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I. GENERAL ENVIRONMENT
A. Nazi Victimization)
,
1. Race, ,deology, and Law
The immense human suffering and material devastation that '
confronted the American Army in liberated and occupied Western
Europe was a:direct consequence of Nazi Germany's annihilative
war against its internal and external enemies. This catastrophe did
not begin when German troops iJwaded Poland in,September 1939,
but rather when Adolf Hitler and theN~i 'Party took power in
January 1933. Within weeks the racist and fascistic worldview of
this once fringe group first appeared in German law and began to
influence domestic and foreign policy:' After the Nazis succeeded
in marginalizing all political opposition within the government
they were free to realize their most radical plans for Germany and
¥~~o~izis exalted the ~'Aryan" ar~hetYPe, above 'all other races and'
squght to defend it against racial, political, and social elem,ents
they believed were a threat to its integrity. Racial "aliens'~ such as
Jews and Gypsies and racially "less valuable" Germans such as the
mentally and physically handicapped were immediate targets of
NaZi persecution on raciallbiological grounds. Adherents to
"Jewish" political theories as well as unrepentant Christian
Scientists, Freemasons, Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses,
. homosexuals, and,others were victimized for engagin'g in "asocial"
'activity.· During the first few years after Hitler became
Chancellor, Nazis and like-minded Germans subjected members of
these groups, particularly Jews, to "spontaneous" riots and'semi
organized boycotts. These aCtions had an adverse effect on the
'German, economy be9ausethey destroyed property, encouraged
"wild" Aryanization, and aroused animosity abroad .. A more .
organized approach would be necessary if the regime wanted to
materially Drofit from the persecution of it§ enemies;2
.
To enab e the NaziS to tatre actIOn agamst 'non-.t;\.ryans" m a
systematic and quasi-leg~ manner, "Jewish experts" in the Reich
Interior Ministry wrote the Nuremberg Laws. EnaCted on 15
September 1935, this legislation consisted of the Law for the
Protection of German Blood and Honor, the Reich Flag Law, and
, the Reich Citizenship Law; Much like the earlier"Aryan
paragraph" of the Civil Service Law of7 April 1933, the
Nuremberg Laws allowed the regime to expand and intensify
official government discrimination. But unlike the "Aryan .
.paragraph," which only vagUely referred to one vast, undefined
category of "non-Aryans" and allowed for certain exceptions, the
Nuremberg Laws explicitly stated against whom official
discrimination could and would be directed - the Jews. 3 After
, protracted negotiations, Party and Reich ministry. officials settled'
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�on an elaborate scheme detailing three separate "degrees" of
Jewislnless. 4 The extent to which a Jew would be socially and
professionally ostracized from the Aryan community was
determined by the degree assigned him or her. 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 to persons of "German or
related blood."5 Jews were obligated to comply with these new
laws under which they were no longer protected as citizens
(Reichsburger) but instead treated as alien subjects
(Staatsangehorige).6 It was in this manner that Jew~ were
registered and disenfranchised.
"
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'
Nazi officials used the Nuremberg Laws as a legislative framework
for further raci~ll discrimiqation and expanded its exclusionary'
provisions to COVer Gypsies and other now better defined "non-',
Aryans." Social and political "undesirables" were similarly.
victimized by the Nazis in a flurry of laws, supplementary decrees,
,and amendments to the existing criminal code.' This legislation,
oftentimes in the form of vaguely worded crime prevention or
public heath measures, was always punittve, r~strictive, and
confiscatory in nature and intended to segregate "asocial" elements
from the "Aryan" community. 7, Its primary significance was that
. the Nazi regime had finally succeeded in its effort to clearly define
•its enemies. Once defined, they and their assets could be more
.'
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easily identified and targeted.,
Although the Justice ana Interior Ministries at first sought to
, . encourage an orderly and quasi-legal persecution of
. "undesirables," their law enforcemtmtofficials. began to disregard
the law from 1938 onwards. Nor were they quick to intervene on·9
November 1939 to prevent the looting and destruction of
Kristalbiacht. Discriminatory laws h~d served their purpose and
Heinrich Himmler directed the long since Nazified police. Some
, in the SS lead,ershlp now argued that.a fimil solution to the Jewish
, Question cCl1ild not be achieved by legislation alone. 8 More radical
alternatives would be necessary.
When Austria and the Sudetenland became part of the Reich in
'19~8' the inhal?itants ofthese'lands, including many Germans who
had fled the Nazi terror, were,subjected to the same discriminatory
legislation and persecution that had existed in the Reich proper;
Hitler intended to keep his oft-stated promise to unite all ethnic
Germans into one community and to protect that community from
the presence and influence of "non-Aryans." Starting in 1939,
however, Gennan troops began to conquer decidedly un-German
territori'es contaIning sizeable Jewish populations. Rather than
decreasing the number of "non-Aryans" under German control;
. Geiman military success increased it by millions, particularly in
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�the East. ' It was at this point that'the war effort converged with the
effort to rid Europe of its Jews.
,
2. Aryanization
"The Jew must go - ' aIld his cash stays here!" the Nazi Volkische
Beobachter newspaper'blared on 26 April 1938," the sanle daya
decree was' passed requiring.the doinesti~ and foreign property
Jews held that was valued at more than 5,000 Reichsmark to be
, declared, 10 The stated purpose of the decree was "to ensure the
utilization of assessable assets in the interest of the German
economy," but its secret purpose was ,"to achieve a final exclusion
of Jews from the German economy."11 "Aryanization" literally
meant Germanizing enterprises and professions, and at least from
1933 to 1939 the attempt was to force Jews to emigrate from ,
Germany by depriving them of their livelihoods, and to get their
~ssets - by whatever means
into non-Jewish hands before they
left.
Occupational restriction had begun already in 193J:when German
, Jews were excluded from the civil service. License revocation, the
restriction of clientele to Jews, and the barring from professional
'organizations drastically narrowed the free exercise of profession
by lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers, notaries and many others during
the next'five yem::s: at least 400 anti-Jewish laws; decrees and
regulations we~e promulgate4 by 1939. 12 The constriction was'
gradual, with disbarred lawyers still able to be employed for a time '
as legal counselors, and some initial exemptions for Jewish
veterans from World War I, for example. But the cumulative
effect was inexorable, and contributing to the emigration of from
100,000 to 170,000 German Jews (from 1933 to 1937/38), of
whom as many as one-half may have had sigqificant assets.13
The civil service and the professions were only a small p~oportion
(12%) of gainfully employed Jews in Germany. Most Jews (61 %)
were employed in commerce and transport. 14 In 1933 there may
'have been as many as 100,000 Jewish enterprises of all kinds, but
by the time the decree prohibiting Jews from owning retail
businesses was passed in November of 1938, only about 40,000
enterprises were left. IS Before 1933, some business closures would
still have been due to the aftermath of the Depression, or to
difficulties in finding heirs for family businesses; as seems to have
been the case among small Jewish-owned banks. 16 But after 1933,
the boycotting of Jewish businesses by Germans, refusals of
Germans to pay business debts to Jews, the legal restriction of
clientele to Jews, harassment by offiCials, the denial of credit by
banks, and the intimidating of business owners when they were
taken into "protective custody" - not to speak of the desire by
Jewish businessmen to raise the necessary cash to emigrate
drove many small Jewish enterprises to sell. 17 As many as a
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�quarter of Jewish businessys may have closed or been sold already
by 1'935, particularly in the more rural areas and'small towns. IS
While the'details of many of these transactions are no longer,
available, it is clear that the littleshopkeepers were the first targets
for Aryanization, while some of the larger JewIsh enterprises
textile firms, department stores,banks heavily involved in export
financing - were among the last to be sold or transformed into
limited partnerships or other forms of enterprise in 1938. 19 , ' '
After 1938, such orderliness as had characterized at least some
Aryanizations was no lqnger evident, and the process of putting
property and enterprises into Germari hands became'
indistinguishable from .outright theft and expropriation, with old
NaZi Party members often the beneficiaries. Nowhere was this
more blatant than in Vienna, home to 90% of Austria's Jews,
where "by the end of 1938, 3,500 party members had become
'commissioners' over seized Jewish properties.,,26 By mid-:1939,
over 18,000 Austrian Jewish firms had been purchased, confiscated
or closed, and many other assets, including valuable paintings,
simply sto1en. 11 In Occupied France, Holland and Belgium, as part
of the "M-Actlon" beginning in 1940, first the libraries and art
objects of Jews who had fled were packed up and sent to Germany.
By 1942, thistheft was expanded to include the property of Jews
who had been taken to concentration camps, and by the end of July
1944, the relevant office proudly reported that over 69,500
,
,
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"compete Jewish apartments" (worth 1.5 million RM) had been
'packed up and transported, in 674 trains, to the Reich, ,The
furniture and all usable goods were publicly and openly auctioned
.off in Cologne, Dusseldorf, Mainz, Berlin, Hamburg and other '
cities to replace what Germans had lost in Allied bombing raids:
11.7 million RM worth of currency and other securities had been
'
m&8rHi~lcf»1~i~l~Wm'6~oWrM~Wfsh¥,-pb<fi8~t;.o the April
1938 registration of Jewish property decree, the value .of all Jewish
assets in: the Reich, including Austria, in November 1938
amounted t.o 8.53 billi.on Reichsmark, of which '1 A billion was
debts and .other liabilities. Of the remaining 7.12 billi.on, about
.one-sixth (17.2%) was business capital, mere than .one-third
(35.8%) was real estate, and cl.ose to two-thirds (61.5%) were in
financial assets - ' including inflated pensions, salaries, insurance,
" bank notes, securities and other "vulnerable assets ... readily
seizab1e."13
'
Avoiding the Aryanization 'of financial assets was p.ossib1e by
moving capital abroad, but even prior to the rise of the Nazis,
, Germany had imposed a Reich Flight Tax in 1931 t.o keep as'sets
from leaving the country during the DepreSSion. By 1934, a
Capital Flight Tax had been levied 'on any transfers .of-more than
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�50,000 RM, and all exchange transactions now required a pennit,
arid by 1936 the free export of securities was restricted. In 1937
the death penalty was introduced in Gennany for exchange control
violati(;)lls, and when war broke out, all capital transfers were
prohibited. 24 ,As ifthis were not enough to keep assets within the
Reich, numerous other devices were introduced in the 1930s to
extract money from those who emigrating, including blocked ,
accounts, an unfavorable manipulation pf exchange rates, the
confiscation of insurance monies, a special 20% "atonement" fine
on Jewish property for von Rath's assassination in 1938, and··
payment to a fund to support the emigration of poor Jews. It meant
that those who fled in 1938/39, even if they were as wealthy as the
banker Max Warburg, might only be allowed to take 2-3% of their
wealth with them.2S
3. Extermination Policies.
Adolf Hitler, in the very first chapter of Mein Kampf, wrote that
"people of the same blood should be in the same Reich," and the
first point of the Nazi Party program was "the unification of all
, Gennans to fonn a Great Gennany."26 The dream of the Pari
Gennanic League and similar organizations fOW1dedin the late 19th
century to cOllect all Gennans together into a single,nation that
could forcefully assert itself7 seemed to be bearing fruit by 1938
with the incorporation into Gennany first of the Saarland and the
Rhineland, and then with the annexation of Austria and takeover of
the Sudetenland. Hitler's more ominous assertion came only a
sentence later in Mein Kampf "When' the territory of the Reich
embraces all the Gennans, and finds itself unable to assure them Ii
livelihood, then from the need,ofthe people, the moral right can
arise to aqquire 'foreign, territory."28 .
Because Aryans were the master race, in his view, they could take
more "living space" for themselves in the East, including by force.
Aryans were entitled'to remove (or enslave) the subhuman Slavic
peoples (in particular Poles, Russians and Czechs) in order to have
, more territory _. thQugh in thi~ twisted cosmology, subjugated
Slavs would benefit by learning from their contact with the
superior Aryans. Hitler would come to decide that Belgians,
Dutch, Norwegi~s and panes were also culture-creating races,
albeit less pure than the ArYans, arid sought to incorporate, them
.into the Reich by invading their countries in 1940 (the French were
a more complicated case). "Take away the Nordic Gennans," he
wrote, "and nothing remains but the dance of apes. m9
.
But the Jews, in Hitler's view, were engaged in a battle for world
domination and used every instrument possible - democracy,
capitalism, parliamentarianism, liberalism,' Christianity,
modernism in art and even prostitution and miscegenation - to
subdue Aryan peoples to their rule. 30 Jews were mortal enemies,
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a~d, as he said at the Nuremberg Rally in 1937, it was "a fact
proved by irrefutable evidence" that the Jewish world Conspiracy,
wa,s directed from Moscow. 31 National Socialism, he went on,
, "would protect the 'community of European-culture nations' from
'Jewish world Bolshevism. m32
The laws and regul&tions of Nazi Germany, including the
Nuremberg Racial Laws, had been quickly introduced as territories
were annexed and countries were overrun: Jews in Austria,
Poland, Slovakia, Holland, Belgium, Norway and Occupied France
were ,excluded from public service and professions, ordered to
register property and pay special taxes, -and saw their businesses
Aryanized. Yefofficial policy in August 1940 was still to .
encourage emigration, including from German-occupied territories,
with Madagascar a frequently discussed destination. Even in
November 1941 keyNazi figures were still suggesting deported'
Jews could simply be pushed farther ea,st; perhaps beyond the Ural
Mountains.33
After August 1941, Jews in German-occupied Europe could no
longer emigrate, and by October, Jews in Germany could no longer
,either.34 In September, Adolf Eichmann organized his first
deportation
20,OOORhineland Jews and 5,000 Gypsies - out of
the "old"Reich, in accordance with Hitler's wish to have a
, Germany "cleansed of Jews" (Judenrein), and sent them to the
Lodz ghetto in Poland. 35 The concentrating of Jews into closed
districts in Polish cities and towns had begun"already in early 1940,
and by the ~nd of 1941 this process of ghettoization was largely
complete.36 Most ominously, in November 1941, the death camps
. at Belzec and Chelmno began to be built arid put into operation,
soon, to b~ followed by ~obibor~ Tteblinka and Majdanek. 37
ThemvasIOn of Russia m'the early summer of 1941 marked the
beginning of extermination, as mobile killing units of the police
and SS (Einsatzgrnppen) were sent in close behind the front lines. '
, . Their job was to kill Jewish inhabitants on the spot, at a rate of
100,000 a moilth by the end of 1941,38 using methods already tried
in euthanasia efforts in Germany.39 In accordance with the
"Commissar Order," Communist Party functionaries among
captured Russians were also to be disposed of, this time by
,
German Army units, The struggle against Bolshevism, a 3 June
1941 German Army Headquarters:"Guidelines for the Conduct of
Troops in Russia" directive stated, "demands ruthless and .
energetic measures against Bolshevik "agitators, guerrillas,
saboteurs~ Jews, and the complete elimination ofevery active or
passive resistance.'>40 In practice, this meant mass executions of
Russian orison,ers \>fwat it) viol~tion Q.finJem~ti(;mallaw,
So thougl1 the ImplementatIOn 01 the "J:<ma Solution" would be
coordinated at the Wannsee Conference only in January 1942, the
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�large.,scale murder of Jews and Russiansat the front had started at
least six months before, with euthanasia experiments in German
camps and institutions preceding it by several years, and under a
leader who already in early 1939 had spoken publicly of "the
destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.''l41 Indeed, the W annsee,
Conference was still discussing the expulsion of the Jews from
German life and an acceleration ot'their emigration, only now it
was to be a deportation or evacuation to the East. Able-bodied
Jews would be put 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 seed of a new Jewish revival."
"Treated accordingly" was a ,euphemism for execution by firing
squad or death by gassing. The killing camps at Chetmno, Belzec,
Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek used what had been learned
about gassing from the mobile 'killing commandos. The last of
these camps closed in November 1943, and it is estimated that 1.7
to 1.9 million victims were murdered in these five locations.42
For those sent to the camps, ~here were two assets left: what
. victims carried with them and their labor power.. Odilo Globocnik,
an SS-officer in charge of killing centers around Lublin,.seems to
have been particularly eager to secure whatever wealth he could
from the victims for use by the Reich. In one list of the "Jewish
items" gathered by 3 February 1943 that he submitted, one finds
the following items (valued in Reichsmark): "
a
1,452,904.65 in bills (29 currencies; largest single currency lIS
dollars)'
. "
843,802.75 in coin (27 currencies; largest single currency US _
dollars)"
.
4,942,870.00 in gold bars (1, 775 kilos valued at RM 2,784Ikilo)
385,573.00 in silver bars (9,639 kilos valued at RM 401kilo)
25,500.00 ofplatimim (5 kilos valued at RM 5,000Ikilo)
26,089;800.00 in other valuable items, the largest of which, by
value, were:
" ,
, 11,675,000.00 (11,675 goldririgs with diamonds)
4,000,000.00 (49 kilos of pearls) .
3,948,000.00 (1,974 gold brooches)
1,828,250.00 (7,313 women's gold wristwatches)
.
1,427,000.00 (2,874 men's gold pocket watches)
13,294,400.00 textile and fabrics (462 freight cars of rags, 251
freight cars of bedding, and 317 .freight cars of clothing and wash)
In addition to the 15.9 million cash on hand, and the 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 Rleich. A more inclusive list, part of the
"Reinhardt Action" in Lublin andoovering the time from April
1942 to 15 December 1943 (thus likely including the amounts
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�,
, just noted), comes to a totai of 178 million Reichsmark worth, ,
including 1,901 freight cars of clothing arid textiles. 43
The other remaining asset victims had was labor power.
