U. S. control, and 3) to effect restitution of such items in the immediate postwar era.
Identification and organization of art and cultUral property began ineamest following cessation
.
.
' . ,
of hostilities in May 1945. On May_20 SHAEF ordered the establishment of collection points
within theU. S. zone to s~rve as depotsfor thesejtems. MF A&A officers directed efforts at'
these G£ollection PQoints; which had been erected in a number of cities including Marburg,
Munich, Wiesbaden, and Offenbach. These officials also assisted in relocating various
repositories located in areas once occupied by U.
S. forces but turned over by agreement to the
\
Soviet command in June-July 1945. 69
The overlapping responsib,ilities led to a bureaucratic power struggle between USGCC
.and the G-5 Division at SHAEF headquarters. This running conflict was not over the content or
,
"
direction of policy, but rather over which'organization was authorized to formulate and,
, implement policy. USGCC was under the command of Brigadier General Cornelius W.
, , -
"
Wickersham until April 18, 1945, at which time Lieutenant General Lucius D. Clay succeeded to
command. Shortly thereafter, USGCC developed from a planning agency into a policy.:
,
.
determining agency. In his capacity as deputy military governor for Germany, Clay soon exerted
'68 Report o/The American CommiSSion/or the Protection and Salvage 0/Artistic and Historic Monuments in
. War Areas (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printirig Office, 1946),48.
.
69 Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape o/Europa. The fate o/Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the'Second
World War (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 371-372.
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28
�authority and supervision over G-5 staff as well. as bver USGCC. 70 He was eager to civilianize
.
'.
.
the military government apparatus as quickly as possible so that it cOuld be tuined over to the
Department of State. Clay even characterized the civilianization process as his,"mission.',71
Fromits inception the it&U. S. Group Control Council had been more a vehicle for future
I
civilian authority than an element of Army-administered military government. 72 Over the next
eight months the same civilianization would SWfl:-overtake the G-5 Division. Clay accelerated
,
r
•
~
the civilianization of both agencies while merging their staffs. The process ended the power
.
.
.
,
struggle between these rival entities and removed most military personnel from the military
,
'
'
government. On September 29, 1945, the Annydesignated USGCC as Office of Military
Government (U. S.) (OMGUS). At the same time G-5, still part ofthe USFET g~neral staff:
became Offi'ce of Military Government for Germany (U.:..S.:. Zone) (OMGUSZ). MFA&A
became a section of the OMGUS Economics Division, Restituti~n Branch: 73 This restructuring
removed the dual system of military government, replaced it with an increasingly more
centralized operation, and allowed Clay to hasten the civilianization of military governm~nt.
Although OMGUSZ and OMGUS remained separate entities and continued to share
responsibilities, OMGUSZ was . responsible for implementing the policies formulated by
now
,
' ,
.
'
.
70 Earl F. Ziemke, The
Military History, 1975), 224.
Army in the Occupationo/Germany, '1944-1946 (Washington, D.C., Center of
71 EarIF. Ziemke, The
Military History, 1975),401.
Army in the Occupation ojGermany, 1944-1946 (Washington, D.C:, Center of ·1
,72 Earl F. Ziemke, The
Military History, 1975),401.
Army in the Occupation ofGermany, 1944-1946 (Washington, D.C., Center of
73 Report o/The American CommiSSion/or the Protection and Sal~age 0/Artistic and Historic Monuments in
War Areas (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1946), 123-124;
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29
I
�-
.
OMGUS in Berlin. ·This relationship continued until OMGUSZ was merged into OMGUS on
,
.'
,
April I, 1946.
OMGUS and its three subordinate branches on the Uinder level served as' a de facto
.
-
government for Gennany in the American ~zone. Rather than creati~g an entirely different
system for governing Gennany, OMGUS largely copied the structure of Gennan civil
govertunent that had been in place before the war. Under Clay's direction, OMGUS divested
itself of the responsibility for managing the day-fo-day ·operations of military government.
Starting at the local level and working its way up, it replaced the positions filled by American
,
! .
"
"
.,
.
soldiers and civilians with parallel positions filled by Gennans. Clay allowed the Gennans to
hold elections and operate coUrts, again.starting at the local leveL Although OMGUS retained·
ultimate authority to intervene, it began to playa much more passive role. From 1946 onwards,
' .
OMGUS existed to ad~ise and observe the new G~an c1vil government. 74
On 2.l-September ~1949, the Office bfthe U. S. High CommiSSIon for Gennany
(H;ICOG) replaced OMGUS. H1COG was sA State Departmerit organization afl:d-HICOG's its
creation signified the long awaited shift ofresponsibility fonn the military to a civilian agency.
H1C09 received logi~tical support' fro'm European Comm~d (EUCOM) and even acquired .
many ofEUCOM's responsibilities, including the supervi,sion ofD,Ps, as well as the authority of
the United States military govemor. 75 Although HIGOC se~ed as a largely advisory office, it
,
. .
was significant nonetheless because its High Commissioner represented the position of the
74 Edward N. Peterson, The American Occupation ofGerma~y: Retreat to Victory (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1977),93.
.
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.'
30
�United States and could exercise bojh official and unofficial influence. The first High
Commissioner, John J. McCloy, played an important role in the restitution of assets confiscated
during the Nazi era. He encouraged the German government under Konrad Adenauer to provide
restitution of it own accord and to assist its desperate Jewish community and the Jewish
Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO).76 In his opiniot;I, a gesture such as this was
.
.
,
.
necessary to bring about the political and "moral integration" of Germany into postwar Europe. 77
2.
.Civil Life at the Nadir
World War II was the most destnictive war in human history, with more than 32 million
.
.
casualties. In addition, the fighting displaced millions of people, and millions more were
displaced by the postwar settleme~t. With the infrastructure that sustains civil life paralyzed in
much of Europe, the U. S. Army faced a task that would tax its prodigious organizational
capacity.
The war had also brought massive mMaterial destruction stretched all across the
continent. During the last months
of the war, retreating Germans devastated northern. France and
Belgium, from the coast of-.Normandy to' the German border; broken dikes flooded major
sections .0fHolland~ Milan and Turin, traditional centers of economic strength in Italy~ lay
75 Oliver J. Frederiksen, TheAmerican Military Occupation of Germany, 1945-1953 (Darmstadt, Germany:
Historical Division, Headquarters, United States Anny, Europe, 1953), 149, 198.
7~ Thomas Alan Schwartz, America's Germany: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1991), 177-180.
.
77 Thomas Alan Schwartz,America's Ge~any: John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UniversityPress, 1991), 176.
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31
�~,
pro~trate;
In Central Europe barren landscapes, piles of debris, craters from bombs, stinking,
heaps of rubble and ruins had replaced business and ~eside~tial c,?mmuniti~s.78
,The U. S. Anny held direct responsibility for a population of 8 million people in the U ..S.
zones of Germany and Austria -more than 5 million residents, displaced persons, and prisoners
of war, and 3 million U.
