Gentle Conquest in the West: Americans and Germans, 1944-1945

Abstract

a friendly enemy The transformation of Germany into a stable democracy and Western-style civil society began with the American occupation from September 1944 onward. At the time, it seemed impossible to predict or even hope for such a development. The Americans' objective was to force the Third Reich into unconditional surrender, eradicate all vestiges of National Socialism, and ensure that Germany - now reduced in size by the loss of its eastern territories - would never again be capable of waging war. This meant putting strict regulations in place and, if possible, laying the ground for the best guarantee of future security: fusing the postwar government and society to democratic structures and shifting the orientation of German elites from the anti-Western ideas prevailing in 1914 to the ideas of 1789. Establishment of an enduring open society in Germany and, thereby, the solid normalization and demilitarization of the country would be possible only if the German population gradually accepted and ultimately desired it. The long process of democratization in West Germany could hardly have gotten off to a better start than with the occupation by the “friendly enemy” that the American army proved itself to be in 1944-5. All in all, this gentle occupation had a practical and fundamentally humane character, which is all the more evident when one casts an eye to the brutal postwar beginnings in East Germany.