For those judged strong enough to work, there was a temporary
reprieve. Yet following an order of 30 April 1942, from Oswald
Pohl, head of the SS Economic Administration, in concentration
camps the exploitation of prisoners was to take place without
regard to life and health, as their labor was needed for the Reich. It
might well be their last labor, .for in September 1942 both Hirmhler
and Goebbels had another idea:, according to Justi~e Minister Otto
Thierack, Goebbels had said that "relative to ,the extermination of
asocial life, Jews and Gypsies should be exterminated as such.
The thought was that extermination through work would be the
best."44 In short, those who were sparecl from gassing were tobe
worked to death.
B. United States Engagement
1. Overcoming Isolation .
In 1936, one of the e,arliest national Gallup Polls ever conducted
found that 60% of those ,asked agreed with the statement "if there
is another general war in Europe, the U.S. can stayout.'>4S
,President Roosevelt was thus reflecting natiorial sentiment when ,he
. said "We shun political commitments which'might entangle us in
foreign wars," in a speech he gave in August' of that year. 46 George
Washington's Farewell Address warning against '~permanent
alliances with any portion of the foreign world,,47 with frequently
cited with approval at the time. .
"
Domestic problems loomed far larger in the early 1930s, in
particular unemployment and the sagging economy of the ,
Depressiori, leading some to suggest it was futile to intervene
internationally when the riation's strength was so sapped.
Furthermore, the'distrust of banks, ,bigbusine$s, and ni~nitions
manufacturers, all of whom were perceived'as profiting from
foreign trade (if not actively promoting war), supported inward
looking attitudes. 48 Senator,George Norris, opposing American
intervention in 1917, said in Corigress that "the object in having
war and In preparing for war is to make rt:loney," and that
, sentiment was widespread by the 1930s.49 In 1932,when 13.7
million unemployed were counted. in the
the isolationist
Senator William E. Borah wrote that Americans should "look after
our own interests and devote ourselves to our own people."so
, Yet to call the American stance "isolationist" is a lIttle misleading
in an immigrant country proud of serving as a democratic model
for the world ~d with leaders committed to expanding foreign
trade., It was hard to ~void involvement, President Woodrow
Wilson had said in 1919, because after "you have become a
. det~ining factor in the history ofmankind...you cannot remain
us,
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�isolated, whether you want to or not."51 As a consequence,
President Roosevelt's aCtions during the 1930s should probably be
,seen less as a failure to intervene abroad than as a complex practice
, of the art of th~ possible in the face of stiff public and senatorial
opposition to intervention; Roosevelt was also mindful of President
Wilson's lack of success with the League of Nations and well
aware that the US Senate had refused to approve the, Treaty of
Versailles in 1924.
Roosevelt's efforts until 1938 focused on'ways to lmdermine
aggressor nations by encouraging disarmament and restricting
trade, as well as by suggesting blockades or other ways of
contr~lling the seas. His efforts were stymied by the Neutrality
Acts (1935-37) passed in Congress that mandated arms embargoes
and prohibited loans to all belligerents, making it impossible to
show favoritism toward those considered allies. However, it did
became possible to supply food, raw materials, and manufactured
, goods as l~ng as they were paid for in cash and carried away on
foreign ships. This permitted a Trans-Atlantic trade with Great
Britain to flourish, one which would subsequently draw in the u.S.
Navy to protect ship convoys. Though the US was officially
neutral in 1940/41, Roosevelt appearsto have wanted to draw
German submarine fire on US ships, for on 17 May 1941 he
confided to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau that hewas
"waiting to be pushed into this situation," which to Morgenthau
weant beiI12 pushed ioto war. 52
','.'
Ut course, Roosevelt had been sly. In 1936 he satd that "I can at
least make certain that no act of the United States helps to produce
or to promote war,"~3 implying that the provocative acts of other
nations was a different matter. During his reelection bid in 1940, '
again under pressure from isolationists, in one speech he said that
American "boys are not going to be sent into ,any foreign war," but'
on other occasions he had add~d the key qualifier, "except in case
ofattack."S4 But by January 1941, the US was to become the
"arsenal of democracy," and the introduction ofthe Lend-Lease
bill -,,'symbolically entitled House Resolution 1776 - that
asserted the, VS would lend or lease Great Britain the weapons;
munitions, food or other supplies needed to fight Hitler and not ask
for payment in return, was the turning point. The measure, '
Roosevelt said, was "key to the security 'of the West~rIi
Hemisphere" and to the security ofthe United States. 55 The
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on7 December 1941 finally ended
American isolation, and three days after declaring war on Japan,
the U,nited St~tesldeclared war against Germany and Italy.56
2.' ForeIgn '"POlItIC a 'Events
'
.
At the risk ofbelaboring the obvious, United States forces and
.. agencies would never have been in the position of acquiring and
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�"
restituting victim assets had the Allies not defeated Nazi Gennany.
Hindsight tends to see ultimate victory as practically inevitable,but
for contemporaries the liberation ofEurope and the destruction of
Gennan military capabilities remained uncertai'n until the last '
months of the war. .Both the United States and Great Britain on the
one side,. and the Soviet Union on the other;worried that the Grand
Alliance might split and separate agreements would be made with
Hitler. In such a scenario,the Gennans would be able to marshal
,their forces on one front arid possibly reverse the tide of the war.
The successful efforts to maintain the partnership between the Big
, Three not only ensured, victory, therefore, but al~o played acrucial
role in enabling the US to recover and restitute victim assets' after
'the war.
An uneasyrriixture of suspicion and good will
characterized the relationship between the US and the Soviet
Union between·19~9-1945. Although President Roosevelt
fonnally recognized the USSR as a Q.ation in 1933, thus removing
something of the pariah .status that country held throughout its
immediate post-revolutionary era ofthe 1920s, relations between
the Americans and Soviets never became especially close. It was',
naturally, rather difficult to find strong fundamental agreement on
any issue when the USSR remained openly committed to
overturning world capitalism. 57 The purges, terror, and show trials
during the 1930s, aggr:ession against Finland, and the~agreement ,
with Hitler to violently partition Poland in 1939 (the Molotov
RibbentropPact) and exert hegemony in Eastern Europe only
soured US relations, with the Soviet Union prior to '1941.
The Gennan invasion of the USSR 10 June 1941 rapidly
turned the Soviet Union 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 Gennans. 58 The US entry into the
Europeanwar at the end of 1941 (Hitler declared war on America
on December 11), resulted in the fonnal alliance which eventUally
crushed Nazi Gennany. Suddenly the more "unsavory" aspects of
the recent Soviet past became explainable: all of the more extreme
measures had l?een undertaken in an attempt to protect the USSR
from Hitler's aggression. 59 Furthennore, in the opinion of
President Roosevelt, this history held only secondary importance
to the real issue at hand, namely, working with the Soviet Union to
"
"
defeatGennany.
From tfie outset of the Alliance FDR sought to assuage the
Soviets and allay their fears that the British and Americans would
'be tempted into concluding a separate peace with Hitler. Whereas
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill envisioned campaigns .
weakening the Gennans at their periphery (Africa and the
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�Mediterranean), President Roosevelt and,General Marshall both
advocated a quick blow in northern Europe, thereby forcing
Germany to relieve some of the pressure, on fronts in Russia. 60
Whenthis plan proved logistically impractical, the Western Allies
pushed forward with an invasion ofNorth Africa (November 1942)
and Italy (September 1943). FDR again sought 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. 61 "
,
This forinula for "unconditional surrender" .failed to '
reassure, the Soviet Union that its western partners were doing
everything possible to crush Germany nlpidly. Former
Ambassador to the USSR, Joseph E. Dayies,observed from Mosco
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. ,'>62 Disruptions of American and
, British supply convoys to Murmansk throughout 1943 (German
submarine attacks 'caused heavy losses) increased Soviet mistrust. 63
On the other hand, the Western Allies continued to fear that the
USSR might agree to cease hostilities once ,the"Germans had been '
,pushed outof Soviet territory. ,Both the sudden ~iihdrawal of the'
Soviet Union from the First World War and the pact with Hitler in
1939 "was ever present in the thinking of British and American
'leaders," according to historian Gerhard Weinherg.64 Even more
haunting for the Western Allies was intelligence obtained during
the summer of 1943 that the Soviets had indeed opened
, preliminary, top-secret negotiations for peace with German '
representatives. 65 If such discussions bore ~it (which, of course;
, they did not), the Anglo-Americans would not onlyface a much
more formidable enemy in Europe, but also would lose an essential
aily for .winning the wru; in .the Pacific. 66
•
, ::;mce 1':142 die ::;ovfels haa pressed the Western AllIes for a
seconc:i front against the Germans in Europe; in June 1944 this
became a reality with the the successful Allied invasion of
Normandy. Postwar geopolitical planriing intensified as victory
seemed within grasp. Officials both in the United States and 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. The British, for instance,
wanted to attack Austfla and Yugoslavia in cOnjunction with the
Normandy' assauit, and later advocated a rapid thrust toward Berli~
to push the Western Allies as far east as possible before linking
with the Red Army. In the State Department, George Kennan
believed it time (late 1944) for a'''full-fledged and realistic political
showdown with the Soviet leaders" to discuss their territorial '
intentions. ~7
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�Yet, as John Gaddis observes, "President Roosevelt showed
.,. little inclination to let such postwar considerations affect his plans
for operations against Gennany.'~ The primary tasks remained
crushing Nazi Germany, then obtaining Soviet assistance in the
final campaigns against Japan in the Pacific. To obtain these ends,
FDR willingly distanced himselffro,m those most fearful of
Communist domination in Eastern Europe. 69 Indeed, it seems that
President Roosevelt believed Stalin had no pernicious designs
apartfrom obtainin~ security on the western Soviet border. 70
Although strained; the Grand Alliance remained intact, thus
ensuring the total defeat of Gennany by May 1945~
As later sections of this report will explain, domination ,of
Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union certainly affected US
restitution efforts after the war. On the other hand, without
continued cooperation between the USSR and its Western Allies, a
number of terrible scenarios become historical possibilities. These
include a longer war (resulting in countless more military and
civilian deaths), further exploitation and devaluation of victims'
assets, or even the persistence of the Nazi regime. The
development and perseverence of the Grand Alliance (or "Strange
Alliance," as it has been dubbed71 ) was thus instt:umental in
defeating Germany, and concomitantly putting US forces in a
position to recover and ultimately restitute Holocaust victims' ,
assets.
.
3. insert american command structures in Europe
C 'Occupation and Stabilization [in Europe]
,;
1. Sequen'ce and Structures
'
'a), USGCC
The United States Group Control Council (Gennany)
(USGCC) was established under ETOUSA on August 9,
1944.72 It mission was to make plans for the military
goveJll!Ilent'of Germany after the War's end and to, serve as
the American core of the Allied Co'ntrol Council once
established. Its predecess9r, the Gennan Country Unif3,
was disbanded on October 4, 1944 and its responsibilities
and personnel were assigned to USGCC. The USGCC,
although belonging to ETOUSA, was subordinate to
SHAEF until th~ combined command terminated. 74
Originally it was composed of the Armed Forces Division
which was responsible for Gennan disannament and '
demilitarization, the repatriation of allied prisoners of war,
and intelligence gathering; Military Government Division
A which was responsible for all economic matters; and
Military Government Divisi()fl B which was resp,onsible for
.
"
'.
.
alLnolitical matters; ,.
.fi:i November 1944, however, USGCC was reorganIzed mto
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�"
,
,
"
twelve divisions including a reparations, deliveries, and
restitution division;7s, 'f\ power ~truggle developed between
USGCC and theater G-5,a.fnore influential anq established
decision making entity assigned nearly identical .
responsibilities. This running conflict was not over the
content or direction of policy, but rllther 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 Deputy Military Governor (SHAEF)Lieutep.ant
General Lucius D. Clay assumed command. Shortly'
thereafter, USGCC developed from a planning agency into
policy-determining agency. In his capacity as Deputy
Military Governor, Clay sOQn ex'erted presumed authority
over G-5 staff supervision. 76 He was eager to civilianize
the military government apparatus as 'quickly as possible so
that it could be turned over to the Department of State.
Clay even characterized the civilianizatioI). process as his
"mission.'m "From the beginning," Earl Ziemke writes,
, "the U.S. Group Control Council had been considered more,
a vehicle for future civilian authority than an element of,
Army-administered military government."78 The same
would soon happen tb theater G-5. Clay accelerated the
civilianization of the USGCC and theater G-5 while
merging the staffs together, thereby ending the power
struggle between these rival entities and removing military
personnel from command. On September 29, 1945
a
.2. Nature~~fj~~t:'JfJf<if~~:tllM{~n\\%slocation .
a)
Transportation:
The Allies amved to find a Germany in which much of the
transportation infrastructure was damaged. Only quarter
of the locomotives and half of the freight cars from .before
thewar were still usable, and while much of the track was
, ' intact, 4,500 signals and 13,000 switches were destroyed.
,About one-third of all railway stations were gone, as were
the largest urban train stations and yards. Nearly two-thirds
of the missing 2,472 railroad bridges had been blown up by
the W ehrmacht. 79
Things were not much better on the roads: 40% of them
y.rere unusable, and car production capacity was dowri 40%
~s well. so ' The few citizens who had cars when Germany
capitulated could not run them for lack of fuel: even by
early 1945" Allied bombing had sp destroyed gasoline
prod,uction plants that horses and ,oxen were used to drag
a
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�annored cars and artillery to the front. 81 But as it was, the
Occupation authorities didn't want civilians moving
iriitially, and issuing curfew and travel restrictions stating
" that citizens were ~ot to travel more than 6 km from home
without approval. ' Though· local public transportation could
be used, it was decreed that "rallways, private cars, bicycles
and private motorbikes must n()t be used without special
permission."82 Railroads initially only transported troops,
military supplies and displaced persons; food and firewood
were transported. by truck, but here too, only about 25,000 '
trucks in the Bizone were either operable or available to
civilians;83
. b) Housing:
, According to the estimate of the US Strategic Bombing
Survey, the half-million tons ofbombs released over the 61 '
largest Gennarl,cities (with populations' over 100,000)
during the war tesultedin the destruction 'of about 3.6
million residential units, or around· 20% of the housing in
,Gerinany.84 The destruction was quite uneven, however, in
. the areas Anlericans came to control. B.avaria; a largely
. rural region ~ith some larger cities, only saw 13% of its
housing destroyed, while in heavily urban Bremen the
'
figure was 42%.85
The housing needs thus varied locally, and in the largest
cities in the Anierican Zone, the situations was acute when
.. the American troops arrived: more than half of all the
residential buildings in Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich
(inner city) were either seriously damaged or completely
,destroyed, leaving behind an estimated 27 million cubic
meters ofrubble. 86 A US Group Control Council Survey of
Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Niirnberg and Kassei in September of
1945 found "that three-quarters of the illhabited houses
needed repairs. More than halfhad no windows; a third,
had damaged roofs~ and a quarter unsoundwalls."87 In .
Frankfurt, whose 1945 population was about 270,000, most
ofthe population (173,000) was living in ruins and
basements, and the housing situ<:!tion was not eased by the
fact that 8% of the residences were requisitioned by
'Occupation troops (affecting 33,000 residents). From mid
Mayto mid-August, in addition, 92,000 expellees arrived,
and at least a thousand soldiers and air raid evacuees
returned to Frankfurt each week for the next year. 8S
'c) Industry:
"
Despite the hopes Allies had about crippling German
industry during the course ofthe war, overall production
was temporarily slowed rather than stopped. At the end of
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�the war,in May, 1945, the country had greater industrial
potentia.I, than at the beginning, and it was estimated that
the capit~ stock and the net investment,wealth had actually
increased by about 20% compared to 1936.89 But the
collapse of supply'networks and the lack of raw material
and energy sources meant in the US Zone that while factory
owners had enough funds "to clean up and put their plants
in order, afterwards all they could do was wait for coal"
electricity and materials."90
'
The reviving of Germany industry was complicated in the
immediate postwar years by what can only be described as
mixed motivations 9n the part of the Allies. 'On the one,
hand, the Allies wanted to destroy Germany's economic
pot~ntial to wage war (Potsdam and London Agreements in
1946 and 1949) by prohibiting production of war m~terial,
aircraft and atomic material. These prohibitions were
expanded to,inc1ude producing synthetic rubber and oil,
primary magnesium and beryllium, the maximum size of
certain machine tools, the total output of aluminum, steel,
synthetic ammonia, ~hlorine and styrene, as well as the
speed and tonnage of ships.9J In: addition, Americans were
convinced, as heirs to "trust-busting" attitudes about
industry, that the German war,machine had been made
possible by economic monopolies, and therefore planned to
, decartelize, demonopolize, and decentralize industry.92
These desires implied not only seizing and closing plants
but also reorganizing entire basic industries such,as coal, '
steel, or iron and thus being deeply involved in the
'
management.of industrial enterorises.
'. .
un t11'e orner nann, at yaIta ancragam at Potsdam, whIle It
,Was agreed that Germany should pay reparations for the
damage it had caused, Germany should also retain eno.ugh
pro.ductive capacity to allow for a rebuilding o.f a viable
peacetime econo~y. Reparatio.ns in the fo.rm o.f dismantled
industrial, plants that could be' carted away were co.mpatible
with the desired restrictions o.n, say, war material
production, and in 1946 from 1,500-2,000 industrial plants
were being appraised by the Allied Control Authority' as to
their future use. But by December, 1947, only 682 plants'
were still under discussion as "surplus and available for
reparations" (186 in the US Zone,496 in the British 'Zo.ne),
of which 40, mo.st previo.usly used "exclusively for the
manufacture of war materials" had bythat.time been
dismantled and removed from US and British Zo.nes. 93 An
unknownamounto.f "capital equipment was being taken
from the Soviet Zone and shipped to. the East," and by
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�March of 1948, the Soviet Union had withdrawn from the
Allied Control Council for both political and economic
reasons; by this time only 140 industrial plants (43 in the
· ,US Zone, 62 in the British) were still under consideration
for dismantling as reparations payments.'"