S. tro~pS.79
Throughout Gerinany,'a large portion of civilian housing
was uninhabitable. Destruction during the warhad demolished a~out 3.6 million residential
Units. Although this represented only 20 percent of the housing in Germany, the destruction was
. very'unevenly distributed. ' In the U. S. zone of occupation 81 percent of all lodging units were
either destroyed or severely da~aged' and needed, repair. More than half lacked windows, a third
had unsound roofs, and a quinter had unstable' walls. In Frankfurt, the city that the Americans
chose for their command headquarters, only 44,000 of 177,000 residences, about 25 percent,
remained standing. In Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and in Munich's inner city the war had destroyed or
" .seriously damaged more than half of all residential buildings, leaving behind over 35, million ,
cubic yards of rubble. Pressure on housing only increased when expellees arrived-92,000 in
Frankfurt alone between May and August '1945. Over the next year 'Frankfurt also saw an
additional thousand former soldiers and air raid evacuees return to the city each week. 80
Famine ~as a starkreaiity. The war had eroded the farm economy as machinery,
fertilizers, and seed were destroyed; breeding livestock had been killed. Food grain production
in France after Germany's surrender was less than half what it had been before the war. Because
78For this and subsequent paragraphs describ~g Europe in 1945 see Walter LaqueiJr, Europe since Hitler: The
Rebirth ofEurope (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), pp. 15-20. See also Grosser, Germany in Our Time, pp. 35ff.
and the works cited paragraph by paragraph.
79Frederiksen, American Mi(itary Occupation, p. 119.
.
.
'
80Rebecca Hoehling, A Question ofPriorities: Democratic Reform and Economic Recovery in Postwar:
Germany (Providence: Berghahn books, 1996),80-81,90,106.
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32
I
�":,
,,'
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food supplies thr6ugho~t Europe were generally 'smaller than they had been during the warits~l'f,
,
"
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•
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,
"
' l
"
'.
•
"
•
•
\
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rationing \vas ,absolutely necessary. The mili~ary:govem,or of the U~ited States zone of
occupat~on, General Lucius b'. C'lay, r~marked ~fter.hisretirement that "for thfeeyears the
't',
, problem offoo(l was
,
..,
t~ color ~ve~ adriiinist~ative actiori~' tatcen in Germany.8l
"
"
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1
:'.
An estimated 100 miilion ,Europeans existed at .level 'of 1,500 calo'ries 'or fewer a,day, a
a .".
.
'.
"
'~t'
diet inadequate to,support heavy :irorkor to ~§ustaipgro~ing 'children. Maintaining even that
'levei,of
nutri~i~n proved i11lpoSSibl~.
In 1946
aut~orities''i~' bot~' the Briiish': ~d A~erican zones
in Germany had to cut.rations to 1,000 calories a. 'The British commander in ~hief; Field'
day.
"
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Marshal Bern~rd VIscount Mqntgomery,~b'served in a lllelllo.randum to his government that
such a level: of consumption amo~ted to slow starvation. 82 Clothing and shoes were as scarce ,as'
,
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\
food; tools and domestic amenities nonexisteIlt/
.
,
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Throughout much of Europe the transportation s),stem had virtually ceas{!d to operate.'
',France's stock of locomotives was at 3~ p~rcent o~prew~ numbers~ 'In the American' and' British
.
~
,
'.
' . " .
zones of Germariy the w~r had destroyed 740 out 'of 958 important brid~e~; ,Although much of
'.:
the rail track remained in~act,4,500'signais and 1:3,000switcheswe~ei.h9perable: Debris
clogged inland ~~t~rway~ and ports:, making them ~usable. 83 ,,,'
RO,a:d condiii~ns we;e no better:
",' .
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40 percent of Germany' s roadway~ were unusabl~~
.
...
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For
,',
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,the few citizens who had cars, gasoline was' scat'~e, anci"fuel for the fewtruc~s available~o
,
' ••• c
•
•
•
•
transport foqd'and firew'ood to~k precedence. 84
.J'"
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•
;~ .
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+
8ICI~y~ Decision in Gemui~y, p, 263.
, 82 A. 1. 'R~der,. Twentieth-Cent~ry G~rmany' From Bismarck to Brandt'(New York: Columbia UniverSity Press,
,
'
,
1973), cites Montgomery, p. 466.," '
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Wolfgang Benz, Die Geschichte derBundesrepublik..... .
Deutschland (Frankfurt:' . Verlag, 1989) 2:251.
Fischer
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...
,
84 Dietrich
'
Eichholtz, Gf/ichichte derdeutsch~n Kriegs~irt;chaft (Berlin:' AkaqeI¥ie'Verlag, 1996) 3: ISO
,
,~.
wOruqNG DRAFT~ NOT FOR GIRCULAlION .:.; ,
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�With rail and road lines paralyzed, with no vehicles or fuel to transport goods,the normal
market economy breaks down. In Germany about a third of the goods still being produced at
war's end found thyir way into the black market, and most legitimate shops remained empty. It
was impossible to find such commodities as fabric, soap, electric light bulbs, or window glass.'
,
\
The currency of the black market was cigarettes~ and American troops had them. For the
. American military, trading in the black market was a court-martial offense, but few soldiers
.Could resist it. A lieutenant who made his entire cigarette allowance available on the black
market could pocket $12,000 in four months, the equivalent in 1999 values of over $110,000. 85 '
It wa!? not simply avarice that compelled use of the black market. Tr/:!.ding there became, '
at times, the only way to carry out military assignments. U. S. Army'engineers, responsible for
rebuilding the basic infrastructure ofcivil services such as water~ power, and transportation,
faced severe restrictions on what they could requisition from the United States. As a result, they
acquired what they needed where they could. One colonel who served in the construction '
di ~ision of the theater chief engineer's office from 1945 to 1947 remembered getting calls from
the another engineer officer. The caller complained that he had exhausted all ,possibilities for
supply. The o~ly way to get what he needed was to tum to'the black market. The colonel's
response was: "Okay, I'll donate a carton of cigarettes." They.did what it took to get their
primary job done. Neither man faced a court martial; both retired years later as general
officers. 86
. General Clay, who acknowledged in retrospect that food dominated every administrative
decision during the occupation, also remarked that the.United States "could not hope to develop
85Ryder, Twentieth-Century Germany, p. 467.
86Fleming's comments ,are in his response to Karl C. Dod's letter, Oct. 18, .1973, asking Fleming to comment on
Dod's manuscript, in Military Files, XI-3-3, OR RQUSACE ..
WORK.lNG DRAFT - NOT FOR CIRCULATION
34
�democracy on a starvation diet.,,87 To improve the material situation of the population of the
U; S. zone, military commanders decided as early'as the summer of 1945 to deploy soldiers to
dis'tribute seed 'and fertilizer. The
12th
Anny Group released 400,000 Gennan prisoners of war
'for employment in fami labor. In June 1945 Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces
(SHAEF) ordered 650,000 tons of wheat for import into the ~~rican zone. 88
Providing the basic necessities-food, JodWng, clothing-demanded at least as much
skill and energy as the American military leaders had devoted,to wi~ing the war: The material
conditions of the population over ~hich the United States Anny exercised total sovereign control
"
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,I
'
improved only slowly, and coping with these conditions remained the primary focus of attention
for the military government for many months.,'
3~
,
~erugees
The human mass of refugees and displaced persons (DPs) enveloping Europe at war's
end encompassed not only those imprisoned in camps and forced laborers working in the Reich
and Genn!in industries, but also liberated prisoners of war (POWs), evacuees, members of the
Nazi Party, and ~any others. 89 Ethnic Gennan expellees and those fleeing from the Soviet area
of occupation into the western zones soon added to, this mix.