The wish to limit or. break up German industria1 production, '
and use war plants for reparations, was incompatible with
the rebuilding ofthe German economy. A joint statement
by State and War Departments on 29 August 1947 was'
, blunt about this: "The old plan provided for very sharp cuts
· in production capacities ...from which the bulk of
'
reparations were to be optained. It is impossible to provide
a self-sust~ining economy in the bizonal area without
materially increasing the levels in these industries."95 .
Reparations themselves, particularlywhen they,involved
,moving industrial plants from West to East, also ran afoul
of growing tensions 'with the Russians and their refusal to
treat Germany as a single economic unit.
d) Food:
",
"For three years the problem of food was to color every
,administrative action," General Clay wrote, and there were
many reasons for it. % Germany was not self-sufficient in
food, and the loss of territory' in the east meant also the loss
ofthe agriculturaUand that had provided food surpluses in
grain, vegetables,and meaC' Even if food surpluses were
available, the trains to transport food were unavailable.
· ','Normally," Ziemke noted, ''the half of the Rhineland
south of the Mosel imported a half million tons offood
every day," the equivalent ot one fifty-car trainload, but not
enough vehicles were available to even ensure thatlocal
produce could be moved.98
'
"
The greater problem was the lack of food production itself, '
, for no one was at work in the fields by mid-1945. Horses
and young men had been drafted into the, Wehrmacht,
thousands of acres were mined, and "the foreign workers
and POWs who had made up the bulk of the agricultural
labor force quit and took to the roads as soon as the front
passed.'>99 American efforts to help were stymied by
depleted global food reserves owing to the war, distribution
difficulties, disagreements with the British, an
exceptionally hard winter in 1946, and a drought in 1947.
Rations were so low that "60% of Germans were living on
a diet that would inevitably lead to diseases caused by
malnutrition," according to nutrition survey teams. 100 Even
with what could be provided from hoarded food or from
relatives,in the countryside, it was not enough.10I
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�There was, however, a flourishing black market for food, at
, ,.. 'least pari of which was driven by currency questions
(would Reichsmark be supplanted by Allied military
Marks? By dollars? Or in practice by cigarettes or other
commodities?), that would be resoived seemingly overnight
with the sudden reappearance of food on. store shelves after
'the currency reform of 1948. Initially, however, "we could
not hope to develo'p democracy on a starVation diet,"I02 so
in mid-l 945 US troops were pressed into service to .
distribute seeds and fertilizer, the lih Army Group released
at least 400,000 POWs for farm labor, and in June SHAEF
, 'started to import 650,000 tons of wheat. 103 Perhaps most
psychologically (as well as nutritionally) nourishing,·
however, were the contracts made in 1946 between the US'
Military Government, American welfare agencies and the
'. Red Cross to provide food (and ll,lter other items) in the
form of CRALOG and CARE packages. The acronyms
stood for the Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to
Operate in Germany and the Cooperative ofAmerican
, Remittances to Europe, and by 1948 the two had provided
29 milliorl. dollars worth of assistance to'the US Zone
, . alone...
104
.
3 . R ef ugees
a)
b)·
c)
d)
Jews and Other Concentration Camp Inmates
Numbers and Movements
UNRRA, IRO, and Other Organizations
Organizations Within the Refugee Population '
Those in DP camps in 1946 had a basic problem: they
wanted'to leave Germany permanently but the British
. would not let more than a few into Palestine, and Congress
was not inclined to make immigration to the US easier.
Both constraints began to relax in 1948, but that the last DP.
camp would only be closed in 1957 attests to how difficult
and drawn-out resettlement was., '
Most JewishDPs wanted to go to Palestine, and both
Brichah, whose origins lay in an undergroup.d ijaltic/Polish
partisan organization, and Mossad,the immigration branch
. of the Palestine self-defense organization Haganah, worked
.after the warto get them there illegally. ,The Brichah plan
was to spirit Jews to Palestine clandestinely through
Rumania and Bulgaria, and some of their efforts were aided
not only by Jewish GIs in the US Army but also by soldiers
of the Jewish Brigade, volunteers from'Palestine who
served with the British Army in Italy from 1944-46. Jews
were only too eager to leave Poland after the anti-Semitic
attack in Kielce on 4 July 1946, but the British cracJ<:down
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\'"
17
�,
"
. .
on "illegal" boats, diverting would·be Jewish immigrants to
Palestine into camps on Cyprus by August 1946 (over,
50,000 would be held there), and a British intransigence
most graphically later symbolized by t~e forced return of
the boat "Exodus" to Germany from Haifa in July 1947, led
, Brichah to conclude it would be safer to send the thousands
of expellees into the US Zones in Gerinany and Austria,
which they did. lOS The DP camps, were filled with those
, desperate to get to Palestine - so despairing that in one ' '
camp, when asked to pick a second location they wished to
go and not write Palestine a second time on the form, a
~ificant proportion wrote "crematoria. ,,106
TIiere was thus a ready· made audience not only for Zionist
political parties - David'Ben·Gurionvisited quite a few
DP camps already in October and November of 1945 107
but also for conservative religious groups like Agudat
, Israel; later to become a political party, and Vaad Hatzalah, ,
an American rabbinical rescue committee organized in
1939 to help Orthodox Jews. Agricultural settlement
organizations based in Palestine along w~th YOllth
movements and teachers came to the DP camps to start
training, or schooling for future life in Palestine, including
on the kibbutz. Internally, cultural activity
music,
theater, sports- flourished, with' at least 70 newspapers
being published; most in Yiddish, in various DP camps. lOS
As for survivors, soon after war's' end a political
coordination of interests was attempted when' the Central
Committee of German Jewish Comm,unities was founded in
.,'
f31Y¥~f\te most significant to the daily lives of the DPs,
"
'
,however, was the American Jewish Joint Distribution'
Committee (IDC or "Joint"), an organization founded in
'1914 that was '~the embodiment of whatever American
Jewry was willi~g to do for its fellow Jews overseas.';I09 Its
social origins lay among emigre niiddleclass GermanJews,
and from 1946 to 1950, the "Joint" would spend $280
million to help refugees. By and large, what they could do
initially was provide medical services and help locate
relatives, as the US military did not permit shipping'
~upplies to civilians, but relatively soon the "Joint" was
permitted to provide food, clothing and other goods, 'thot..gh
.not enough to meet the needs., The "Joint" was a voluntary
organization, and the demise of the workofONRRA iIi
niid·1947 as well ~s the uncertain state of refugee efforts
until the IRO became established, pushed the "Joint" to ,
assume more administrative and 1;inancial responsibilities
WORKING DRAFT NOT FOR CIRCULATION '
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�than it could readily cope with. The ~'JDint" DrientatiDn was"
mDre to.· prDvide welfare services than to. engage in pDlitics,
making its relatiDnswith Brichach, Vaad Hatzalahand
ZiDnist YDuth Drgaruzations complex; it also. had to. engage
in prDtracted negDtiatiDns with the Central CDmmitte~ over
. who. wDuld ultimately contrDI supplies. BeYDndall the
material aspects that the "JDint" provided, Dne Df its mDre
impDrtant acts was to. set up a Branch fDr the RestitutiDn Df
Jewish Property in March 1947 that wDrked to. fDnnulate a
general'restitutiDn law prDclaimed later that year. 110 .
e) Problems with Supply and Support..
.. .:
.
.'
.'
j) Survivors and the U.S: Army.
."If sDldiers had knDwledge DfhDW to. handle HDIDcaust
survivDrs they generally failed to. display it," in part .
because instructiDns in SHAEF handbDDks explicitly stated
that JewsshDuld be treated no. differently than any Dther .
Reich citizens. III "I can assure YDU that this headquarters
makes no. differentiatiDn in treatment Df displaced perSDnS,"
General Dwight D. EisenhDwer had cabled Secretary Df
War Henry StimsDnDn 10 August 1945. m
According to. an "Anny Talk" pilblicatiDn abDut DPs,
American trDDPS had fDught "their way.. .thrDugh the .
shattered and crumbling remainsDf cities, tDwnS, and
'villages," encDuntering displaced perSDnS to. whDm they
had Dffered strength, kindness, ratiDns, clDthing and
medicines, "and to. milliDns DfunfDrtunate"s this was the
first kindness, the first humane act, that had been extended
'to. them in ten DrmDre years." But by late NDvember 1946,
mDst cDmbat sDldiers had been redeplDyed hDme and
.
'.
,
'
"Fresh American military persQnnel, who. had just left
the SQlid, clean and .
.
.
substantial cQmfQrts Qf Qur fine hQmes and tQWns, arrived in
EurQpeand
. Germany ... The new GIs fQund it difficult to. understand and like
peQple
who. pushed, screamed, clawed fQr fQQd, smelled bad, who.
CQuldn't and
'.
didn't want to. Qbey Qrders, who. sat with dull faces and vacant
staring eyes
. . ,
.
.' in a cellar, Qr CQncentratiQn camp barrack, Qrwithin a primitive
cave, and
refused tq CQme Qut at their cQmmand."l13., .
Military discipline had to. be maintained Dn Anny
cDntrDlledfacilities, after all, and these facilities included
DldWehrmacht barracks and existing German camps. In"
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19
�the Third Army in Bavaria, which had most of the refugees
.in the US Zone, DP camps were initially surrounded by·
., barbed wire and manned by armed guards.
But the Third Army was also commanded by General
George S. Patton. In his diary on 15 September 1945,he
wrote that "others believe that the Displaced Person is a
human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly
to the Jews who areJower thananimals."114 Patton was also
of the opinion that the "Jewish type ofDP is, in the
majority of cases, a sub-human species without any of the
cultural or social refinements of our tIme," a sentiment that
would have endeared Patton to.AdolfHitler, and on 17
September 1945, during an inspection tour ofa DP camp
with General Eise~ower, Patton stated that his plans for a
nearby deserted German village was to "make it into a
concentration camp for these goddamn Jews."IIS Patton
may simply have reflected openly what many officers
privately thopghtabout Jews, to judge from contemporary
..commentary.1I6 But if the encounters with Jewish,
.
. ' . concentration camp survivors "tried the patience and
exceeded the comprehension'ofboth enlisted men and their
officers," and keeping people "in assembly centers without
adequate food, clothing, shelter, and occupational activities,
and making only minimal attempts.to find them new
.
homes, showed how little the ,displaced persons counted in
American postwar concems,"117 that was certainly not true
for certain Jewish soldiers, nor true of American Jewish
· Q{ganizations. • G "
. dA
. .
I'
<.
•
'
.
. ; 0 cc:upatIOn ulJvernments In' ermany an
D
ustrla.
1. 'Priorities and Comparis,on of Germany witbAustria
Despite the hopes of the Allied Powers for an early conclusion to
hostilities in Europe in late 1944, the armed forces of Nazi
Germany fought on until a conclusive defeat. for this reason
occupation government'was established while combat continued
, and the front lines were still ever changing. 'The ultimate objective
of all activities undertaken by the occupation government in
Germany was to hasten the collapse of Nazi Germany. Either
because ofthe;tenacious resistance of the Wehrmacht or the
demonstrated fanaticism 'of National SOyialism, the pacification of
the German population,was a top priority. The German nation was
so thoroughly destroyed, however, that rather than having to
,combat German resisters, the Allies had to care for millions of
defeated and helpless former enemies. Although Germans would
never actively or violently resist the Allied occupation, the task
awaiting the occupation authoR'ties Rfoyed 110 less difficult. : ,
, Chaos on the ground was para eled by mstltutIOnal disorganizatIOn
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�at headquarters: The responsibility for establishing occupation
governmeht ,and all it entails belonged to the tactical units and the
speci",i attachments that accompanied them. These troops and
detachments t()ok their orders from Supreme Headquarters, Allied
Expeditionary Force (SH;AEF). SHAEF directed combat
operations, while a shadow organization, European Theater of
Operations, US Army (ETOUSA), supplied and administered
them. ' General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower headed both
SHAEF and ETOUSA. Althoughoccupation policies and
contingency planS were 'formulated by SHAEF it was the tactical
troops that had the greatest responsibility. A disconnect oetween
pJanning and execution resulted.
'
,,
Until early June 1945 the advancing armies of the, Allied powers
simply set up ad hoc military government units in the communities
that they overran. The main task of these units was to ensure
security for the armies on the !pove, but they often also distributed
food and began to put basic utilities back in service. ,
On 5 June 1945 the commanders in chief of European theater
forces from the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States, and
France (the latter added aS,an occupying power at the Yalta .
Conference in February 1945) met in Berlin and issued ajoint
statement on "Arrangements for Control of Germany" that divided
Germany into four zones of occupation. The commanders of the ,
four occupYing armies acted for Germany as a whole when they
met as the Allied Control Council. Decisions of the Allied Control
CQuncil had to be reached by un~mous consent, but each
commander exercised complete authority within his own zone.
Berlin w~ similarly divided, with its own citywide administration,
the Kommandatura.
,
The Allied Control Council was a quadripartite commission made
up of the Commanders-in-Chief of the four allied,arrried forces.
Although devised at the Yalta Conference, and formed on 5 June,
1945, the Allied Control Council did not officially meet unti130
July 1945. It was intended to exercised supreme authority in
Germany and had two missions: to administer Germany as a single
economic unit, and to establish a subsistence level for German
industri",l production with the excess taken as reparations. Due to
serious unresolved disagreements pver economic policy and the
, " issue of reparations, however, the Allied Control Council .
resembled a negotiating rather than a governing body. I IS Although
it could enact legislation, it was unable to enforce its decisions in
eachseparate zone. Governing a prostrate Germany would have
been challenge enough for a single conquering power; coordinating
four different approaches created myriad possibilities"for
complications and misunderstanding. The four-power government
of Germany never worked; each zonal commander became the
WORKING DRAFT ~NOT FOR CIRCULATION
21
�" sovereign authority in his ,zone.
The American military command chose Frankfurt on the Mllin
, River as ~he focal point of its activities in Gerrp.any because of its
location within the U.S. zone and its history as a trading center and
commercial crossroads. Between March and July 1945 General
Eisenhower ~ssued orders to inactivate the wartime command,
known as th~ European Theater of Operations, U.S. Anny' ,
(ETOUSA), and to replace it with a new command organization,
the United States Forces, European Theater (USFET), "
headquartered in Frankfurt; This change coincided with the move'
of the unified Allied C()mmand, Supreme Headquarters Allied
Expeditionary Forces, (SHAEF), from the environs of Paris to
..
..
. .
Frankfurt oJ! July 1, 1945.'
, The occupymg army faced two dIstmct miSSIOns: CivIl
administration of Germany, and military command of the troops '
who' occupied the land. As a means of separating civil
administration from issues of troop command and other military
concerns, the U.S. Army transferred administration of the territory
from the hands of the tactical commanders, who had directed the
invasion, to the Office of Military Government U.S. (OMGUS).
On October 1, 1945, OMGUS became the'official executive
authority for American military government. Headquartered in
Berlin, OMGUS created local offices of military government in the
three German states in the U.S. zone. Essentially in place by the
end of 1945, OMGUS had authority for American military
government in Germany until 1949.119 USFET and its successors
. exercised command authority over the military ,troops organized
variously into military districts and military posts throughout the
"
•
U.S.2;one. 120
Austria presented an anomaly for the four power$. Austria had
fought the war as a part of the German Reich, and, like Germany,
Austria was occupied and divided into four zones. Annexed by the '
Reich in 1938, Austria was not a defeated state, but neither was it a
liberated state. The four powers in Austria quickly turned political'
and economic authority over to the Austrians, who formed an '
indigenous central government 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
'
reco . ed the Austrian government in June J 946.'
U.S. orces Austria (USF A) established headquarters in Salzburg
on August 10, 1945. The U.S. zone in Austria depended upon'
USFET headquarters in Frankfurt for supply and administration.
For matters concerning military government and political issues
,USF A's commander, General Mark W. Clark, operated directly
'. under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staffin Washington.
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�,
,,.
While United States policytowards occupied Gennany established
a military government (OMOyS) with a Military Governor who.
reigned supreme,~e policy towards Austria reflected its dual role
as ·first victim of Hitler's aggression apd its collaborative effort
with Gennany during the war. The United States Forces Austria,
or USF A, was the military government for Austria headed by ,
General Mark W. Clark,. (need to fmd exact title but think it's
high commissioner of Austria). , ' , '
Preparation for the occupation of Austria began at the Yalta
,Conference where it was decided that, like Germany, Austria
would be occupied by the four Allied powersl2l. However, though
the Allies decided that Austria be occupied, it was also established,
pursuant to the Moscow DeClaration of 194~ which'stated that
Austiii\ was the first victirn()fHitler's aggression122, that a
proVisional Austrian govefnment be set up immediately following
liberation., Elections would be held as soon ~s possible so that the
policy of establishing a free, independent, economically viable
Austria could be fulfilled. United States ,Forces Austria was'
created i,n 1944 from the Supreme Allied Command Mediterranean
Theate~ (SACMED) Mar!c.Glark'sheadquarters in Italy..
, Followmg the end ofhosttlltIes, the above plans were carned out.
USFA setup its headquarters in Salzburg and the United States
Allied Council for Austrial23 (USACA), the legislative forum for
the four Allied 'powers, was set up in Vienna. Both were charged
with the 'tasks of implementing the now concrete US policy of
establishing a free and independent Austria that waseconomically
,rehabilitated and viable in the international arena. ,VSFA and
. USACA were also charged with working alongside the provisional
government headed by Karl Renner, until ~lections took place in
November i 945. 124
'
"
Once the initial phase of occupation was over, USF A began to
::(mdeitake many of the tasks that their OMGUS counterparts were
doing in Gemiany. This included restitution, denazification and '
administering dispi'aced persons and refugee camps, which the
, Austri~ nation was forced to absorb all costs for instead of paying
reparations as the Genrians had to. The Allied governments "
wo~ked together with the Austrian government in achieving many •
of these programs, and as time passed and the size of the
occupation forces dwindled, the majority of these programs were
hall~tXi over to t~e Austrians forcompleti(;m.
';
"
Whde collaboratIve work between the Alhes and Austnans was a
success, this was not true between the Allies. In'general, the
western ABies, the US, England and France, had the same opinions
on how the occupation of Austria should run. However; the Allied
Council for Austria found it difficult to get any type of work
, accomplished because the Soviet member of the Council vetoed
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23
�the vast majority of Vorschlaege. This is especially true of the
reparations issue and signing the peace treaty that allowed for
removal' of occupation forces.
, E. U.S. Policy and Policy Development
Historians who have studied the American occupation of postwar
Germany seem united in their assessment that, given the wide array of
personalities and agencies contributing to policy-making, it is impossible
to conclude that the measures US occupyi'ng forces took from 1944-1949
stemmed from a clear, unambiguous policy. The President(s), State
Department, War Department, and Treasury Department all held
,somewhat conflicting views of how to administer defeated Germany, .
leading one scholar to interpret the actions of those years as "improvising
,
stabilityan'd change in postwar Germany."125
Since the White House had not been forthcoming with speCific policy
guidelines, Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF)
, wrote its own setof directives for US forces as American troops prepared
to invade and occupy Germany in the summer of 1944. This"Handbook
for MG [Military Government] in Germany;" while providing orders, for
denazification and demilitarization, apparently failed to satisfy thos,e
government officials who sought to thoroughly punish Germany at war's
end. 126 Chief among those criticizing the "Handbook" was Treasury
Secretary Henry Morgenthau. Morgenthau rapidly supervised ~he
formul~tion of a much'harsher policy, one that envisioned the
deindustrialization and "pastoralization" of Germany. The "Morgenthau
Plan," as ~t came to be known, won the approval ofFDR in the autumn of
1944. 'Cabinet offiCials such as Secretary of War Henry Stimson and
Secretary of State Cordell Hull found the ~lan vindictive and brutal;
Stiinson argued to FDR that it was a "crime against civilization its~1f."127
The Morgenthau Plan nevertheless became the foundation for'the 1945
cwrinr.ehensive occupation directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
Jc~nu67, as thIs dIrectIve IS commonly mown, dIrected occupIers to
control the German eConomy'''to the extent necessary to meet the needs of
the, occupation forces or to produce the goods which would prevent
disease and unrest, which might endanger the occupying forces.'>J2S The
Nazi party was to be dissolved and its members barred from public office;
war criminals would be:tried. In the retrospeCtive opinion of Gen. Lucius
Clay, Commander of the Military Government in Germany (OMGUS)
between 1945-1949, JCS 1067 "specifically prohibited us from taking any
steps to rehabilitate or maintain the German economy except to maximize
agricultural production."129 But this was not the final word on occupation
policy. First, JCS 1067 could not offiCially be implemented without
British agreement, which was not immediately forthcoming. uo Second,
eight different versions of this directive appeared between September
1944 and April 1945.131 Third, at the Potsdam' Conference (early summer
1945), the Allies,seemed to modi£Ythe stringent economic conditions of
JCS 1067. According to historian John Gimbel" the Americans in
'
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�particular became iricreasingly distressed by how much material they had
to provide (and would need to provide in the future) to prevent starvation
and the complete collapse of the Gennan economy. One result of the
Potsdam agreement, therefore, was to recogOize Gennany as a single
economic unit. Gimbel argues,'''The, principle of economic unity and the
, creation of central agencies' to administer common economic policies
seemed to assure an interzonal trade balance that would reduce or
eliminate imports to feed Gennans and to prime Gennan industry.,,132
Although certainly this directive did not envision the ,full-scale
reindustrialization undertaken in Gennany a few years later, it offered the
pennission whereby this destroyed country could begin rebuilding a self
sustainirig economy'.
,
'
"
Given the multiplicity of personalities and agencies attempting to
detennine policy during the last years of the war and In the immediate
postwar era, it is not surprising that the question of who should be charged
with implementing this policy also sparked disagreements. No one, it
seems, wanted to assume fi,lll responsibility for the occupation. President
Roosevelt ,believed that civilian authorities should relieve military forces
of their political control of conquered territories as soon as conditions
pennitted. FDR declared at a Cabinet meeting in OCtober 1942 thatthe
State Department should hold primary responsibility for the occupation. 133
,President Truman, too, later agreed with this opimon. l34
.
"
The War Department in Washmgton as well as commanding generals·in
the field similarly disliked the idea of turning "soldiers into governors," as
two later historians characterized it.135 Secretary of War Henry Stimson.
and his Assistant Secretary, John J. McCloy, both envisioned.a "short
military occupation with minimal political iesponsibilities.,,136 Maj. Gen.
John Hildring, commander of the Civil Affairs Division (CAD)-the
agency within ,the War Department charged with coordimitiilg policy for
liberated and occupied territories-, was told by General George Marshall
that his main task was to plan on how to get out of the occupation
planning business. Marshallinfonned Hildring in 1943 that "we have
never regarded it as' part of the proper duty of the military to govern."137
With the war over only a few months, OMGUS commander Gen. Clay
began cutting his own staff and hiring civilians to replace military
persdnriel iti administenng Gennan·affairs. He additionally announced his
intention-subsequently realized-to have elections take place in
Xrgg~gh ~els?3gri~38Roosevelt had designated the State Department as the
federal agency responsible for overseeing the occupation, it did not want
nor was it prepared to accept this assignment. In contrast to the
Morgenthau Plan and JCS 1067, the State Department's vie~s on postwar
Gennany envisioned the country's rehabilitation as an "economically
strong bastion of apti-Communism capitalis!ll.,,139 This agency did not,
however, possess the "operatiol).al experience" necessary to press this
position in 9ermany. Irideed, in the auturrin of 1945, Secretary of State
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.
-
25
�"
II.
James Byrnes explained on many occasions that his Department was not
yet ready to take 'over occupation duties from the military.140 Historian
Edward Peterson claims that Byrnes, a political appointee with little
training in foreign affairs, lacked the ieadership necessary to give the 'State
Department a leading role in handling the occupation.141 Gen. Clay told
his biographer that, in his opinion, the State Department was "interested in
Germany's relations with other countries, not in Germany itsel£,,142 Given
such reluctance, it was only in May 1949 that the Ariny managed to tum
over nonmilitary responsibilities of the occupation to the State,
'
.
'
"
'. '
Departinent.143
NeIther occupation policy creation nor implementation resulted from
straightforward, unambiguous directives. Several individuals and federal
agencies contributed a variety of statements regarding such policy
between ,1944-1949, but ultimately much was left to the US ~i1itary ,to
interpret, improvise, and implement. The origins and development of US
restitution 'endeavors in the immediate postwar era must be understood
within this context of muddled policy-making and execution. "
AGENCIES TAKING CONTROL OF VICTIM ASSETS FOR THE U.S.
1
A. Before the "War
The most important instrument available to the US Government before
and during the war was the Trading with the Enemy Act, firsteriacted in
1917 and amended in 1933. Under Executive Order #9095 of 11' March
1942, further amending this Act, the import of anything acquired directly
or indirectly from anyone who is an enemy or the ally 'of an enemy was
subjeCt to forfeiture, with an accompanying fine ,of $50,000 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 US were subject to Customs regulations, whi~h
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 of t~e war,
the stringency of Customs control increased, at least formally,
Thus, Treasury Department Decision, #51072 on,8 July 1944, ,
under the Trading with the' Enemy Act, gave the US Customs
Service nofonlythe power to detain any artworks entering theUS,
but also required importers to obtain a license to import (Form
TFE -1), and to file a report on the nature of the work and the
circumstances of its acquisition (Form FFC 168). The definition of
what constituted an "art object" was also broad, defined not only as
. an object worth $5,000 or more, or of artistic, historic, or scholarly
interest regardless of value, but fitting one twelve categories that
included paintings and sketches, prints and engravings, statuary
and sculptures, chinaware and porcelain, rugs and tapestries,
jewelry and metalwork, books and manuscripts, furniture, and
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26
�curioS.1 44 However, it is noteworthy that Treasury Decision
#51072 was repealed only two years later, on 30 June 1946,
thereby again easing the importing of art works.
Various problematic aspects are worth emphasizing in this cont~xt. .
First, though the forfeiture provision permitted these kind,s of
imported assets to fall into US government hands, there were no
agencies or arrangements in place to restitute such works to their
owners. Second, there is no distinction ~n the Trading with the
. Enemy Act ,between perpetrators and victims. Third, the Trading·
with the Enemy Act does not address the issue of Customs control
of art objects that are coming in from neutri:d countries. Fourth,
relatively few Customs offices had specialized art sections, which'
meant control pepended upon individual Customs inspectors.
Fifth, it is unclear to what extent other laws were drawn upon
, (such as the Smuggling Goods into the United States Act or the
National Stolen Property Act) prior to 1947, nor indeed how
'Customs would be able to detennine whether a false declaration of
. origin was being made.
.
, . ,
, Unuer the Customs RegulatIons of 1937, the US Post Office was
authorized to investigate all foreign mail parcels. US Armed
.forces personnel stationed· abroad could send gift parcels with an
aggregate value of no more than $50 if the required declaration
was sent with, but the Post Office could inspect those parcels
'without a proper declaration or where the appearance of the parcel
raised suspicion it might be worth more than $50. 145 Here, too,
seizure and forfeiture were possible, though mitigation was
provided though payment of 10% of the potential duty as long as
it was clear that willful negligence or intent to defraud were not at
play. It is unclear to what extent the Post Office made use of their
powers, though what has since come to light about the t:ase with
which US Armed Forced personnel could valuable artworks (e.g., .
the Quedlinburg Treasure) to the US during and immediately after .
the war suggest that some of the same aspects noted as problematic
fur US Customs were problematic for the Postal Service as well.
2. Treasury Departmenl and Frozen Assets
.
, The Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 established an Alien
, Property Custodian, though it wo~ld notbe until Executive Order
\ #9095 of II March 1942 that the President would establish an
Office of Alien Property Custodian. Th~ intent in 1917 had been
to prev.ent (or supervise) certain financial transactions rather than
to control or immobiiize property, 146 .but by 6 July 1942 (by
Executive Order #9193),.the Custodian was empowered to "direct,
. manage, supervise, control orvest alien property," including the .
business enterprises in the US of enemy and foreign nationals, any
property (including monies and securities owned or controlled by
enemies), as well as patents, trademarks and copyrights. 147
'
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�Before this, however, while the US was still officially neutral, the
President had promulgated Executive Order #8389 (10 April
1940), ostensibly to protect the property in the US of friendly
aliens. This "freezing order" was promulgat~d only two. days after,
Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, and it "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, a Foreign Funds Co~trol agency was set up within the
Treasury Department. 148 By June 1941, not only had "freezing"
been extended to twelve other Western and Ea.stem European
countries, but a Treasury Department implementing regulation
demanded comprehensive reports from "all persons owning,
holding or controlling any type of property in which there was any
..
~
•
foreigp interest, direct or indirect H
'Any' type of property included hullion, currency, deposits; all
securities, notes, debits, contracts, lading bills" goods" machinery, .
jewelry, precious stones, art, property and mortgages, patents, .
,
.
trademarks, copyrights, estates, trusts, partnerships, insurance
policies, and even safe deposit boxes. Not only the property itself
had to be listed, but so did who held it and what their relation to
that property was; at the time, som~ saw this comprehensive
census as a kind of "informer's report." The nearly 600,000
reports eventually received by Treasury showed a total value of
foreign assets of around 13 billion dollars, of which more than 7
billion was the property ofblocked countries. 149 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 of the enemy to conceal
the true ownership of property through elaborate systems of
agreep1ents, loans, options and cloal\ing devices, such as holding ,
companies incorporated in neutral oountries."lSO Though Foreign
Funds Control had Licensing and,Enforcement Divisions, as well ~
Field Investigation Staff to look into suspected violations or
evasions ofthe freezing control in 1942, as much,work as possible
was actually delegated t,o the Federal Reserve Banks, in particular
to the New York branch as that was where foreign-controlled
. assets-,wlfW mgst h~yily .concentrated.
.
.. D urmg anu AJter ,ne war m J:!.urope
B
1. U.S.Army and the Roles of..•(a.;e)
The first Allied military organization responsible for formulating
military government policy was the G-5 Staff Division, COSSAC
(Chief of Staff, Supreme Allied Commander). 151 It began
developing preliminary plans as earlyas 1943, well before the .
Allied landing at Normandy. A Posthostilities Planning Section,
COS SAC, worked alongside G-5 but was solely responsible for the
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28
�interim penod of military occupation between 'the War's end and
thecreatton of~ilitary government. Both agencies continued their
work after COS SAC was absorbed into the SHAEF (Supreme
H~adquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) in January'1944, and
despite the proliferation of organizations with seemingly siII!ilar
postwar responsibilities. But unlike many of these other
organizations which were responsible forcivll affairs in "liberated"
countries, the G-5 Division and the Posthostilities Planning Section,
were responsible for civil affairs in "occupied" ~ountries, namely
, . Germany and, for a brief period, Austria.
G-5 prepared for a variety of victorious outcomes and constantly
modified its planning to adjust to ever changing military
developments. 'For' example, in 1944 SHAEF officials believed it
likely that organized military resistance by the Reich would'
suddenly collapse as it had in World War L 152 The Wehrmachtwas
no longer the impressive fighting force it had been and members of
its leadership had made an attempt on Hitler's life. Nevertheless,
, G-5 also needed to plan for a prolonged conflict iriwhich it would
lay the groundwork for military government in Germany before the
cessation of hostilities. These two extremes characterized the
uncertain situation G-5 confronted, nor Was G~5 aware of the
extent to which Germany and its infrastructure would be
devastated. "
Detachments from G-:-5 aC,companied allied tactical troops as they
liberated Europe and overran enemy territory in 1944-45. These
smail G-5 units were organized and staffed according to five
different leveJs of responsiQility ranging from the state level
(approximately 60 men) to the local level (approximately 10' .
men).153 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.
, 154 Consequently, they followed close behind the tactical troops
and were never in one place 'ror very long. These G-5
Detachments were the first to come into contact with victim's
assets and weteresponsible for securing and registering them.
However, the obstacles G-5 faced when setting up military "
government were manifqld. Acting civilian officials in Germany
were either members 'of the Nazi Party or, at the very least,
compro:qlised by the fact' that the Nazis permitted them to' hold
power. G-5 uhits were forbidden to I~fratemize". or even cooperate
with them, although they often did so out of necessity. It was not
infrequent that the offices of civilian government had been
destroyed during combat or by, allied bombing. G-5 detachments
requisitioned public and private buildings to take their place as
, well as to billet soldiers. Oftentimes water, electricity, and .
telephone services were cut off and it was the responsibility of 0-5
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�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
deliv:ered.These small G-5 units had to prevent the outbreak of .
deadiy diseases, feed and provide shelter for displaced persons of
all·varieties, dismIss and appoint civilian officials according to
strict de-Na'{;ification guidelines, 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 humanitarian and military
., respon,sibilities and little time in which to carry them out. They
had to meet immediate needs in a chaotic environment. Clearly,
property control was not a priority for these highly mobile and
,.'
.
.
severely overburdened units.
Hostilities ceased in May 1945at)d in July SHAEF was dissolved
and-ETOUSA was redesignated USFET (U.S. Forces, European
~eater). The American staff of G-5 Division, SHAEF, was
merged with what had been its G-5, ETOlJSA, equivalent. This
new entity became G-5 Division, USFET and was responsible for
overseeing the entire civil.government below the q~adripartite
level. ISS In late September 1945, G-5 was redesignated Office of
Military Government for Germany (US Zone) (OMGUSZ) atthe
same time that the United States Group Control Council (USGCC)
was redesignated Office ofMilitary Government for Germany .
(US) (OMGUS). This restructuring removed the dual system of
military goveriunent and replaced it with a more centralized one ..
.' Although OMGUSZand OMGUS remained separate entities and
continued tQ share responsibilities, OMGUSZ was now responsible
for implementing the policies forinulated by OMGUS in Berlin. '
This relationship continued until OMGUSZ was merged into '
.' 2. ~X~iinAprill, 1946.
The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Subcommission of the
. Civil Affairs Division of the Allied Commission (MFA+A
hereafter)ls6 held primary responsibility for the identification of
and su~sequent safek~eping of art and cultural property coming
into US Army control from 1943untir 1951. 157 Its mission, as it
developed during these years, was 1) to prevent (where possible)·
damage to or destruction of monuments, buildings,.statues,
artworks, and so forth while warfare still raged in WestemEurope;
2) to inventory and safeguard cultural artifacts and property once it
had become subject to US control, and 3) to effect restitution of
such items in the immediate postwar era.
Relatively few individuals undertook this ambitious program.