87Clay, Decision in Germany, p. 266. "
88Ziemke, U S. Army in the Occupation, pp. 274~75.
89According to definitions created by the Di~placedPerso~s B~anch of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied
Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), in May 1944, the term "refugee'~ designated civilians temporarily homeless within
, their own national boundaries, while "displaced persons" were civilians who found themselves outs'ide their native
countries because of wartime conditions. See Malcolm J., Proudfoot, European Refugees: 1939-52 (Evanston:
,. .
Northwestern University Press, 1956), 115.
WORKING DRAFT - NOTFOR CIRCULATION
.35
�Reich statistics indicated a total ?fabout 7.5 million foreign workers and POWs in the
Reich as of-October 1944,90 and according to General Clay, allied anniesadvancing in Gennany
uncovered almost 6.5 million displaced persons, the vast majority brought into Gennany for
forced labor. 91 Employing "the kind of hurry-up humanitarianism in which Americans ex~el,,,92
more than 4 million of these DPs had been rapidly repatriated by the end of July, including a
least 1 million Russians , and 'more than 500,000 Frenchmen. 93 Still, it has been estimated that in
,
'
May 1945, 40 percent oft~~' population was on the move in Gennany, that by August perhaps
25,000 to 30,000 refugees from Eastern Europe were reaching Berlin daily, and that by the end
ofthe year, nearly one-third of the residents of Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein
were refugees. 94 As many as 11 to 13 million fled from Eastern Europe for ethnic and political
"
,
reasons. By British estimates there were already more than 7 million refugees and expellees in
the three western zones (l6%,ofthe population) by October 1946, and the 1950 census indicated
,
,
that in the Federal Republic at that time, 9.6 million (around 20%) had arrived during or after the
~~.95 Where people migrated depended upon their nationality, physical location at the end of
the war, and political orientation: French and Dutch forced laborers h~aded west out'of the
"
90 RolfWagenfiihr, Die deutsche Industrie im Kriege 1939-1945 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1954), 139;
Dietrich Eichholtz, Geschichte der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft. Band III: 1943-1945 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,
'
1996),243.
,r
91
Lucius Clay, Decision in Germany (Westport: G;eenwood Press, 1970),231.
92 Carl Friedrich et al., American Experiences in Military Government in World War II (New York: Rinehard
& Company, 1948), 180.
93
Harold Zink, American Military Govern~ent in Germany (New York: Macmillan, 1947), 107.
94
Horst P6tzsch, Deutsche Geschichie nach 1945 im Spiegel der Karikatur (Munich: Olzog, 1997), 22.
95
Robert Moeller, ed" Wes,t Germany unde; Construction (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1997),54. '
WORKING DRAFT - NOT FOR CIRCULATION
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�lJ.:.8..:U. S. or British zones at the same time that many Poles, BaIts, or those in the Sovietoccupied zone also headed west into the U. S. or British zones.
Initial and primaiy responsibility for the DPs during the last months of the war and the
first months of peace fell to the Allied military forces. Only the various armies possessed the .
supplies necessary to support the'refugees. Supreme Headqu~rters, Allied Expeditionary Force
(SHAEF) established policy in iDecember
refugees and DPs in Germany.
1944 ffif-to guide military commanders in dealing with
ADisplaced Persons' Executive (DPX) was created as a part of
the armed forces, and military commanders ~ere ordered to cooperate with thl~ agency. '
.
.
Specifically, SHAEF directed the commanders to locate, care for, arid control United Nations
displaced persons, to;move the DPs away fr0I?'combat areas, to segregate them from enemy or
ex-enemy persons, and to provide adequate humanitarian assistance., Further, responsibility for.
registering all DPs, their protection from communicable diseases or bodily violence, and
cooperation with repatriation officials for the speedy return ofDPs to their co~ntry of origin fell
to the military com~anders.96
Despite the chaotic situation in recently occupied Germany and Austria, Allied forces
managed rapid anq generally well-organized implementation ofthis policy. Thousands of
confused civilians, speaking in a variety of languages, needed urgent care in bombed-out villages
and cities. They were quickly encamped in former army posts, suburban dwellings, and even
.
,
castles. Soldiers supplied food, repaired buildings, restored water and electricity, constructed
96
"
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Proudfoot, EuropecmRefugees: 1939-52, 147-48.
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37
�latrines, provided medical service, and so forth. Two' schools had even been established ata DP
camp in Bocholt by May 1945. 97
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Although the Allied military forces possessed primary responsibility for the DP camps, a
civilian entity known as the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation A.gency Administration
'
(UNRRA) aided efforts from 1943 to 1947. Forty-four nations, including the United States,
Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, founded UN~ in 1943 to provide care for "victims of
war in any area under the control of any of the' United Nations through the provision of food,
~el, clothing, shelter and other basic necessities, medical and other essential services.',,98 By the
end of June 1945,322 UNRRA teams aided'A~llied forces to administer theDP campS.99 A new
United Nations' agency (succeeding UNRRA), the International Refugee Organization, obtained
total control oftheDP camps in 1947. The IRO assumed all ofthe personnel and equipment of
the UNRRA, as well as responsibility for over 700,000 refugees in July 1947. 100 During its fiveyear existence, the IRO worked primarily to repatriate and resettle displaced persons and
'.I,
refugees: 71,494 had been repatriated, 865,230 resettled by 1951. 101 Although Europe still
97
Proudfoot, 171.
98 From Article I of the UNRRAconstitution, quoted by George Wo~dbridge ht UNRRA: The History ofthe
United Nations Reliefand Rehabilitation Agency (New York: Columbia University ~ress, 1950), 4.
99 The Military set up camps and brought in supplies, while the UNRRA provided administrators with various
specialties. See Mark Wyman, DPs: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (Ithaca: Cornell University PI:ess,
1989),46.
'
100
Proudfoot, 407.
101 Rene Ristelhueber, '~The In'temational Refugee Orgaruzation,'~ Internation~i Concili~tion 470 (ApffiApr.
1951),222. Resettlement meant relocation ofDPs in areas other than their native land.
WORKING DRAFT - NOT FOR CIRCULATION
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I
�contained several hun~red thousand refugees by the early ,1950s? some of whom still living iIi DP
camps, the IRO dissolved in 1952. 102
.
"
Of great additional significance'to the ,daily lives of many DPs was the American Jewish
Joint Distribution Committee, (JDe or "Joint"); an organization founded in 1914 that was "the
embodiment of whateyer American Jewry Was willing to do for its fellow Jews overseas.,,103 Its
social origins lay among emigre middle clas~ German Jews, and from 1946 to 1950, the "Joint"
.
,
spent $280 million to help DPs. Initially the "Joint" provided medical services and helped locate '
relatives, but eventually this organization also supplied food, clothing and other ,goods: Beyond
all the material assistance that the "Joint" provided, one of its more important acts was to
establish a Branch for the Restitution of Jewish Property in March i 947 that cooperated with
OMGUS to formulate a general restitution law proclaimed later that year in Germany,104
For reasons of administrative efficiency, the army categorized a displaced person based
on his nationality. lOS Effectively this meant that the army'often grouped Je~s with their fellow
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nationals. Consequently, the army sometimes classified the Jewisl1- DPs from Germany and her
wartime allies -- Austria; Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, and Rumania -- as "enemy nationals," thus
also depriving Jewish DPs of the status of United Nations displaced persons. Moreover, A~11ied
.
.
policy did not initially reCognize religion as a basis to determine the level of care needed by
,
'"
, ~.
102
Ristelhue~er, 436.
103
Yehuda Bauer, Out ofthe Ashes (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1989), 13.
104
Bauer, 120-24,203,213-214,256,273.
105 Leon~Id Dinnerstein, "The l:J.,&U.
Army ~d the Jews: Policies Toward The DisplacedPer~ons After '
World War II," in, The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Des(ruction ofEuropean Jews, Volume 9. The
End ofthe Holocaust, ed. Michael R. M~s (London: Meckler), pp. 513-515.
S:
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�DPS. 106 "What happened in fact was that they [Jewish DPs] were thrown together in assembly
centers with the BaIts, Poles, and other healthier displaced persons, many of whom were ahti
Semites and~a great number of~homwere actually Nazi colhlborators.",o7 In the American"
.
.
sector, 36,000 Jewish DPs were registered in January 1946, but by October the number had
climbed to 141,000. According to a' different count, by November more than 111,000 Jews had
found refuge in the American :lone. 108
Those Jews who remained in camps' were mostly Eastern European, and oomposed of two .
groups: a small group of camp arid ghetto survivors (including those who had fled death
transports and joined partisan bands) nearly all aged 18-45, and a much larger group of Polish
and Russian Jews who could see QO future for themselves in their homeland and hoped to
emigrate to Palestine via Germany. An UNRRAstudy ofNoveinber 1946 carried out among the
127,000 Jews living in the American zone found that 71% were Poles, 6% Hungarians, 4%
Czechs, 2.5% German, 2.5% Rumanian, 2% Austrian and more than 10% stateless or from other
countries. 109
'!
The,th&U.S. Military Government's initial failure to acknowledge the special needs and
situation of Jewish DPs,as it established DP camps mean~ that most camps housed Jews
alongside other refugees, including those who were anti-SemitiC. The failure to establish
106 Dinnerstein; 513-515; Robert H. Ab~g, inside the Vicious He~rt: Ainericans and The Liberation ofNazi
Concentration Camps (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 151.
107
Abzug, 151.
108 Angelika K6nigseder and Juliane Wetzel, Lebensmut im Wartesaal. DiejUdischen DPs (Displaced
Persons) im Nachkriegsdeutschland(FrankfurtfM.: Fischer, 1994),47.
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�separate camps for Jewish DPs served'to detract attention from the special needs o'f Jewish DPs
in the eyes of the lower echelons of military personnel_ that is, those actually responsible for
.
.
caring for the DPs. This blind spot, in tum, often led to hostile attitudes'toward and mistreatment
.,
.
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,
of Jewish DPs,in and out of the c~ps. Reports of qeplorable conditions for Jews and other
concentration camp survivors within the DP camps led President Truman to ask Earl G.
(
Harrison, a f:)gean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, to visit some DPcenters and
file a report. After an intensive inspection of several camps during the sumnier of 1945,
,
.
Harrison informed the President that, indeed, surviving Nazi persecutees co~tinued to suffer
. ,
"
I,
under American supefvision.. These individuals remained confined to areas surrounded by
barbed wire and armed guards. Some former Nazi concentration camps had been transformed
into DP camps. In SUnllnary; Hamson reported, "As matters now stand, we appear to be treating
.
.
the Jews as theNazis tr~ated them except that we do not exterminate them." II 0 As a
consequence of the Harrison report, the l.:h&U. S. military established some separate DP .camps
for Jews, and Truman,appointed an advisor to the military governor on Jewish affairs, a,position
that endured to 1949 and the end of the occupation. Jewish DPs nevertheless still often faced
. unsympathetic officials within the military government.
Jewish'repatriates also often confronted anti-Semitic attitUdes and polici~s in their native
lands. The New York Times reported in August and September 1945 that initial efforts
undertaken by Jewsto recover looted possessions from local governmerit officials in Slovakia,
109
Konigseder and Wetzel, 56-57.
110
Report of Earl G. Harrison to President Harry Truman, ~ug. 1945,.reprinted in Dinnerstein, 300
301.
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41
�Al~stria, and Gennany remained fruitless in 1945. 111 .Worse 'yet, J ~ws sometime~ found
themselves subject to physical assaults and overt discrimination. On December 10, 1945, the
New York Times described how in Poland "Jews are receiving threatening letters warning them
to get out. There is alsp banditry, not necessarily anti-Semitic, but every once in a while a Jew is
.'
.
murdered ... and every time it happens, hundreds more Jews start walking." I 12 In addition to
.
,
.
small-scale, individual incidents, there were also reports of mass assaults on Polish Jews.in
Poland.
IIi Krakow "2,000 returning Jews were assaulted, 500 of them undergoing siege in the
temporary quarters of the Jewish community ther~ while the Provisional Go~emment's police
,
100ked.on.,,113 Even with the end of the Nazi regimy, J~wish DPs and repatriates continued to
suffer from discrimination and violence. .
D.
.(J..S..u.
S. Policy Development
Given the. wide array of personalities and agencies contributing to policy-maki~g, one
must conclude that the measures U. S. occupying forces took from 1944 to 1949 stemmed from
no clear, unambiguous' policy. President Roosevelt, President Truman, the State Department,'
.
.'
War Department, and Treasury Department all held .conflicting views of how to administer
III "Anti-Semitism Rife in C~ntral Europe," New York Times (SeptemberSept.9, 1945); "Jews in Y£u. S.
Zone of Reich Find Conditions Improving," New York Times (Al:lgmtAug. 26, 1945).
112
"Poles are Accused ofAnti-Semitism," New York Times (peeemberDec. 10, 1945).
113
"Pogroms in Poland Reported Occurring," New York Times (JalyJul. 21, 1945).
. WORKING DRAFT - NOT FOR CIRCULATION
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�defeated Gennany, leading one scholar to interpret the actions of those years as "improvising
stability and change in postwar: Gennany." I 14
Since the White House had not set specific policy guidelines, Supreme Headquarters,
'I
Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) wrote its own set of directives for .y.gU. S. forces as
American troops prepared to invade and occupy Gennany in the summer of1944. This
, "Handbook for MG [MilitarY. Government] in.Gennany," while providing orders for '
denazification and demilitarization; apparently failed to' satisfy those goverhment officials who
sought to punish Gennany thoroughly at war's 'end. 115 Chief among those criticizing the
"Handbook" was Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau. Morgenthau drafted a much harsher
policy that envisioned the deindustrialization and "pastoralization" of Gennany. The
"Morgenthau Plan," as it came to be known, won Roosevelt's approval in autumn 1944. "We
have to be'tough with Gennany,~' Roosevelt said, but other Cabinet officials such as Secretary of
.