Although some private organizations, as well as the federal
. American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic
and Historic Monuments in War Areas (established in 1943 under
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30
�the chairmanship of Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts), had
recommended that a significant effort be made by US forces to .'
protect monuments and artworks, the demands of military,
operations precluded ext~nsive activity in this field. A classics" ' .
professor from Harvm:d serving in Air F~rce Intelligence, Captain
.. Mason Hammond, undertook the first initiatives as sole member of
· the MFA+A in the summer of 1943. 158 Hammond worked alone in
, Sicily 'immediately after the invasion of that nation, but was joined
by a British counterpart beginning in September. They arranged
, for the protection (posting security guards and the like) of the
damaged Palermo National Library and the Botanical Gardens,
• .
.'
among other activities. 159 ,
Additional American officers joine~ Captain Hammond to
comprise an MFA+A team by autumn 1943. Allied efforts at that
,
! . '
time focused on temiinatirtg contlict in and controlling Italy. This
nation had "coritributed a great deal to our cultural inheritance,"
General Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed in a December 1943
address, and he correspondingly ordered commanders in the field .
to "respect" ancient monuments "so far'as war allows."'60 In thIS
manner, Eisenhower "clarified and gave the highest official '
· sanction" to the work of the MFA+A.161 Officers bfthis agency
soon obtained speedier access to captured towns and villages, thus
, permitting more rapid control of monuments andartworks. '62 "
. Seventeen men worked as MFA+A officers by the summer of
'1944, some of whom arrived in Normandy soon after the Allied
invasion in June. When US units began occupying territory within
Germany itseif (autumn 1944), an MFA+ A officer named George
Sto~t became "Special Emergency Inspector" for Supreme
'Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) to coordinate
safe recOvery and supervi~ion of art repositories in Germany. Still,
given other war prioriti~s, Stout often epcountered difficulty
securing clearance from US Army commanders to travel to places
where units reported finding caches of art and other cultural
· properties. Even where Stout was able to examine: such
repositones threatened with destruction (due to poor shelter, war.
d~rnage, and so forth), he sometimes had no recourse but to leave
.these items under the control ofthe local militafy units until a later
d~te when conditions for safekeeoing improved. 163 .
Identification and organization ot an ana cultural property began
inearnest following cessation of hostilities in May 1945. On 20
May, SHAEF ordered the establishment of Collection Points
within the US-occupied zone to serve as depots for.these items.
; MFA+A officers, numbering only 15 in August 1945,'64 directed
efforts at these Collection Points, which had been erected in
Marburg,Munich, Wiesbaden, and Offenbach, among other cities.
These officials also assisted with the removal of vanous
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31
�.:,
"
, reposit~ne~ Jocated in areas onc~ occupied by US forces ,but turned
over by agreement t6Sovietcommand in June-July 1945.165
" Finally,the MFA+A helped ·define 'and implement restitution
, . _policy for thousands of objects be.for~, the Collection Points
;,dissQlved in 1951. By February 1944, the MFA+Ahad be~o~ea
Branch of the Reparation,'Deliverie~, and Restitution Division of
'the US Group Control C()uncil (U~GCC). The USGCCheld
, 'respol!sibility for ''the administration ahd control" of those portions '
6fGermany~d Austria soon to be occupied'byAmerican "
forces~i66 Captaih Hammond aided preparation ofa military' .
"djrecti~efor.thy .Arfpy's:Handbook for Military Government in'
Germany Prior to DefeaiorSurrender in December 1944~ This
·,directive explained'that "it is the policy of the Supreme , ,.'
Comrrtander torriake .measures to facilitate the eventUal restitUtion
.
,"
, of works of art and: objects of scientific or historical importance
which may have been looted from United Nations. Governments or,
.' ' ' riationals."167 'Th<::D, after the war, Gen: Eisenhower entrusted the' '
f~lTIJplatjon ofpolicypn cultural restitlitionto' the MFA+A;which, ,
after October 1945, became a Section 6fthe RestitUtion Branch of :,
,the Eoon6~ics pivison,ofthe Office of Military'Government for" '
,Germany(OMGUSV 68 MFA,+Aofflcials contributed to the actual'
" restitution effort;~iding'(fot instance) in the 'disbursement by April'
. , 1946, of over one-fourth pf the itemscatalogu¢ at the Munich' '
,.' CollectiOJl.Point 169, ", .',
' ' '. . ,
'.
'
, ,Tfie slgmncance' of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives,
· Subcominission:for this'~eport lies in its' status as a team o{United
· State~ officers w:hose responsibilities included the protection,'
.
'saf~keeping, and restitution'of art art9,culturalproperties. These
men; alt~ough often hindered in their efforts to obtain immediate' ,
access to monuments,iutworks, objeCts, and so forth during the ,.'
, war, nevertheless ass~p1ed rapid responsibjIity Jor these things
,once' they fell under US controL MFA+A officers took charge of
'~ and cultural propertl((s in the field;, then eventUally organized
" ,
and retUrned much of this materiaL'
3. Secret Service
'
i" • A~other US' agency possibly involved, in the recovery ~f victims'
:' assets was the,Secret Service. ,Although secondary literature has'
nor'yet revealed information on this topic, materials from the' .
'. National Archivefidocument the presence of the Secn~t Service in
Berlin in the iminediatepostwar era.. More research is nec~ssary to
'. determine whether and how thkagency came to control vlctims'
assets. ,
>
" .,
,
"
"
.,'
"'.,
' .
. 4." Treasury D~partment(APC, FFC)·
,Having "frozen'~ funds, the postwar challenge was to "defrost" .
them,but theTreasury:pepartnient was unwilling to do so~ali at
. •
,
•
I
•
"
WORKING-DRAFT -NOT FOR CIRCULATION
..
"
,
.
~.
32
�III.
· once. As soon as preyiously occupied European countries were.
declared to no longer be "enemy territory"(i~ May 1945), business'
and commercial communication was permitted to resume. Next
the freezing restrictions on trade and current business were lifted .
(October-December 1945); and finally a certification process was
established that would release property (in place from 1946 to
1948). A General License on 7 December 1945 removed all
controls over current transactions except for the neutrals, Germany
and Japan, ostensibly blocked "to insure that camouflaged enemy
assets are not released.'mo
The concern was that the German occupation had 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 true ownership of
blocked property, and once certified, they were released from
Treasury control. Of course, if foreign nationals came f~rward to
make claims, revealing that they had had assets in the US, it might
subject them to unwanted taxation; it was thought at the time that
this was a major cause for relatively few claimants to step forward.
, Then there was also the matter of looted bearer securities, and once
a list of those 'securities known to be looted (particularly from.
Holland) was created, the remainder were defrosted.
The difficulties of establishing "true" ownership were left to
individual governments to sort out, which meant that if a nation
wanted to turn·~ blind eye to practices such as "Aryanization,"
little could be done about it. The "defrosting" process did inClude
a number of explicit exemptions, including that "Victims of Nazi
persecution were enabled tq secure the clarification of their status
as non-enemies and the unblocking of their assets by applying
directly to the Treasury Department" - but they were still .
"required to obtain certification of their assets" from their
respective goveinments. 171 The final date for certification
applications was fixed as 1 June 1948, and though it was extended
Qy half a year, certification came to an end on 31 Dece~ber 1948.'
5. Other
. ,
.
.
CONCLUSION
WORKING DRAFT - NOT FOR CIRCULATION
33
�\
..
,'
1
,A.,L
I. A. 3. Aryanization
"The Jew must go - and his cash stays here!" the Nazi
Volkische Beobachter newspap~r blared on 26 April 1938, the
same day a decree was passed requiring the domestic and foreign
property Jews held that was valued at more than 5,000 Reichsmark
(RM) to be declared. I The stated purpose ofthe decree was "to
ensure the utilization of assessable assets in the interest of the
German economy," but its secret purpose was "to achieve a final
~xclusion of Jews from the German economy:,,2 "Aryanization"
literally meant Germanizing enterprises and professions, and at
least from 1933 to 1939 the attempt was to force Jews to emigrate
, from Germany by depriving them of their livelihoods, and to get
, their assets - by whatever means - into non-Jewish hands before
'they left.,
,Occupational restriction had began already in 1933 when
German Jews were excluded from the civil service. License
revocation, tb.e restriction of clientele to Jews, and the barring from
professional' organizations drastically narrowed the free exercise of
profession by lawyers, doctors, &tockbrokers, notaries and many
others during the next five years: at least 400 anti-Jewish laws,
decrees and regulations were promulgated by 1939. 3 The
constriction was gradual, with disbarred lawyers still able to be
employed for a time as legal counselors, and some initial
exemptions for. Jewish veterans from World War I, for example.
But the cumulative effect was inexorable, and contributed to the
emigration of from 100,000-170,000 German Jews (from 1933 to
1937/38), of whom as many as one-half may have had significant
assets.4
'
The civil service and the professions were only a small proportion
(12%) of gainfully employed Jews in Germany. Most Jews (61 %)
were employed in commerce and transport. s In 1933 perhaps '
100,000 Jewish enterprises existed, but by the time the decree
prohibiting Jews from owning retail businesses was 'passed five
years later, only about 40,000 enterprises were left.6 Before 1933,
some busine~s closures would still have been due to the aftermath
of the Depression, or to difficulties in finding heirs for family
businesses, as seems to have been the case among the smallest
Jewish-owned banks. 7 But after} 933, the boycotting of Jewish
businesses by Germans, refusals by Germans to pay business debts
to Jews, the legal restriction of clientele to Jews, harassment by
officials, the denial of credit by banks, and the intimidating of
business owners when they were taken into "protective custody"
not to speak of the' desire by Jewish businessmen to raise the'
necessary cash to emigrate -, drove many small Jewish enterprises
,
I
�2
to sel1. 8 As many M a quarter of Jewish businesses may have
closed or'been sold by,1935, particularly in the more rural areM
, and small tOWD.s. 9 While the details of many of these transactions
are no longer available, it is clear that the small shops were the first
targets for Aryanization, while som,e of the Jarger Jewish
enterprises - textile finns, department stores, banks heavily
involved in export financing - were among the IMt to be sold or
transfonned into limited partnerships in 1938. 10 '
After 1938, such orderliness as had characterized at leMt some
Aryanizations WM no longer evident, and the process of putting
.property and enterprises into Gennan hands became
indistihguishablefrom outright theft and expropriation, with old
,Nazi Party members often the benefici~es. Nowhere was this
more blatant than in Vienna, home to 90% of Austria's Jews,
where %y the epd of 1938, 3,500 party 'members, had become
'commissioners' over seized Jewish properties."ll By mid-1939,
over 18,000 Austrian Jewish finns had been purchased, confiscated
or closed, and many other assets, including'valuable paintings, ,
simply stolen. 12 In Occupied France, Holland and Belgium, as part
of the "M-Action" beginning in 1940, first the libraries and art
objects of Jews Who had fled were packed up and sent to Genn8ny.
By 1942, this theft was expanded to include the property of.Jews
who had been taken to concentration camps, and by the end of July
1944, the relevant office proudly reported that over 69,500
"compete Jewish apartments" (worth 1.5 million RM) had been
packed up and transported, in 674 ,trains, to the Reich. The
furniture and all usab.1e goods were publicly andopeillyauttioned
off in Cologne, Dusseldorf, Mainz, Berlin, Hamburg arid other
cities to replace what'GennaD.s had lost in Allied bombing raids.
11:7 million RM worth of currency and other securities had been
taken from'Jewish residences duriI').g this "M-Action."l3
According'to the Reich Economics Ministry, pursuant to the April
, 1938 decree registering Jewish property, the value of all Jewish
assets in the Reic11 (including Austria), in November 1938
, amounted to 8.53 billion RM, of which 1.4 billion was debt and
other liabilities. Of the remaining 7.12 billion, about one-sixth
(17.2%) was business capital, more than one-third (35.8%) was
real estate, and close to two-thirds (61.5%) was in financial assets
including inflated pensions, salaries, insurance, bank notes, '
securities and other ''vulnerable assets .. : readily'seizable.,,14
Avoiding the Aryanization of financial assets WM possible by
moving capital abroad, but even prior to the rise of the Nazis,
Gennany' had 'i~po'sed a Reich Flight Tax In 1931 to keep assets
from leaving the country during the Depression. By 1934, a'
Capital Flight Tax had been levied on any transfers of more than
�..
'
....
3
50,000 RM, and all exchange tnmsactions now ,required a pennit,
.and by 1936 the free export of securities was restricted. In 1937
the death penaltY was introduced in Gennany for exchange control
violations, and when war broke out, all capital transftlrs'w'ere
prohibited. 15 As if this were not enough to keep assets within the
Reich, nUmerous other devices were introduced in the 1930s to
extract money from those who emigrating, including blocked
accounts, an unfavorable manipulation of exchange rates, the
. confiscation of insurance monies, a special 20% "atonement" fine
on Jewish property for von Rath' s assassiriation in 1938, and
payment to a fund to' s~pport the emigration of poor Jews. It meant
that those who fled in 1938/39, even if they were as wealthy as the
banker Max Warbmg, might only be allowed to take 2-3% of their
wealth with them. 16
I. A~ 4. Nazi Extermination Policies
Adolf Hitler, in the very first chapter of Mein Kampf, wrote that
"people of the same blood should be in the same Reich," and the
first point of the Nazi Party program was "the unification of all
Gennans to fonn a Great Germany. ,,17 The dream of the Pan
Gennanic League and similar organizations founded in the late 19th
century to collect all Germans together into a single nation that
could forcefully assert itself 8 seemed to be bearing fruit by 1938
with the incorPoration into Gennany first of the Saa~land and the
Rhineland, and then with the annexation of Austria and takeover, of
the Sudetenland. Hitler's more ominous assertion came only a
sentence later in Mein Kampf: ','When 'the territory of the Reich
embraces all the Gennans,' and finds itself unable to assure them a
livelihood, then from the need of the people, the moral right can
arise to acquire foreign territory."l</
Because Aryans were the master race, in his view, they could take
more "living space" for themselves in the East, including by force.
Aryans were entitled to remove (or enslave) the subhuman Slavic
peoples (in particular Poles, Russians and Czechs) in order to have
more territory - though in this twisted cosmology; subjugated Slavs
would benefit by learning from their contact with the superior
Aryans. Hitler would come to decide that Belgians, Dutch,
Norwegians and Danes were also culture-creating ra~es, albeit less
pure than the Aryans, and sought to incorporate them into the
Reich by invading their countries in 1940 (the French were a more
complicated case). "Take away the Nordic Gennans," he wrpte,
~'and nothing remains but the dance of apes.,,20
But the Jews, in Hitler's view, were engaged in a battle for world
dorp.ination and used every instrument possible..: democracy,
c~pitalism, parliamentarianism, liberalism, Christianity,
modernism in art and even prostitution and miscegenation - to
.
I
'
�4
subdu~A.ryan peoples to their ~le.21 Jews were mortal enemies,
and"as Hitler said at the Niimberg Rally in 1937, it was "a fact
proved by irrefutabie evidence" that the Jewish world conspiracy
was directed from Moscow. 22 National Socialism, he went on,
''would 'protect the'cOmmunity of European culture-nations' from
.....:
'Jewish world-Bolshevism,.,,23
The laws and regulations of Nazi Germany, including the Niimberg
Racial Laws, were quickly introduced as territories were annexed
and countries overrun: Jews in Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Holland,
Belgium, Norway and. Occupied France were excluded from public
service and professions, ordered to register property and pay
special taxes, and saw their businesses Aryanized .. Yet official
German policy in August 1940 was still to encourage emigration,
with Madagascar a frequently discussed destination,. and even in
. November 1941 key Nazi figures were still suggesting deported.
Jews could simply be pushed farther east, perhaps beyond the Ural
Mountains. 24
.
.
After August 1941, Jews in German-occupied Europe could no,
longer emigrate, and by October, Jews in Germany could no· longer
either?5. In September, Adolf Eichmann organized his first·
deportation - 20,000 Rheinland Jews and 5,000Gypsies - out of the
"old" Reich, in accordance with Hitler's wish to have a Germany
"cleansed of Jews" (Judenrein), and sent them to the Lodz ghetto
in Poland. 26 The concentrating of Jews into ~losed districts in
Polish cities and towns had begun already in early 1940, and by the
end of 1941 this process of ghettoizatiqn was largely complete. 27
Most ominously, in November 1941, the death camps at Belzec .
and Chelmno beg~ to .be built and put into operation, soon to be
followed by Sobibor; Treblinka and Majdanek. 28
.
The invasion of Russia in the early summer of1941 marked the .
.' beginning of extermination, as mobile killing units of the police
and SS (Einsatzgruppen) were sent in close behind the front lines.
TJ:teir job was to kill Jewish' inhabitants on the spot, at a rate of
100,000 a month by the end of 1941, using methods already tried
in euthanasia efforts in Germany.29 In accordance with the
"Cqmmissar Order," Communist Party functionaries among
captured Russians were also to be disposed of, this time by German
Anny :units. , The struggle against Bolshevism, a German Army
Headquarters "Guidelines for the Conduct of Troops in Russia" ..
directive of 3 June'1941 stated, "demands ruthless and energetic
measures againsfBolsheVik agitators, guerrillas, saboteurs, Jews,
. and the complete elimination of everY active or passive
.
'resistance!,30 In practice, this mearit mass execution~ of Russian
prisoners of war, in violation of international conventions.
�\ .
i ....