.
.
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,
War Henry Stimson and Secretary of State Cordell Hull found the Morgenthau Planvi!ldictive
and brutal, and Stimson argued to FDR that it was a "crime against civilization itse1f.,,116 The'
Morgenthau Plan neverthe1e~s became the foundation for a comprehensive occupation directive
.
,
"
issued in 1945 by'the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
114 Earl F. Ziemke, "Improvising Stability and Change in Postwar Germany," in Robert Wolfe, ed., Americans
as Proconsuls: United States Military Government in Germany and Japan, 1944-1952 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1984),52-66.
lIS Rebecca Boehling, A Question of Priorities. Democratic Reforms and Economic Reco'very in Postwar
, ,Germany (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1996),27,
116 Quoted by Edward N. Peterson, The American Qccupation of Germany. Retreat to Victory (Detroit: Wayne
State University Press, 1977),38-39,
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�,
,
,J
JCS 1067, as this directive is known, instructed occupiers to cOntrol the Gennan
.
,
, economy "to the extent necessary to meet the needs of the occupation forces or to produce the
goods which would prevent disease ~d u~est, which might endanger the occupying forces.,,117
I'
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.
Occupation officials were to dissolve the Nazi Party, bar its members from public office, and try
war criminals. In the retrospective opinion of Gen. Lucius Clay, Commander of the Military
Government in Gennany (OMGUS) between 19,45 and'1949, JCS 1067 "specifically prohibited
. us from taking any steps to rehabilitate or maintain the Gerinan economy except to maximize
agricultural production." 118 But this was not the final word on occupation policy. First, .JCS
,
.
.
1067 could not o.fficially be implemented without British agreement, and that was not
.
,
immediately forthcoming. 119 Second, eight different versions of this directive appeared between
September 1944 and April 1945. 120 Third, at'the Potsdam Conference in the early summer of
modifie~
1945, the Allies
the stringe~t economic conditions set forth iIi JCS 1067. -The
Americans,and General Clay in particular, began to worry at how much material they would
need to provide to prevent starvation and the complete collapse of the Gennan economy.
Owing to wartime expansion, Gennan industry is estimated to have had a capital stock
and net investment wealth at the end of the war that was actually 20 percent larger than in
,
1936. 121 , The major difficulty in,1945 thus lay less in productive capacity than in the absence of,
117
Lucius D. Clay, Decision in Gennany (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1950), 17.
118
Clay, 18.
119
Ziemke, 58-60. See also Boehling, 28.
120
Peterson, 42:
121
Eichhoitz, Geschichte, 677~78.
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�raw materials, functioning supply networks and energy soUrces, particularly coal and
electricity.122 The other problem was that so hIuch of heavy industry was devoted to producing'
war material.
The Morgenthau Plan lived ,on to a degree in those parts of the Potsdam and London
(1949) Agreements that dealt with destruction o'fGermany's economic potential t6 wage w~.
The victorious powers prohibited the German production of war material, aircraft and atomic
,
,,,
'
,
'
material ;vas prohibited in these agreements, as well as limiting the production of synthetic
rubber and oil, primary magnesium" and beryllium. Germany faced limitations on the size of
certain machine tools pro.duc~d,as well,as"on the total output of aluminum, steel, synthetic
ammonia, chlorine and styrene, and on the speed and tonnage of ships built. 123 Americans, as
heirs to "trust-busting" attitudes about industry, were also convinced that economic monopolies
.
..
~
had made the German war machine possible, and ~erefore planned to decartelize and
decentralize industry.124 Limiting production and demonopoli~ing industry would have meant
,
not only seizing and closing 'NaF material plants that had produced war materials but
'"
also~aving
I
the victors reorganize entire basic industries such as coal, steel, or iron.
However, at both Yalta and Potsdam 'the fu-ee allies also agreed that Germany should
retain enough productive capacity'to rebuild,a via~le peacetime economy and to payrep~ations,
as well. To address the latter, an inventory ofindustrial plants was .begun with an eye not only to
"
122
, 123
Ziemke, .[.J.*U S. Army, 350.
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",
,
Lucius Clay, Decision in Germany '(Westport: Greenwood Press, 1970),324.
WORKING DRAFT - NOT FOR CIRCULATION
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�their closure if they had produced war material, but also to their use as partial reparations
payments once the plants had been dismantled and moved out of Germany.
lnitially~
1,500 to
2,000 industrial plants were under consideration by the United States and Great Britain, but by
the end of 1947, only 682 plants (mostly iIi the British zone) were still under discussion as
"suiplus and available for reparations:" only forty had by thaUime ,actually been dismantled and
.
.
"
,
' .
removed from either American or British 6eBezones. 125 T4e French pursued their own policy,
and tensions with the Russians were rising as well, partly because they were unwilling to treat
-
-
, Germany as a single economic unit despite the agreement to do so, and partly over their actions
..
'
regarding reparations .. An unknown amourit cif"capital equipment \.yas being taken from the
Soviet ~zone and shipped to the East," the State Department realized, prompting still less
American willingness by 1948 to dismantle further industrial plants and send them to the Soviet
.
,
Union. 126
Even before 1948, it had become evident that rebuilding the German economy was a
policy goal at odds with shutting down and removing industrial
facil~ties.
The State and War
Departments issued a blunt joint communique on August 29, 1947, to this effect: "Theoid plan
.
'
provided for very sharp cuts in production capacities ... from which the bulk of reparations were
to be obtained. It is impossible to provide a self-sustaining economy in the bizonal (U. S. and
,I
124 US Military Government L~w No. 56 of Feb. 12, Feeruary 1947, "Prohlbition of Excessive
Concentration of German Economic Power," in US State Department, Gennany 1947-1949: The Story in
'
Documents (Washington: (iPO, 1950),344.
125 US State Department,Gennany 1947-1949,413-14; Benz, Geschichte, 73-74; Conrad Latour and Thilo
Vogelsang, Okkupation und Wiederaufbau., Die Tiitigkeit der Militiirregierung in der amerikanischen
Besatzungszone Deutschlands 1944~1947 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1973), 159-61. '
126
US State'Department, Gennany 1947-1949,422.
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�British) area without m,ateriallyincreasing the levels in these industries.,,127 Quite beyond the .
increasing political difficulties of cooperating with the Russians in various A~l1ied decisionmaking bodies, there was thus a fundamental contradiction between wanting to prevent future
industrial war productive capacity in Germany and to promote future peacetime industrial
,
•
f
•
•
'
productive capacity.
,
.
"
The problem of what to do with German militarized industry neatly reflects the conflicts
, both in Washington and in the Army command in Europe. Organizations designed to defeat the
enemy, like an arm~, may not be well prepared or even willing to deal with civilian ec'onomic
.
.
and political issues. Yet no one seems to have wanted to assume full responsibility for the
occupation either. President Roosevelt believed civilian authorities should relieve military forces
of their political control of conquered territories as soon as ,conditions permitted, declaring at a
Cabinet meeting in October 1942 that the State Department should take primary responsibility
for the occupation. 128 President Truman later agreed with 'this opinion. 129
The War Department in Washington ,as well as commanding generals in the field also.
,
.
disliked the idea oftuming "soldiers into goveinors.,,}30 Secretary of War Henry Stimson and
his Assistant Secretaiy, John J.McCloy, both envisioned a "short military o~cupation with
127
.1
See "Revised Plan for Level ofIndustry in the Combined Y-£.U. S.-U.K. Zones of Germany" in US State
D<?partment,Germany 1947-1949, 358.
128
Gimbel, 31.
129
Ziemke, 59.
130 Harry L. Coles and Albert K: Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldier~ Become Governors (Washington, D.C.:
Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1964).
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�mihimal political responsibilit!es."l3l 'Maj~r GeneraL John Hilldring, comm~der of the Civil
Affairs Division (CAD), the agency within the War Department charged with c~ordinating'
policy for liberated and occupied territories, received instructions from General George Marshall
. that his main task was to find a way to get o~t of the occupation planning business.· Marshall
,
. . '
.
.
informed Hilldring in 1943 that "we have never regarded it as part of the proper duty of the
military to govem.,,132 With the war over only a few months, OMGUS commander Gen. Clay
began cutting his own staff and hiring civilians to replace 11?-ilitary personnel in administering
German affairs. He additionally announced his intention to have elections take place in
Germany by 1946,
c1e~ly indi6ating a d~sire to tum political life over to Germans again. 133
The State Departmen.t itself was unwilling to take responsibility for the occupation,
despite Roosevelt's wishes, nor was it prepared to do so.. The State Department wanted to see
the country rehabilitated as an "economically strong bastion of anti-Communism capitalism,,,134
. suggesti~g it cared pri~anly about foreign policy rather than about Germany's internal affairs.
Moreover, the'department lacked .the necessary "operational experience" to press its position in
Germany. 135. Only in May 1949 did the Armymanage to tum over the nonniilitary
responsibilities of the occupation to the State Department 136
\31
Boehling, ,18.
\32'
,
Quoted in Peterson,~3 ..
133
John Gimbel, "Governing the American Zone of Germany," in Wolfe, 94.
134
B~ehling, 19.
. 135
\36
Gimbel in Wolfe, 95.
Boehling, 46.
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48
�Ultimately, the lack of clear policy lines left much to the U. S. military to interpret,
improvise, and implement. The originsaQd development ofU. S. restitution endeavors in the
iminediate postwar era must be understood within this context of muddled policy-making and
execution. . ,"
II. UNITED STATES AGENCIES AND TAKING CONTROL OF VICTIM ASSETS FeR
TilE U.S.
A.
Before the ,War
The most important instnlment available to the U. S. government for controlling foreign
assets before and during the war was the Trading with the Enemy Act, first enacted in 1917 and
"
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amended in 1933. Under Exeyutive Order: #9095 of March 11, 1942, further amending the
Trading with the Enemy Act, the import of anything acquired directly or indirectly from anyone
who was an enemy or the ally of an enemy was subject to forfeiture, with an accompanying fine
of $50,000 (the equivalent of over $500,000 in' 1999) or imprisonment or both.
1.
Customs Service, Import Prohibitions and Postal SerVice
The Tariff Act of 1930 had already stipulated that all works of art imported into the
mUnited States were subject to Customs regulations, which meant that though they could be
brought in duty free, the objects and their value had to be declared at the time .of entry.
. .
"
Failure to declare or false declaration of value or origin could make an object subject to
forfeiture, and in the'course'ofthe war, the stringency of Customs control increased, at least
formally. Thus, T~easury Department Decision #51072 on Juiy 8, 1944, Under the Trading with
,
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�the Enemy Act, gave the U. S. Custo.ms Service no.t o.nly the Po.wer to. detain anyartwo.rks
entering the United States, but also. required impo.rters to. o.btain a license to. impo.rt (Fo.rm TFE
,
'
1), and to. file a repo.rt o.n the nature o.f the. wo.rk and the circumstances o.f its acquisitio.n (F o.rm
FFC 168). The definitio.n o.fwhat co.nstituted an "art o.bjec~" was broad. It co.veredobjects
Wo.rth $5,000 (the equivalent o.f o.ver $50,000 in 1999) o.r mo.re, and tho.se Po.ssessing an artistic,
histo.ric, o.r scho.larly inter~st regardless o.fvalue. 'Twelve catego.ries, _which included paintings
and sketches, prints and engravings, statuary and sculptures, chiriaware and Po.rcelain, rugs and
I
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tapestries, jewelry and metalwo.rk, bo.o.ks and manuscripts, furniture, and curio.s, _further
identified and o.rganized "~o.bjects."l37 It is no.teworthy that Treasury Decisio.n #51072 was
repealed o.nly two. years later, o.n June 30, 1946, thereby again easing the impo.rting o.f art wo.rks.
Vario.us problematic aspects are Wo.rth emphasizin,g in this co.ntext. First, tho.ugh the
fo.rfeiture provisio.n permitted these kinds o.f impo.rted assets to. fall into. U. S. governnient hands,'
no. agencies or arrangements' existed to. restitute such wo.rks to. their o.wners. Seco.nd, there is no.
distinctio.n in the Trading with the Enemy Act between perPetrato.rs and victims. Third, the
Trading with the Enemy Actdoes no.t address the issue o.f Custo.ms co.ntrol o.f art o.bjects that
co.me in to. the United States fro.m
neutr~lco.untries.
Fo.urth, relatively few Custo.ms o.ffices had
specialized art sectio.ns, which meant contro.l depended UPo.n individual Custo.ms inspectors. '
Fifth, it is unclear to. what extent o.ther laws were drawn UPo.n (such as the Smuggling Go.o.ds into.
the United States Act o.r the Natio.nal Sto.lenProperty Act) prio.r
,to 1947, no.r indeed ho.W
Custo.ms Wo.uld be able to. determine whether a false declaratio.n o.f o.rigin was b,eing made.
,
~
137 Treasury Decisions Under Cu~toms and Other Laws, JulyJul. 1943-DeeemeerDec. 1944 (Washington:
GPO, 1945), 247-48.
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�Under the Customs Regulations of 1937, the'U. S .. Post Office was authorized to
,
investigate all foreign mail parcels. U. S. Armed Forces personnel stationed abroad Could send
(with a required declaration) gift parcels with an,aggregate value of no l'n:0re than
~50
(the
equivalent of over $500 in 1999), but the Post Office could inspect those parcels lacking a proper
declaration or where the appearance of the parcel raised suspicion it might be worth more than
$50. 138 Here, too, seizure and forfeiture were'possible,though mitigation was provided through
payment of 10 percent ofthe potential duty as long as it was clear that willful negligence or
intent to defraud were not ~t play. It is unclear to what extent the Post Office made u~e of its
powers, though what has'since com~to light about the ease with which U. S. armed forces
personnel could.import valuable ~orks(e.g., the Quedlinburg Treasure)to the U~ited States
,
,
during and immediately after the war suggest that some ofthe same aspects 'noted as problematic
for U. S. Customs were problematic for the Postal Service as well.
2.