5
'. ' , So though the implementation of the "Final Solution" would be
coordinated at the Wannsee Conference only in January 1942, the
large-scale murder of Jews and Russians' at the front had started at
least six months before, with euthanasia experiments in German
camps and institutions prece4ing it by several years; following a
leader who already in early 1'939 had spoken publicly of "the
, destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.,,31 Indeed, the Wannsee
Conference was still discussing the expulsion of the Jews from
Geiman life arid an acceleration of their emigration, only now it
was to be a deportation or evacuati6n to the East. Able-bodied
Jews would be put 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, ifreleased, act as a seed of a new Jewish revival." ,
"Treated accordingly" was a euphemism for execution by firing
squad or death by gassing. The killing camps at Chelmno, Be1zec,
Sobibor, Treblinka ari.'d Majdanek used what had been learned
.about gassing from the mobile killing commandos. The last of
these camps closed in N<?vember 1943, andit is estimated that 1.7
to 1,9 million victims were murdered in these five locations. 32
. For those sent to the camps, there were two assets left: what
victims carried with them and'theirlabor power. Odilo Globocnik,
an SS-officer in charge of killing centers around Lublin, seems to
have been particularly eager to secure whatever wealth he could
from the victims for use by the Reich. In one list of the "Jewish
items" gathered by 3 FebnIary 1943 that he submitted; one finds
the following itepls (valued in RM):,
1,452,904:65 in bills (29 currencies; largest single currency US
dollars)
843,802.75 in coin (27 currencies; largest single currency US
dollars)
"
4,942,870.00 in gold bars (I, 775 kilos valued at RM
2, 7841kilo)
385,5'73.00 in silver bars (9,639 kilos valued at RM
401kilo) ' (
.,
25,500.000fplatinum (5 kilos va:lued at RM
5,000lkilo)
26,089,800.00 in qther valuable items, the largest of which,
by value, were '
.
,
'
11~675,000 (I 1,675 gold rings with diamonds),
4,000,000 (49 kilos of pearls)
3,948,000 (1,974 gold brooches),
1,828,250 (7,313 women's gold' wristwatches)
�\.
t ..
6
1,427,000(2,874 men's gold pocket watches)
,13'f94,400 textile and fabrics (462 freight cars of rags, 251 freight
~,~.
" "
"
'
'
bedding, and ~ 17 freight cars of Clothing and wash)
,In addition tO,the 15.9 million cash on hand, and the 37 million
delivered to the'SS Economic Administration offices in Crackow
and Berlin, the total came to 100 million RM worth of items '
delivered back the Reich. A more inclusive list, part of the
, "Reirihardt Action" in Lublin and 'covering the time from April
1942 to 15 December· 1943 (thus likely including the ar,nounts just
noted), comes to a totaI.of 178 million RM worth, including 1,901
freight cars of clothing and textiles. 33
The other remaining asset victims had was labor power.
For those judged strong enough to work', there was a temporary
, reprieve. Yet following an order of 30 April 1942 from Oswald
Pohl, head of the SS Economic Administration, in concentration
camps the exploitation of prisoners was to take place without'
, regard to life and health, as their labor was needed for the Reich. It
might well be their last labor, for in September 1942 both Himmler
and Goebbels had another idea. According to a conversation
reported by Justice Minister Otto Thierack, Goebbels had said that
"relative to the extermination of asocial life, Jews and Gypsies
should be exterminated as such. The thought was that
,extermination through work would be the best.,,34 In short, those
who were spared from gassing were to be worked to death.
I.B.t U.S. Domestic Atmosphere, pre-WWII
In 1936, one of the earliest national Gallup Polls ever
conducted found that 60% of those asked agreed with the statement
"ifthere is another general war in Europe, the U.S. can stay OUt.,,35
President Roosevelt was thus reflecting national sentiment when he
said "We shun political commitments'which might entangle us in
foreign wars," in a speech he gave in August of that year. 36 George
Washin~on's Farewell Address warning againsl"permanent
. alliances with any portion of the foreign world,,37 with frequently
, cited with approval at the time.
Domestic problems loomed far larger in the early 1930s, in
particular unemployment and the sagging econo~y of the
,
Depression, leading som'e to suggest It was futile to intervene "
internationally when the nation's strengt~ was so sapped.
Furthermore, the distrust of banks, big busines$,and munitions,
manufacturers, allofwhom were perceived as profiting from
foreign trade (if not actively promoting war), supported inward
looking attitudes. 38 Senator George Norris, opposing American
i:q.terverition in 191 7, .said in Congress that "the object in having
to
�7
war and.in preparing for war is to make money," and that sentiment
was widespread by the 1930s?9 In 1932, when 13.7 million
unemployed were counted in the US, the isolationist Senator
William E. Borah wrote that Americans should "look after our own
interests and devote ourselves to our own people. ,,40
..
Yet to call the American stance "isolationist" is a little
misleading'in, an iqllnigrant country proud of serving as a
democratic model for the world and with leaders committed to
expanding foreign trade~ It was hard to avoid involvement,
President Woodrow Wilson had said in 1919, because after "you
have become a determining factor in the history of mankind...you
cannot remain isolated, whether you want to or not.',4) As a
consequence, President Roosevelt's actions during the 1930s
should probably be seen less as a failure to intervene abroad than
as a complex practice of:the art of the possible in the face of stiff
public and senatorial opposition to intervention; RooseVelt was
.
also mindful of President Wilson's lack of success with the League
ofNations and well aware that the US Senate had refused to'
.
approve the Treaty of Versailles in 1924.
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 way~
of controlling the seas. His efforts were stymied by the Neutrality
Acts (1935-37) passed in Congress that mandated arms embargoes
and prohibited loans to all belligerents, making it impossible to
show favoritism toward those considered allies. However, it did
became possible to supply food, raw materials, and manufactured
goods as long as they were paid for in cash and carried away on
foreign ships. This permitted a Trans-Atlantic trade. with Great
Britain to flourish, one wh~ch would subsequently draw in the U.S.
Navy to protect ship convoys. Though the US was officially
neutral in 1940/41,Roosevelt appears to have wanted to draw
German submarine fire on US ships, for on 17 May 1941 he
confided to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau that he was
"waiting to be pushed into this situation," which to Morgenthau
meant being pushed into war. 42
Of course, Roosevelt had been sly. In 1936 he said that "I
can at least make certain that no act of the United States helps to
prpduce or to promote war,,,43 implying that the provocative acts of
other nations was a different matter. During his reelection bid in
1940, again under pressure from isolationists, in one speech he said
that American "boys are not going to b~ sent into any foreign war,"
but on other occasions he had added the' key qualifier, "except in
case of attack.,,44 But by January 1941, the US was to become the
"arsenal of democracy," and the introduction of the Lend-Lease bill
�,i'"
8
- symbolically entitled House Resolution 1776 - that asserted the
US would lend or lease GreatBritain the weapons, munitions, food
or other supplies needed to fight Hitler and not ask for payment in
return, was the turning point. The measure, Roosevelt said, was
"key to the security of the Western Hemisphere" and to the security
of the United States. 4S The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7
December'1941 fimillyended American, iS9lation, and three days
after declaring war on Japan, the United States declared war
against Germany and Italy.46
I. C.l.
Nature and extent of destruction, dislocation;
infrastructure collapse
. aJ' Transportation: .'
.
''The Allies arrived tq find a Gerffiany in which much
of th~ transportation infrastructure was damaged. Only a'
quarter of the locomotives and half of the freight cars from
before the war were still usable, and while much of the
track was intact, 4,500 signals and 13,000 switches were
. destroyed. About one-third of all railway stations were
gone, as were the largest urban train stations and yards.
Nearly two-thirds of the missing 2,472 railroad bridges had
been blown up by the Wehrrnach1. 47
Things were not much better on the roads: 40% of them
.were unusable, and car production capacity was down 40%
as well. 48 The few citizens who had cars when Germany
capitulated could not run them for lack of fuel: even by
early 1945, Allied bombing had .so destroyed gasoline
production plants that horses and oxen were used to drag
armored cars and artillery to the fron1. 49 But as it was, the
.Occupatipn authorities didn't want civilians moving
. initially, and issuing curfew and travel restrictions stating
that citizens were riot to travel more than 6 km from home
.without approval. Though local public transportation could .
be used, it was decreed that "railways, private cars, bicycles
and private motorbikes must not be used without special'
permission."so Railroads initially only transported troops,
military supplies and displaced persons; food and firewood
. were transported by truck, but here too, only about 25,000
trucks in the Bizone were either operable or available to
civilians. 51
.b) Housing:
According to the estimate of the US Strategic
Bombing Survey, the half-million tons' of bombs released
over the 61 largest German cities (with populations over
100,000) during the war resulted in the destruction of about
3r6 million residential units, or around 20% of the housing
�..
9
'in Gennany.52 The destruction was quite uneven, however,
in the areaS Americans came to control. Bavaria, a largely
" rural region with some larger cities, only saw 13% of its
housing destroyed, while in heavily urban Bremen the
figure was 42%.53
The housing needs thus varied locally, and in the largest
cities in the American Zone, the situations was acute when
the ,American troops arrived: more than half of all the
residential buildings in Frankfurt~ Stuttgart and Munich
(inner city).wereeither seriously damaged or completely
destroyed, leaving behind an estimated 27 million cubic
54
. , meters or'rubble. A US Group Control Council Survey of
Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Niirnberg and Kassel in September of
1945 found "that three-quarters of the inhabited houses
. needed repairs. More than half had no windows; a third
had damaged roofs, and a quarter unsound walls."ss In '
Frankfurt, whose 1945 population was about 270,000, most
of thepopulation (173,000) was living in ruins and
basements, and the housing situation was npt eased by the
fact that 8% of the'residences were requisitioned by
Occupation troops (affecting 33,000 residents). From mid
May to mid-August, 'inaddition, 92,000 expellees arrived,
and at least thousand soldiers and air raid evacuees
, returned to Frankfurt each w,eek for the next year. 56
c) Industry:
'
. Despite the hopes Allies had about crippling
Gennan industry during the course of the war, overall
production was temporarily slowed rather than stopped. At
the end of the war; in May, 1945, the country had greater
industrial potential than at the beginning, and it was
estimated that the capital stock and the net investment
wealth. had actually increased by about 20%coinpared to
1936. 57 But the collapse of supply networks and the lack
of raw material and energy sources meant in the US Zone
that while factory owners had enough funds "to clean up
and put their plants in order, afterwards all they could do
was \yait for coal, electricity and materials.',58·
.
The reviving of Gennany industry was compliCated in the
immediate postwar years by what can only be described as
mixed motivations on the part of the Allies., On the one
hand, the Allies wanted to destroy Gennany's economic
potential to wage war (Potsdam and London Agreements in
1946 and 1949) by prohibiting production of war material,
aircraft and atomic material. These prohibitions were
'
.. expanded to include producing synthetic rubber and oil,
a
�10
primary magnesium and beryllium, the maximum size of
certain machine tools, the total output of aluminum, steel,
synthetic ammonia, chlorine and styrene, as well as the
.
speed and tonnage of ships. 59 In addition, Americans were
convinced, as heirs to "trust-busting" attitudes about
industry, that ilie Germ~ war machine had been made
possible by economic monopolies, and therefore planned to
decartelize, demonopolize, and decentralize industrY.60
· These desires implied not only seizing and closing plants
but also reorganizing entire basic industries such as coal,
.steel, or iron and thus being deeply involved in the
· management of industrial enterprises.
. On the other hand, at Yalta arid again at Potsdam, while it
· was agreed thatGermany should pay reparations for the,
damage i~ had caused, Germany should also retain enough
· productive c~pacity to allow for a rebuilding of a viable
peacetime economy. Reparations in the form of dismantled
industrial plants that could be carted away were compatible
with the desired restrictions on, say, war material
production, and in 1946 from 1,50(j~2,000 industrial plants
were being appraised by the Allied Control Authority as to
their future use. But by December,1947, only 682 plant~
were still under discussion as "surplus and available for'
reparations" (186 in the US Zone, 496 in the British Zone),
of which 40, most previously used."exc1usively for the
manufacture of war materials~' had ~y that time been
.
· dismantled and removed from US an9- British Zones. 61 An.
unknown amount of "capital equipment was being taken
froIll:,theSoviet Zone and shipped to the East," and by
Match of 1948, the Soviet Union had withdrawn from the
. 'Allied Controi Council for both' political and ecoriomic '
reasons; by this time only 140 industrial plants (43 in the
US Zone, 62 in the British) were'still under consideration
for dismantling as reparations payments. 62
The wish to. limit or break up German industrial production,
and use war plants for reparations, was incompatible with
the rebuilding of the German economy. A joint statement
· by State and War Departments on 29 August 1947 was .
· blunt about this: 'The old 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 area without
materially increasing the levels in these industries.,,63
Reparations themselves, particularly when they involved
moving industrial plants from West to East, also ran afoul
.
."
.
�,
,
11
of growing t~sions with the Russians and their refusal to
trea~ Gennany as a single economic unit. '
'
d) Food:
"Forthree years the problem of food was to color every
administrative action," General Clay wrote, and there were
many reasons for it. 64 Gennany was not self-sufficient in
food, ~d the loss of territory in the east meant also the loss
of the agriculturalJand that had provided food surpluses in
grain, vegetables, and meat. 6S Even if food surpluses were
available, the trains to transport food were unavailable.
''Normally,'' Ziemke noted, "the half of the Rhineland south
of the Mosel imported a half million tons of food every
day," the equivalent of one fifty-car trainload, but not
enough vehicles were available to even ensure that local
produce could be moved. 66
'
The greater problem was the lack;of food production itself,
for no one was at work in the fields by mid-1945. Horses
and young men had been drafted into the Wehrmacht,
thousands of acres were mined, and "the foreign workers
and POWs who had made \lP the bulk of the agricultural
labor force quit and took to the roads as soon' as the front
passed.,,67 American efforts to help were stymied by :
depleted gl9bal food reserves owing to the war, distribution
difficulties, disagreements with,the British,'an
exceptionally hard winter in 1946, and a drought in 1947.
Rations' were so low that "60% of Gennans were living on
a diet that would inevitably lead to diseases caused by
,~alnutrition," according to nutrition survey teams. 68 Even
with wpat could be provided from hoarded food or from
'
relatives in the countryside, it was not enough. 69
There was, however, a flourishing black market for, food, at
least part of which was driven by currency questions
(would Reichsmark be supplanted by Allied military
Marks? By dollars? Or in practice by cigarettes or other
, .commodities?), that would be resolved seemingly overnight,
with the sudden reappearance of food on store shelves after
the currency reform of 1948. Initially, however, ''we could
not hope to develop democracy on a starvation diet,,,70 so in
mid-1945 US troops were pressed into service to distribute
seeds and fertilizer, the lth Army Group released at least
400,000 POWs for farm labor, and in June SHAEF started
to import 650,000 tons ,ofwheat. 71 Perhaps most ,
psychologically(as weII' as nutritionally) nourishing, ,',
'however, were the contracts made ,in 1946 between the 'US
Military Goveinment, American welfare agencies and the
",
I
�12
Red Cross to provide food (and later other items) in the
. fonn of CRALOG and CARE packages; The acronyms
stood for the Council of ReHef Agencies Licensed to .
Operate in Gennany and the Cooperative of American'
Remittances to Europe, and by 1948 the two had provided.
29 million dollars worth of assistance to the US Zone
alone.72
,
,
.I
i.
.-,
I. C. 2. Refugees, Displaced Persons, and Others
"In 1951, at a time when talks had begun with Israel on
reparations, 68% [of
.
Gennans surveyed] believed that Jew& who had suffe~ed should be
helped.
However, Jews were placed last on a list of victims of war and
persecution -·after
.
war widows and orphans, bombing victims, refugees and the
, .families of the
members of the resistance movement of the 20th of July 1944.,,13
War creates a sense of victimization that is not unique to any
particular group: It is also a necessary re~inder that those liberated
. and moving about at war's end in Europe were not only those
imprisoned in camps or working under duress for the Reich and
Gennan industries, but also ex-POWs of various nationalities,
children and others evacuated from areas threatened by bombing,
members of and collaborators with the Nazi Party, as well as
fonnerly exiled or imprisoned political opponents of the Nazis.
Soon to be added to this mix were ethnic Gennan expellees from
Poland and other Eastern European 'countries, and those fleeing
from the Soviet Zone of Germany into the US and British Zones.
It is estimated, for example, that 2·J million Gennan soldiers died
in the course of the war, 1-2 million more were missing (many
disappearing into Russian camps they did not return from), and
half a million civilians perished as a direct result ofbombing and
combat. At least 4.5 million soldiers were wotinded, and on VE~
Day, 3 million Gennan soldiers were in American custody.74 Such
'losses help explain Why in the 1946 Gennan census there were 10
women for every 8 men, and why one of the enduring postwar
images was of women clearing rubble (Trummerjrauen) in bombed
out cities.
The.scope of the population movement is difficult to im~gine.
. Two-fifths of the population may have been on the move in May
1945, by August perhaps 25-30,000 refugees ,from Eastern Europe
were reaching Berlin daily, and at the end of the year, nearly one
third ofthe residents of Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Schleswig
Holstein were refugees. 75 ' French and Dutch forced laborers
headed home ouf oftheUS and British Zones, replaced by Poles, .