Treasury Department ,and Frozen Assets
.. The Nazi attack on Denmark and Norway prompted the President to promulgate
Executive Order #8389 on AprillO, 1940, ostensibly to protect the property in the United States
. '
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of friendly aliens. This "freezing order," issued only two days after the ~efman attacks on '
Scandinavia, "prohibited transactions relating to property of Denmark and Norway and their
nationals unless permitted under license by the Secretary of the Treasury." Immediately after
this executive order, ,ratified-by Congress, the Treasury set up a Foreign ,Funds Control
138 Treasury Decision #49755, Art. 371 (C), Treasury Decision,s Under Customs and Other Laws, ~Jul.
1938..J.tmeJun. 1939 (Washington: GPO, 19??), 283-84.
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�agency.139 By June 1941, not only had "freezing" been e~tended to 'twel~e other Western and
a
East~ European countnes, but also TreasuryD,epartment regulation demanded
.
,
comprehensive reports from t\.ll persons owning, holdi~g or controlling any type of property 'in
which there was any foreign interest, direct or indirect.
The Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 had established an Alien Property Custodian:
the idea was to create a wartime.mechanism to prevent (or supervise) certain financial
.
"
transactions rather than to control or immobilize property. 140 With Executive Order #9095 of
March 11, 1942, the President established an Office of Alien Property Custodian, and by July 6,
1942 (E;"ecutive Order #9193), the Custodian was empowered to "direct, manage, supervise,
control or vest alien property," including the business enterprises in the U. S. of enemy and
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foreign nationals, any property (including monies and securities owned or controlled by
enemies), as well as patents, trademarksand~pyrights.'41 "Vesting" and "seizure" were'
synonymous under law, and meant that title to the property was taken by the United States;,
"blocking," by contrast meant that title remained with the private owner, but transfers and other
dealings in the property were controlled by U. S. authorities. 142
139 William Reeves, ''The Control ofForei~ Funds by the United States Treasury," Law and Contemporary
.
.
Problems XI:I (1945), 22.
140 William Reeves, "The Control ofForeign Funds bY'the United States Treasury," Law and Contemporary
. Problems XI:I (1945),32.
141 Frederick Eisner, "Administrative Machinery and Steps for the Lawyer," Law and Contemporary Problems
.
XI:I (1945), 66.
142 IsadoreAlkand Irving Moskovitz, ':Removal of United States C~ntrols Over Foreign-Own~d Property,"
Federal Bar Journal X:l {OetoberOct., 1948),4 ft. 4.
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�, The property covered by these .:g~xecutive GQrdersincluded bullion, currency, deposits,
all securities, notes, debits, contr~cts, la9ing bills, goods, J.?1achinery, jewelry, precious st9nes,
art, property and mortgages, patents, trademarks, copyrights, estates, trusts, partnerships,
insurance policies, and even safe deposit boxes. The property itself had to be listed as well as the
property's holder, along with the, holder's relation to that property. This C()mprehensive census,
represented for some criti'cs a kind of "informer's report." The nearly 600,000 reportseventually
I·
_,
\
.
.
._
received by the Treasury Department showed a iotal value of foreign assets of around 13 billion
.
.
dollars, of which more..than ? billion was property from those countries whose assets had been
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I
frozen. 143 This census of assets would become an "important source of information" to the Alien
PropertY. Custodian's office, particularly in the attempts
to "deal with the apparent widespread
efforts ofthe enemy.to conceal the true ownership ofproperty through'elaborate:systems or'
. agreements, loans, options and cloaking devices, such as holding-companies incorporated in
neutral countries.,,144 Though Forei~ Funds Control had :blicensingand :g~nforcement '
.
" .
:9givisions, as well a F!ield Iinvestigation S§taff to' look into suspected violations or evasions of
the freezing control in 1942, as much work as possible ,~as~ctually delegate9, to the Federal
Reserve Banks, in particular,tothe New York branch as that was where foreign-controlled assets
were most heavily concentrated.
/
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143 Reeves, "Control," 49-51 ; see also '\'\dministnltion of the Wartime Financial and Property Controls of the
United States Government (Washington: US Treasury Department, Foreign Funds Control, 1942), (pamphlet), 39
40.
'
144
78-79.
Paul Myron, "The Work of the Alien Property Custodian," Law and Contemporary Problems XI:I (1945), .
. . , .
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�B.
During and After the. War in Europe.'
1.
lJ...S..U. S. Army and the. Discovery of Assets
As American tactical troops battled their way across Germany theyericountereda
perverse juxtaposition of incomprehensible human suffering and immeasurable material wealth ..
Amidst the ruins of the Thi'rd Reich lay concentration camps· and treasure hoards. These
discoveries, while they might appear to be stark opposites, were, in fact, closely interrelated
elements in the legacy ofNational Socialism. Death and loot were the end products of Naziimplemented disCrimination, Aryanization, and extermination in Europe. Initially, the task of
safeguarding, cataloging, and· restituting looted assets fell to specialized ~nits of the United
States Army.
Because of Allied threats from the air and on the ground, Reicp. officials engaged in a
hurried attempt to transport Qoards of loot and other valuables to safety. The most q>mmon
destinations for these shipments were. southern Germany arid western Austria -- directly in the
way of the advancing American armies. It was for this reason that American soldiers were the
first'to Uncover some of the largest caches.,
.
. ,
.
The Third Army found one of the largest hpards in the Kaiseroda salt mines near
Merkers, Germany on April 6, 1945. 145 The mineshafts were filled with a variety of assets
ranging from items as mundane as patent records to as grotesque as gold tooth fillings.
American soldiers also. found innumerable works of art, bags of currency, monetary gold, and
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�museum plec.es. The Merkers treasure was so enormous that the Army needed a convoy of thirty
ten-ton trucks to transport it to Frankfurt. 146
While the find at Merkers may be the most astonishing, it was not the only one of its
kind. The Seventh Army uncovered a considerable amount of art and cultural property in the salt
mines at Heilbronn and Kochendorf: American soldiers found part ofthe Rothschild cqllection
f
'and some loot taken byEinsatzstab,Rosenberg, a spedaJ'task force that confiscated art Europewide fornearly five
ye~s, at Neuschwanstein and irtthe mines of Alt Aussee, Austria. 147
Not all
hoards containedvictinis' assets, however. The rirst Army, for example, found the crown jewels
of Prussia and other artifacts in the Beintrode mine outside of Nordhausen. Collections form the
Kunsthistorischesmuseum, Vienna, were found in the mines at Laufen. This report 'NiH also
address the circmnstances silffounding arid a host of assets 'on the Hungarian Gold Train feufld
'by U. S. troops in Werfert, Austria. In summer 1945, American troops uncovered depositories
almost daily. 148
It was the responsibility of G-5 and more specialized detachments such as MFA&A to
prevent these assets from being damaged in combat or by the elements, and also to protect them
,
.
.
145 Earl F, Ziemke, The U. S, Army in the Occupation o/Germany, 1944-1946 (Washington D. Co: Center 6f .
Military History, 1975),228.
'
146 Earl F.Ziemke, The
Military History, 1975),230.
U. S. Army in the Occupation o/Germany, 1944-1946 (Washington D. Co: Center of
147 Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape o/Europa: The Fate o/Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second
World War (New York: Alfred 'A. Kllopf, 1994), 340-341.
148 Earl F. Ziemke, The U. S. Army in the Occupation o/Germany, 1944-1946 (Washington D. C.: Center of
Military History, 1975),270-271. .
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�from being stolen or destroyed by American 'soldiers,DPs; and Geiman civilians. 149 These units
took possession of a massive volume of assets that the Nazis had' confiscated from.the public
collections of state museums and the private collections of "non-Aryans" and other individuals.
Once these assets were secured, the U. S. Army transportedth~mto central collecting points so
that the restitution process could begin.
2.
Treasury Depaljment (APC,FFC)
Having "frozen" funds, the Treasury Departmenfs challenge was to "defrost" them after
the' war, but the department was unwilling to do so 'all at once. As soon as fomlerly }-(a2ii
occupied European countries were declared no.longer to be "enemy territory" in May 1945,
Treasury permitted business and commercial communication to resume. Next the department
lifted freezing restrictions.on trade and current business (between October aild December 1945),
'and finally the department establ~shed a certificati<;m process that would release property (a
mechanism in place from 1946 to 1948). A General License on December 7, 1945" removed all
controls over current transactions except for the neutral countries, and 'for Germany and' Japan,
ostensibly still blocked "to insure that camouflaged enemy assets arenD! released.,,150
The United States government's concern was that the German wartime occupation had
.
"
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.
"
.
,.'
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'
not only led to a flourishing trade in bearer securities, but also that the assets themselves had
.
.
been looted or obtained under duress. Therefore, each foreign government had to ascertain the
149 Earl F. Ziemke, The U. S.Army in the Occupation ofGermany, 1944~J946 (Washington D. C.: Center of
Military History, 1975), 199,250-251.
ISO
Alk and Moskovitz, "Removal of United States Controls," 5-10.
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�true ownership 'of blocked property, and only w!hen would Treasury release the property. ·Of
course, if foreign nationals came forward to make claims, revealing that they had had assets in
the United States, they might be subjected to unwanted. taxation in their home country; officials
,
1..
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•
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.
thought at the time that this was a major reason why relatively few claimants stepped forward.
Treasury also worried about secqrities, arid only after creating a: list 'of such securities known to
be looted (particularly from Holland),'. did the departiTIent defrost.
The United States government left the difficulties of establishing "true" ownership to
individua~
governments. This meant that if a nation wanted to tum a blind eye to practices such
as "Aryanization,'.' the United States had little. recourse. The "defrosting" process did include a
number of explIcit exemptions, including that, "Victims of Nazi persecution were enabled to
secure the clarification or their status as non.:enemies and' the uriblockingof their assets by
applying directly to the Treasury Department"- but owners were still
"requir~d
to obtain
certification. of their assets" from their respective governments. lSI The final date for certification
applications was fixed as June 1, 1948, and although it was extended by half a year, certific~tion
came to an end on December 31, 1948.
III-. CONCLUSION
The historical background and context provided here is meantto serve as a basic
orientation for material analyzed in later chapters of the report. The Nazi campaign against Jews
and other "non-Aryans" began with discriminatory legislation in 1933 and concluded only with
the liberation of extermination camps and the destruction ofthe regime in 1945. Although. the
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�United States did not act forcefully to stop this terrible persecution during the 1930s, it.
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"
eventually fonned a powerful alliance with Great Britain and the Soviet Union to crush Nazi
Gennany. Given Europe's extensive material damage and the enonnous human suffering and
dislocation at war's end, occupation and the reconstruction of civil society posed daunting tasks
for the victors. American efforts to recover and restitute Holocaust victims' assets, therefore,
began under very challenging circumstances.
151
Alk and Moskovitz, "Removal," 19.
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58
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets
Description
An account of the resource
<p>The Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, formed in 1998, was charged with investigating what happened to the assets of victims of the Holocaust that ended up in the possession of the United States Federal government. The final report of the Commission, <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/pcha/PlunderRestitution.html/html/Home_Contents.html"> “Plunder and Restitution: Findings and Recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States and Staff Report"</a> was submitted to President Clinton in December 2000.</p>
<p>Chairman - Edgar Bronfman<br /> Executive Director - Kenneth Klothen</p>
<p>The collection consists of 19 series. The first fifteen series of the collection are composed mostly of photocopied federal records. These records were reproduced at the National Archives and Records Administration by commission members for their research. The records relate to Holocaust assets created between the mid 1930’s and early 1950’s by a variety of U. S. Government agencies and foreign sources.</p>
<p>Subseries:<br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Art+and+Cultural+Property+">Art and Cultural Property</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Gold+">Gold</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Gold+Team+Review+Form+Binders+">Gold Team Review Form Binders</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Art+and+Cultural+Property+and+%E2%80%9COthers%E2%80%9D+Review+Form+Binders">Art and Cultural Property and “Others” Review Form Binders</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Non-Gold+Financial+Assets+Review+Form+Binders">Non-Gold Financial Assets Review Form Binders</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=History+Associates+Binder+">History Associates Binder</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Non-Gold+Financial+Assets+Review+Form+Binders+%282%29">Non-Gold Financial Assets Review Form Binders (2)</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Financial+Assets+Documents">Financial Assets Documents</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=RG+84%2C+Foreign+Service+Posts+of+the+State+Department%E2%80%94Turkey">RG 84, Foreign Service Posts of the State Department—Turkey</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Financial+Assets+Documents">Financial Assets Documents</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%5BJewish+Restitution+Successor+Organization+%28JRSO%29%2C+Oral+Histories%5D&range=&collection=20&type=&user=&tags=&public=&featured=&exhibit=&submit_search=Search+for+items">[Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO), Oral Histories]</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=PCHA+Secondary+Sources">PCHA Secondary Sources</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Researcher+Notes">Researcher Notes</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Unnumbered+Documents+from+Archives+II+and+Various+Notes">Unnumbered Documents from Archives II and Various Notes</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=RG+260%2C+Finance+Inventory+Forms">RG 260, Finance Inventory Forms</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Reparations">Reparations</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Chase+National+Bank">Chase National Bank</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Administrative+Files">Administrative Files</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Art+%26+Cultural+Property+Theft">Art & Cultural Property Theft</a></p>
<p>Topics covered by these records include the recovery of confiscated art and cultural property; the reparation of gold and other financial assets; and the investigation of events surrounding capture of the Hungarian Gold Train at the close of World War II. These files contain memoranda, correspondence, inventories, reports, and secondary source material related to the final disposition of art and cultural property, gold, and other financial assets confiscated during the Holocaust.</p>
<p>For more information concerning this collection consult the<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/35992"> finding aid</a>.</p>
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/35992" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/1040718" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
2954 folders
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
[General Environment] [1]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States
Art & Cultural Property Theft
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Box 227
<a href="http://clintonlibrary.gov/assets/Documents/Finding-Aids/Systematic/Holocaust-Assets.pdf" target="_blank">Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="http://catalog.archives.gov/description/6997222" target="_blank">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Adobe Acrobat Document
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Reproduction-Reference
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
6/24/2013
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
6997222-general-environment-1
6997222