�1.3
BaIts and th6~ein the Soviet Occupied Zone heading into the US
, and BritishZones tonnd ne~ homes: up to 13 million people 'are,
,thought to have ,fled from Eastern Europe at war's end. British
, estimates :In October '1946 were that already more than 7 million
, refugees and expellees (16% of the populatio~), Were i~the "
':Westernzones, and the 1950 census indi~ated that in around 20%
, of the German population h~darrivedduring or after the war. 76
, Reich statistics indicated a total of about 75million 'foreign ,
" ,workers
POWs in'theReich'as o{October 1944,77and '
according to General Clay, "Allied armies, advancing in Germany
'," haduncover~d almost 6.5 millkm displaced persons, the great
,majority of whom had been brought into Germany for forced
': labor.,,78, Employing "the k;ind ofhurry-up hutnanitarianism iri" "
which An1eticansexcel;:,79 more thim 4 miliion of these DPs were
"rapidly repatriated ,by' the end of July, including a least 1, million
Russians and lllote thah'500,pOO Frenchnien. 8o The remaining 2
million DPs were collectec:i in "assembly centers," car~ for by
UNRRA,{whlch existed from late 1944 until June 1947); and
continued repatriati(;m efforts 'reduced 'their number to about 500
600,000 by November 194~, a number thi:ltstarted clitnbing as,
expellees began ~ving.81
' , '
'
The Poles, Yugoslavs 'and BaIts in Germany were unwilling to live ,
in ,countries now under Soviet or'Co1lllTIunist Pru.ty control, or they
feared continued persecution. 82 Some living in'the camps wanted
to (and did) wreak physical vengeance onG~mians;,and SOlne
engaged in the black m,arket,but many remained}n limbo in the,
, camps because th~y were now stateless and countries like the US,
. were slow tpmake immigf~tion possible. 83 Among the DPs there
were Jews, as well as former Nazi collaborators, so that even with
the war over, som~'surVivors found themselves not only still in'
, camps but living in close proximity 'with Jormer victimizers and,
'veri frightened to reveal just who 'they were. 84 "
,
, Before the death marche~ out of the concentration camps, 5'00,000
,or so of the imprisoned J.ews may still have been alive.' But the
deprivations, epidemics and starvation ofthe last weeks may have
, taken more than 60% of them; We do not know what the total
'numbci'~f camp~survivors was, perhaps only about 200,000, and
can only,base WIT estimates only on grim facts such' as that of the
60,000 pris'oners wp.bwere freed at Bergen-Belsen, 9,000 died,
Within two weeks ofliberation. 85
'
DPs were ho~sed,in hundreds ofcamps, and Jews were not initially
separated outas group~" As of 30 April r947, there were still
about 650,000 DPs in such 'camps: 18,9,000 Poles, 16~,000 Balts;'
105,odo tJkrainlans and138~000 Jews in all of west Germany.8~ In
, ,theAmerican se~t~r, 36,000 Jewish DPswere:registered in January
and
a
'.
,
"
�14
1946, but by October the number had climbed to 141,000, and
according to a different count, by November more than 111,000
87
Jews had found refuge in the American Zone. Those Jews who
. remained in camps were mostly Eastern European, and composed
. f two groups: a small group of camp and ghetto survivors
o
(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, including both the ;very young and the. very old, .
who could see po future for themselves and were hoping to
emigrate to Palestine and were using Germany as a waystation. An
uNRRA study ofNovember 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%
88
Austrian and moreJhan 10% stateless or from 'other countries.
I.C.2.
d. Organizations within the JewiskRefugee Population
Those in DPcamps in ~946 had a basic problem:
they wanted to leave Germany permanently but the British
would not let more than a few into Palestine, and Congress
.was not inclined to make immigration to the U~ easier.
Both constraints began to relax in 1948, but that the last DP
camp would only be closed.in -1957 attests to how difficult
and drawn-out resettlement was ..
Most Jewish DPs wanted to go to Palestine, and
both Bnchah, whose origins lay in an underground
Baltic/Polish partisan organization, and Mossad, the
immigration brru:ch ofthe Palestine, self-defense
organization Haganah, worked after the war to get them
there illegally. The Brichah plan was to spirit Jews to
Palestine clandestinely through Rumania and Bulgaria, and
some Qftheir:efforts were aided not only by Jewish GIs in
the US Army but also by soldiers ofthe Jewish Brigade,
. volunteers from Palestine who served with the British
Army in Italy from 1944-46., Jews were only too eager to
leave Poland after the anti-Semitic attack in Kielce on 4
July 'I 946, but the British crackdown on "illegal" boats,
diverting would-be Jewish immigrants to Palestine into
-camps on Cyprus by August 1946 (over 50,000· would be
held there),and a British intransigence most graphically
later symbolized by the forced return of the boat "Exodus"
to Germany from Haifa in July 1947,·led Brichah to
conclude itwould be safer to send the thousands of
, expellees into the US Zones in Germany and Austria, which
they did. 89 . The DP camps were filled with those desperate
',to get to?alestine - so despairing that in orie camp, when
,j
�15
.
.
.
asked to pick a secondJocation they wishedto go and not
write Palestine a second time on the fonn, a significant
proportion wrote "crematoria.,,90
There was thus a ready-made audience not only for
Zionist political parties - David Ben-Gurion visited quite a
few DP camps already in October and November of 194591
- ,but also for conservative religious groups like Agudat .
Israel, later to become a political party, and Vaad Hatzalah,
an American rabbinical rescue committee organized in
1939 to help Orthodox Jews. Agricultural settlement
organizations based in Palestine along with youth
movements and teachers came to the DP camps to start
training or schooling for future life in Palestine, including
on the kibbutz. Internally, cultural activity - music, theater,
sports - ,flourished, with at least70 newspapers being
publi~hed, mostin Yiddish, in various DP camps.92 As for
survivors, soon ,after war's end a political coordination of'
, interests was attempted when the Central Committee of .
Gennan Jewish Communities was founded in Munich~
By far the most significant to the daily lives of the
DPs, however, was the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee (JDC or "Joint"), an organization founded in
1914 that was "the embodiment of whatever American
Jewry was willing to do for its fellow Jews overseas. ,,?3 Its
social origins lay among emigre middle class Gennan Jews,
and from 1946 to 1950, the "Joint" would spend $280
, million to~elp refugees. By and large, what they could do
initially waS provide medical services and help locate
relatives, as the US military did not pennit shippiIlg
supplies to. civilians, but relatively soon the "Joint" was'
pennitted to provide food, clothing apd other goods, though
not enough to meet the needs. The "Joint" was a voluntary
organization, and the demise of the work ofUNRRA ih
mid-1947 as well as the uncertain state of refugee efforts
until the IRO became established, pushed the "Joint" to
assume more administrative IID.d financial responsibilities
than it could readily cope with. The "Joint" orientation was .
more to provide welfare services than to engage in politics,
making its relations withBrichach, Vaad Hatzalah and
Zionist youth organizations complex; it also had to engage
in protracted negotia:tions with the Central Committee over
who would ultiinatelycontrol supplies. Beyond all the
material aspects that the "Joint" provided, one of its more
important acts was to set up a Branch for the Restitution of
�.. "
.....
16
Jewish Property in March 1947 that worked to formulate a
general restitution law proclaimed later that year. 94
�..
..
17
(1) I.C.2.d.l. Sur.vivors and the US Army: a mixed
picture
"If soldiers had knowledge of how to handle
· Holocaust survivors they generally failed to display
it," in part because instructions in SHAEF
handbooks explicitly stated that Jews should be
treated no differently than any other Reich .
citizens. 9s "I can 'assure you that this headquarters
· makes no differentiation in treatment of displaced
persons," General Dwight D. Eisenhower had
cabled Secretary of War Henry Stimson on 10
"
.
· August 1945. 96
According to an "Army Talk" publication about
DPs, American troops had fought "their
way ..,.through the shattered and crumbling remains
of cities, towns, and villages," encountering
displaced persons to whom they had offered
, strength, kindness, rations, clothing and medicines,
"and to millions'ofunfortunates this was the first
. kindness, the first humane act, that had been
extended to them in ten or more years." But,by late
~ovember 1946, most combat soldiers had been
·redeployed home and
"
' .
"Fresh American military personnel, who
had just left the solid, clean and
substantial comforts of our fine homes and towns,
an1ved in Europe and
.
Germany... The new GIs found it difficult to
understand and like people
who pushed, screamed, ciawed for food, smelled
'bad, who couldn't and
. didn't want to obey orders, who sat with dull faces
and vacant staring eyes.
in a cellar, or concentration camp barrack, or within
a primitive cave, and
refused to come out at their command.'.97
Military discipline had to be maintained on Army
controlled facilities, after all, and these facilities
included old Wehrmacht barracks and existing
GeIman camps. In the Third AImY in Bavaria,
. which had most of the refugees in the US Zone, DP .
camps were initially surrounded by barbed wire and
manned by armed guards.
�..
..
18
.: ' ,
But the Third Anny was also commanded by
General George S. Patton. In his diary on 15
September 1945, he wrote that "others believe that
the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is
not, and this applies particularly to the Jews who are
lower than animals.,,,98 Patton was also of the '
opinion that the "Jewish type ofDP is, in the
majority of cases, a sub-human species without any
of the cultural or social refinements of our time," a
sentiment that would have endeared Patton to Adolf
, Hitler, and on 17 September 1945, during an
inspection tour of a DP camp with General
Eisenhower, Patton' stated that his plans for a nearby
deserted German village was to "make it into a
, concentration camp for these goddamn Jews.,,99
Patton may simply have reflected openly what many
, officers privately thought about Jews, to judge from'
contemporary commentary. tOO But if the encounters
with Jewish concentration camp survivors "tried the
patience and exceeded the comprehension of both
, enlisted men and their officers," and keeping people
,"in assembly centers without adequate food,
clothing, shelter, an'd occupational activities, and
, making only minimal attempts to find them new
homes, showed how little the displaced persons
counted in American postwar concems,,,IOI that was
certainly not true for certain Jewish soldiers, nor
true of American Jewish organizations.
.
.'.
�19
. B. IL
A. Agencies Controlling ,Foreign Assets Before and During the
War
The most important instrument available to the US
Government before and during the war was the Trading with the
Enemy A~t, first enacted in 1917 and amended in 1933. Under
Executive Order #9095 of 11 March 1942, further amending this
Act, the import of anything acquired directly or indirectly from
anyone who is an enemy or the ally of enemy was subject to
forfeiture, with an accompanying fine of $50,000 or imprisonment
.
. or both. ,
an
a) Customs and Postal Services
The Tariff Act of 1930 had already stipulated that
all works of art imported into the US 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 objectsubject to forfeiture, and in the course
of the war, the stringency of Customs control increased, at .
le'ast formally. Thus, TreasuryDepartment Decision
#51072 on 8 July. 1944, under the Trading with the Enemy
Act, gave the US Customs Service not only the power to
detain any artworks entering the US, but also requited
importers to obtain a license to import (Form TFE -1), and
to file a report on the nature of the work and.the
circ~mstances of its acquisition (Fon'n FFC 168). The
definition of what constituted an "art object" was also
broad, defined not only as an object worth $5,000 or more,
or of artistic, historic, or scholarly int~est regardless of
value".but. fitting one twelve categories that included
paintings and sketches, prints and engravings,' statuary and
. sculptures, chinaware and porcelain, rugs and tapestries,
. jewelry and metalwork, books and manuscripts, furniture,
and curioS.102 However, it is noteworthy that Treasury
Decision #51 072 was repealed only two years later, on 30
June 1946, thereby again easing the importing of art works.
Various problematiC aspects are worth emphasizing in this
context. First, though the forfeiture provision permitted
these kinds of imported assets to fall into US government
hands, there were no agencies or arrangements in place to
restitute such works to their owners. Second, there is no
distinction in the Trading with the Enemy Act between
perpetrators and victims. Third, the Trading with the
Enemy Act does not address the issue of Customs control
�,.
..
11"'"
20
ofart objects that are coming in from neutral countries .
. Fourth, relatively few Customs offices had specialized art
sections, which meant controi depended upon individual
Customs inspectors. Fifth, it is unclear to what extent other
laws were drawn upon (such as the Smuggling Goods into
the United States Act or the National, Stolen Property Act)
prior to 1947, nor indeed how Customs would be able to
determine whether afalse declaration of origin was being
made.
Under the Customs Regulations 0[1937, the US
Post Office was ~utliorized to investigate all foreign mail
parcels. US Arined Forces personnel stationed abroad
could send gift parcels with an aggregate value of no more
than $50 if the required declaration, was sent with, but the
Post Office could inspect those parcels without a proper
declaration or.where the appearance of the parcel raised
sUspicion it might be worth more than $50. \03 Here, too,
seizUre and forfeiture were possible, though mitigation was
provided though payment of 10% ofthe potential duty as
long as it was clear that willful negligence or intent to
defraud were not at play. It is unclear to what extent the
Post Office made use of their pewers,' though what has'
since come to light about the ease with which US Armed
Forced personnel could valuable artworks (e.g., the
Qvedlinburg Trea~ure) to the US during and immediately
after the war. suggest that some of the same aspects noted as
problematic for US Customs were problematic for the
Postal Service as well .
. b) Treasury Departinent
The Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917
established an Alien Property Custodian, though it would
not be until Executive Order #9095 of 11 March 1942 that
the President would establish an Office of Alien Property
Custodian. The intent in 1917 had been to prevent (or
supervise) certain financial transactions rather than to
control oriimmobilize property~\o4 but by 6 July 1942 (by
Executive Order #9193), the Custodian was empowered to.
"direct, manage, supervise, control or vest alien property,"
including the business enterprises in the US .of enemy and
!oreign nationals, any property (including monies and:
securities owned or controlled by enemies), as well as
patents, trademarks and copyrights. lOS
Before this, however, while the US Was still
officially neutral, the President had promulgated Executive
�,.....
.(""
21
'Order #8389 (10 April 1940), ostensibly to protect the
property in the US of friendly aliens. This "freezing order"
was promulgated only two days after Germany invaded
Denmark and Norway, and'it "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, a Foreign Funds Control agency was
setup within the Treasury Department. 106, By June 1941,
not only had "freezing" been extended to twelve other
, Western and Eastern European countries, but a Treasury
Department implemen,ting regulation demanded
comprehensive· reports from "all persons owning, holding
or controlling any type of property in which there was any
foreign interest, direct or indirect."
,
"Any" type of property included bullion, currency,'deposits,
all securities, notes, debits, contracts, lading bills, goods,
machinery, jewelry, precious stones, art, property and
" , mortgages, patents, trademarks, ,?opyrights, estates, trusts,
partnerships, insUrance policies, and even safe deposit ,
boxes. Not only the property itself had to be listed, but so
did who held it and what their relation to that property was;
'at the time, some saw this comprehensive census as a kind
of "informer's report." The nearly 600,000 reports
eventually rec~ived byTreasury showed a total value of
foreign assets of around 13 billion dollars, of which more
than 7 billion was the property of blocked countries. \07
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 of the enemy to conceal the true
, ownership ofproperty through elaborate systems of
agreements, loans, options and cloaking devices, such as
holding companies incOfporated in neutral countries.,,108
Though Foreign FUl)ds Control had Licensing and
Enforcement Divisions, as well a Field Inve~tigation Staff
to look into suspected violations or evasions, of the
freezing control in 1942, as much work as possible was
,actually delegated to the Federal Reserve Banks, in
particular to the New York branch as that was where
foreign-controlled assets were most heavily concentrated. '
B. 3. Agencies Controlling Assets after the war
c) Treasury Department
,
.
Having "frozen" funds, the' postwar challenge was
to "defrost" them, but the Treasury D~partment was "
�."
unwilling to do S'o all at-once. As soon'aspreviously
occupied European countries were 'declared to no longer be
"enemy territory" (in May 1945), business and commercial
communication was permitted to resume. Next the freezing
., .restrictions on trade and current business were lifted .
(October-December 1945), and finally a certification·
process was established that would release property (in
place from 1946 to 1948). A Gene~al'License on 7
December 1945 removed all controls over current
transactions except for the neutrals, Germany and Japan,
ostensibly blocked "to insure that camouflaged enemy
assets are not released."I09
The concern was that the German occupation had
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 ~ad to
ascertain the true ownership of blocked property, and once
certified, they were released from Treasury control. Of
course, if foreign nationals came fo:rward to make claims,
revealing that they had had assets in the US, it might
subject them to unwarited taxation; it was thought at the
time that this was a major cause for relatively few claimants
to step forward. Then there was also.the matter of looted
bearer securities, and once a list of those securities known
to be looted· (particularly from Holland) was created, the
remainder were defrosted.
The difficulties o( establishing "true" ownership were left
to individual governments to sort out,which meant that if a
nation wanted to turn a blind eye to practices such as
"Aryanization," little could be done about it. The
"defrosting" process did include a number of explicit
exemptions, including that "Victims of Nazi persecution
were .enabled to seCure the clarification of their status as
p.on-enemies and the unblocking of their assets by applying
· directly to the Treasury Department" .. but they were still
·"required to obtain certification of their assets" from their
·respective governments. I10 The final 'date for certification
applications was fixed as 1 June 1948, and though it was
extended by half a year, certification came to an end on 31
December 1948 ..
�Be(ldix 1/23/00
LB.I., U.S. Domestic Atmosphere, pre-WWII,
In 1936, one ofthe earliest national Gallup Polls ever conducted fo,~nd th~t 60%
ofthose asked agreed with the statement "if there is another general war in Europe, the
U.S. can stay out." I Presid~nt Roosevelt was thus reflecting national sentiment when he
said "We shun political commitments which might entangle us in foreign ,wars," in a
speech he gave that year (14 August}.2· In this sentiment, pubFc and President ali~e cited
George Washington's Farewell Address warning 'against" "penpanent alliances with any
portion of the foreign world") with approval.
'
"
Domestic problems loomed far larger in the early 1930s, in particular
'"
unemployment and the sagging economy of the Depression, leading some to suggest it
was futile to intervene internationally when the nation's strength was so sapped.
Furthermore, the distrust of banks, big business, and munitions manufacturers, all of
whom were perceived as profiting from foreign trade (ifnot actively promotin~war),
supported inward-looking attitude~.4 Senator George Norris~ opposing American
intervention in 1917,said in Congress that "the object in having war and in preparing for
war is to mak~ money," and ,that sentiment was~idespread by'.the 1930s,5 In 1932, when
13.7 million unemployed were counted in the US, the isolatiol!ist Senator William E.
, Borah wrote that Americans should "look after our own interests and devote ourselves to
1 H. Schuyler Foster, Activism Rep/aces Isolationism: U.S Public Attitudes 1940~1975 (Washi~gton, D.C.:
Foxhall Press, 1983),19.
'
2 New York Times, August 15, 1936,4:2, reprinted in Paul Holbo, Isolation and Interventionism, 1932,
1941 (Chicago: Rank McNally & Co., 1967), 17.'
,
3 Charles Beard and Mary Beard, The Rise ofAmerican Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1937),372.
4 Manfred Jonas, Isolationism.in America 1935-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966),26.
5 Ronald Powaski. Toward an Entangling Alliance. American Isolationism, Internationalism and Europe,
1901-1950 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 11,66.
�,
,
our own people~,,6, American attitudes were "conditioned by krwwledge 'ofthe slaughter
of the [Fir~t] World War and by disillusion.rnent with the 'peace' that followed.,,7
Yet to call the Americ.an stance "isolationist" is a little misleading in an
immigrant country proud of serving as a democratic model for the world and committed
to expanding foreign trade. It was hard to avoid involvement', President Woodrow
,
'
Wilson had said in 1919, because after "you have become a determining factor in the
history ofmankind...you Camlot remain isolated, whether you want to or not."g As a
. consequence, President Roosevelt's aCtions during the 1930s should probably be seen less
as a failure to intervene abroad than as a complex practice of the art of the possible in the
face of stiff public and senatorial opposition to intervention; Roosevelt was also mindful
of President Wilson's lack of success with the League ofNations and well aware that the
US Senate had refused to approve the Treaty of Versailles iri1924.
Roosevelt's efforts until 1938 focused on ways to undermine aggressor nations
through encouraging disarmament and restricting trade, as well as by suggesting
, blockades or other ways of controlling the seas. His efforts' were stymied bY,the
Neutrality Acts (1935-37) passed in Congress that mandated arms embargoes and
prohibited loans to aU belligererits, making ~t impossible to show favoritism toward those
considere,d allies. However, it did became possible to, supply food,raw materials, and
manufactured goods as long as they were' paid for in cash and carried away on foreign
ships. This permitted a Trans-Atlantic trade with Great Britain to flourish, one which
to
6 Thomas Guinsburg, The Pursuit ofIsolationism in the United States Senate from Versailles
Pearl
Harbor (New York: Garland Publishing,' 1982), 135.
"
.
7 Daniela Rossini, ed, From Theodore Roosevelt to FDR: Internationalism and Isolationism in American
Foreign Policy (Bodmin: Keele University Press, 1995), 114.
8 Jonas, Isolationism, 2.
�would subsequently draw in the U.S. Navy to p~otect ship convoys. Roosevel~ appears to
.
.
have wanted to draw Gennan submarine fire on US ships, for on 17 May 1941 he
confided to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgentha,u that he'was· "waiting to be pushed into
this situation," which to Morgenthau meant being pushed into war. 9
Of course, Roosevelt had been sly. In 1936 he had already said that "I can at leaSt
make certain that no act of the United States helps to produce or to prom?te war,"IO
implying that the provocative acts of other nations was a different matter. During his
,
"
"
reelection bid in 1940, again under pressure from isolationists, in one speech he said that
American "bpys are not going to be sent into any foreign war," but on other occasions he
had added a key qualifier, "except in case of attlick.,,11 But by January 1941, the US was
to become the "arsenal of democracy," and the introduction of t4e Lend-Lease bill
symbolically entitled House Resolution 1776 - that asserted the US would lend or lease
Great Britain the weapons,~unitions, food or other supplies needed to fight Hitler and
. not ask for payment in. return, was the key turning point. The measure, Roosevelt said,
was "key to the security of the Western Hemisphere" and to the security ofthe United
States. 12 The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7December 1941 finally ended
American isolation, and three days after declaring war on Japan, the United States
declared war against Gennany and Italy.13 .
Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance, 58-88; the quote is 'on 96-7.
New York Times, August 15, 1936,4:2, reprinted in Paul H6lbo, Isolation and Interventionism, 1932
1941 (Chicago: Rank McNally & Co., 1967), 17.
II Holbo, Isolation, p. 51. .
,
. 12'Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance, 95.
13 Powaski, Toward an Entangling Alliance, 110.
9
10
�"
Bendix 1122/00
LC.2.d.. Org~nizations within the Jewish R~fugee Population
Those sti1lleft in DP camps by the end 0(1945, soon to be joined by thousands of
<
'
expellee~ from Eastern Europe in 1946, had a basi~ problem. They wanted to leave
Germany permanently but the British would not let more than a few into Palestine, nor,
was Congress inclined tO'make immigration to the US easier. Both constraints began to
relax in 1948, but that the lasfDP camp would only ~e closed in 1957 attests to how
difficult and drawn-out resettlement was.
.
.
.
Most DP Jews wanted to go to PalC?stine, and both Brichah, whose origins lay in
'
,
;
.
an underground BalticlPolish partisan organization, and'Mossad, the immigration branch
of the Palestine self-defense organization Haganah, ~orked after the war to get them there
illegally. The Brichah plan was to spirit Jews to Palestine clandestinely through Rumania
and Bulgaria" ,and some of their efforts were ~ided not only by Jewish GIs but also by
soldiers of t~e Jewish Brigade, 'Volunteers from Palestine who served with the British
Army in Ih~ly from 1944-46. Jews were only too eager to leave Poland after the anti~
Semitic attack in'Kielce on 4 July' 1946, but the British crackdown on "illegal" boats,
diverting would-be Jewish immigrants to Palestine into Cyprus camps by August 1946
(over 50,900 would be held there), and a British 'intransigence that was most graphically
symbolized later by the forced return of the boat "Exodus" to Germany from Haif& in July
. 1947, led Brichah to conclude it would be safer to send expellees into the US Zones in
Germany and Austria, which they did by the thousands. l The DP camps were filled with
l '
"
Yehuda Bauer, Out ofthe Ashes (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1989),2,58,74-5, 195.
�those desperate to get tp Palestine - so despairing that in one camp, when asked to pick a
second location they wished to go and not write Palestine a second time on the form, a
significant proportion wrote ~~crbm~toria."2
There was thus a ready-made audience not only for Zionist political parties -:
David Ben-Gurion visited quite a few DP camps already in October and November of
1945
3
-
but also for religious groups like Agudat Israd, later t~ become a political party,
and Vaad Hatzalah, an American rabbinical, rescue committee organized in 1939 to help
Orthodox Jews. Agricultural settlement organizations based in Palestine along with
youth movements and teacht;:fs came to.the DP camps to start training or schooling for
.
.
, ' .
future tife in Palestine~ including on the kibbutz. Internally~.culttiral activity- music,
theater, sports - flourished, with at le~st 70 newspapers being published, most in Yiddish;'
in various DP camps.4 As for survivors, soon after war's end, a political coordination of
interests was attempted when the Central Committee of German Jewish Communities
was founded in Munich.
By far the most significant to the daily lives of the DPs, however, was the
.
.
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC or "Joint"), an organization founded
in 1914 that was "the embodiment of whatever American Jewry was willing to do for its
fellow Jews overseas."s Its s~cial origins lay among emigre m~ddle class.German Jews,
and from 1946 to 1950, the "Joint" would spend $280 million to help refugees. By'and
large, what they could do initially was provide medical services .locate relatives,'
.
. . . and help .
Long Way Home, cited at
..
wysiwyg:119/http://geography.miningco.com .. .iowgeography/lihrary/weeld ylaaO.51898.htm)
3 Bauer, Out ofthe Ashes, 83-4.
,
4 Encyclopedia ofthe Holocaust 1990, cited at http://motlc.wiesenthal.comltextfx33/xr3301.html
5 Bauer, Out ofthe Ashes, xiii.
.
2
�as the US military did not pennit shipping supplies to civilians and mu~h transportation'
was blocked, but relatively soon the "Joint" was able to provide food, clothing and other
, goods, though not enough to meet the needs. The ','Joint" was a voluntary organization,
and the demise of the work ofUNRRA fn mid.;. 1947 as well as the uncertain state of
refugee effQrts until the ~O became established, pushed the "Joint" to assume more
administrative and financial responsibilities than it could readily cope with. The "Joint"
.
.
."
.
.'
orientation was more to provide welfare services thanto engage in politics, making its
.
relations with Brichach, Vaad Hatzalah and Zionist youth organizations complex; it also
,
had to engage in protracted negotiations with the, Central Committee over who would
ultimately control supplies. Beyond a~l the material aspects that the "Joint" provided,one
of its more important acts was to set up a Branch for the Restitution of Jewish Property in
"
"
March 1947 that, worked to fonnulate a general restitution ~aw proclaimed later that year. 6
.
..
6
Bauer, Out ofthe Ashes, 120-24,203,213-14,256,273.
�lC.2.d.I .. Survivors and t1'!.e US Anny:·a ~ixed picture
,
"If soldiers had kflowledge of how to handle Holocaust survivors they generally
failed to display it," in part because instructions in SHAEF handbooks explicitly stated
I
.".
"
,
that Jews. should be treated no differently than any other Reich citizens? "I can assure
. you that this headquarters makes no differentiation in treatment of displaced persons,"
General Dwight D. Eisenhower had cabled Secretary of War Henry Stimson on 10
August 1945. 8
..
According to an "Anny Talk" publi~ation about DPs, American troops
. , had fought "their way ...through the shattered and crumblingre~ains ofcities, towns, a:nd
villages," encountering displaced persons to whom they had offe~ed strength, kindness,
rations, clothing and medicines, "and to millions of unfortunates this was the first
kindness, the first humane act, that had been extended to them·in ten or more years.'; But
by late November 1946, most combat soldiers had been redeploy~d hOl)1e and
"Fresh American military personnel, who had just left the solid, clean and
substantial comforts of our fine homes a!1d towps, arrived in Europe and
Gennany... The new GIs found it difficult to understand and like people
who pushed, screamed, clawed for food, smelled bad, who couldn't and
. didn't want to obey orders, who sat with dull faces ana vacant staring eyes
in a cellar, or concentration camp barrack, or 'within a primitive cave; and
.
.
.
Leonard Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors ofthe Holocaust (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1982), 12-13.
8 Dinnerstein, America, 28
7
�refused to come out at thei~ command.,,9
Military discipline had to be maintained on Anny-controlled facilities, after all, and these
facilities included old Wehrmacht barracks and existing camps. In the Third Anny in
Bavaria, which had most ofthe refugees in the US Zone,DP camps were initially
surrounded by barbed wire and manned by armed guards.
But the Third Anny was also commanded by General George S. Patton. In his
diary on 15 September 1945, he wrote'that "others believe that the Disphlced Person is a
human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews who are lower than
animals>,10 Pattonwas also of the opinion that the "Jewish type ofDP is;in the majority
of cases, a sub~human species without any of the cultural or social refinements of our
time," a sentiment that would have endeared Patton to Adolf Hitler, and on September 17,
1945, during an inspection tour of a DP camp with 'General. Eisenhower, Patton stated that
his plans for a nearby deserted German village was to "make it into a concentration camp
for these goddamn Jews."ll Patton niay simply have reflected openly what many officers
,
I
'
privately thought about Jews, to judge froni contemporary commentary. 12 But if the
e~counters
with Jewish concentration camp survivors "tried the patience and exceeded
the comprehensiori of both enlisted men and their officers," and keeping people "in
.
)
assembly centers without adequa~e food, clothing, shelter, and occupational activities, and
making only minimal attempts to find them new homes, showed how little the displaced
9 Army Talk 151 ,War Department, Washington D.C., 30 November 1946, reproduced in Dinnerstein,
America,308-313. 'The quote is on p. 310.
.
10 Cited in Dinnerstein, America, 17.
II Cited in Dinnerstein, America, 47. :
�· .
.
persons counted in American postwar concerns,"] 3 that was certainly not true for certain
~ewish soldiers, nor true of American Jewish organizations.
12 Harold Laski, The American Democracy (New York: Viking, 1948), 484; Marshall Killtppen, And Call It
Peace (1947), 128 cited in Manfred Malzahn, Germany 1945-1949: A Sourcebook (New York Routledge,
1991),77.
.
13 Dinnerstein, America, 52, 265.
":'.
�I.
Introduction Chapter 2
As World War II in Europe neared its end, Allied combat troops on the front lines made a
series of grim discoveries-the concentration camps established as part of Adolf Hitler's "Final
Solution" to rid Europe of Jews and other "undesirable'" peoples and (6 expropriate their assets.
...,.,
,
On April 4, 1945, United States soldiers and officers liberated a camp at Ohrdruf, near Weimar,
Germany. The horrors that the camp revealed defy easy comprehension--emaciated prisoners
suffering from malnutrition and disease,
railroa~
cars full of corpses, incinerated skeletons~
squalid barracks with lice-infested bedding, and an overwhelming stench of rotting flesh. Over
the next four weeks, American troops liberated several more concentration camps (apd their subcamps), including Bu~henwald, Dachau, and Mauthausen, setting free as they advanced the
surviving victims of the reign of terror visited on Europe by Hitler, members of his National
Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or Nazi Party),
and their many collaborators. I
The crassly material dimension of this monstrous treatment of fellow human beings,
whom the Nazis defined as "enemies," became apparent that same spring. As the Allied armies
advanced through the European continent in their battle against Nazi Germany, they found and
seized caches of valuables-gold and other precious metals, artwork, currency from several
countries, and all manner of personal treasures and possessions. Soldiers overran these hidden
stores in concentration camps, bams~ mines, castles, tr~ins, factories, banks, and other locations.
'
:
,
'
'Such caches constitute a major portion of the assets expropriated by the Nazis that came under
control of the United States.. The assets stolen from the millions of victims ofNazi persecution
1 Robert H. Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation o/Nazi Concentration Camps
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985),27,30; Gerhard L. Weinberg,A World At Arms: A Global History o/World
War II(New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994),834.
.
.
�were often undis'tinguishable from traditional spoils of war and even from legitimate German
property hidden to safeguard it from Allied attacks.
To re-evoke the circumstances that governed the handling of the Nazi loot'recovered by
the United States as a result of World War II, ___ four [or however many we end up with]
complex networks of events need at least cursory exploration. 2 They are
1. the methodical exploitation o,f victims by the Nazi regime,
2. the background of politics and policy that brought the United States out of its
•
•
I
'
domestic preoccupations and into the war,
3. the framework of international thinking about dealing with the spoils of war,
4., the circumstances during and especially at the end of the
I
.
war that ledto control of the
assets by the United States, and the federal agencies that dealt with such assets.
These elements form the context in which individuals' arlCi agencies of the United States
.
.
.
,
government came into control of assets looted by the Nazis, sought to identify and distinguish
the assets of Holocaust victims within the larger pool of assets, and finally disposed of those
assets .
. 2The following sections of this chapter are meant for a general audience: Those familiar the writings on the
Holocaust, World War II, and related topics may wish to skip to chapter _ _'3 [or whateyer it becomes).
�For reasons ofIn establishing administrative effieieneyprocedures for dealing with the
millions of uprooted, the U.S. Anily initially categorized a displaced person based on Qy
nationality.'i Effectively this meant that the army often grouped Jews with their fellow nationals.
As a G~onsequencetly, the army sOf!1etimes elassified the German Jewis~ refugees and the
gpsthose displaced from Germany's wartime alliesthe countries aliied .with Gelmany during the
war-Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, and Romania-as-all came under the designation of
"enemy nationals~," _ThistlS deprivedffig Jews from these countries of the status of United .
Nations displaced persons, which entailed greater privileges. Moreo\'er, Allied policy further
disadvantaged Jews in that it' did. not initi~lly re~ognize religion as a basis to determine fa~tor in
detennining the level of care needed by the those displaeeduprooted. 2 As a result, Jewish DPs,
many of them including form~r camp inmates, shared assembly centers with Balts, Poles, and
other healthier displaced persons, many of whom w~re anti-Semitic or actual NaZi collaborators. 3
Between the end of hostilities a~d October 31, 1945, the army repatriat~d more than 2.3
million displaced persons, leaving about 475,000 still in its zone. 4 By January 1946--ffi the U.S.
Zone, c'ontained offieials eounted 36,000 Jewish DPs ~n January 1946by official count;,--and by
October the number had climbed to 141",000, the increase in the number of Jews miralleling an
. I Leonard'Dinnerstein, "The
Anny and the Jew~:' Policies Toward The Displaced Persons After World
War II," in Michael R. ManuS, ed., The End ofthe Holocaust, vol. 9 of The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on
the Destructio,: ofEuropean Jews (London: Meckler, 1989), 513 7515.
U.S.
Dinnerstein, "U.S. Anny and the Jews";' 513-515; Abzug, Inside the'Vicious Heart, 151.
3 Abzug,lnside the Vicious Heart, 151. .
. .
2
4
Frederiksen, American Militmy Occupation ofGermanv. 75.
�",
influx ofinfliltrees from eastern Europe. 5 As late 'as May 1948 more than 124,000 Jews found
refuge in the U.S. Zone. 6
5 Angeiika K6nigseder & J~liane Wetzel, Lebensmut lm Wartest;lal, Diejiidischen DPs (Displaced Persons)
im Nachkriegsdeutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1994),47, and Frederiksen, American Militarv Occupation
o{Germanv,77.
'
6
Frederiksen, American Military Occupation o/Germany, 80.
I. '
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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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>
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Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
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Art & Cultural Property Theft
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