Post-War Germany: 28 Months After V-E Day (1947 Color Documentary Footage)

DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O7BMXS?ie=UTF8&tag=doc06-20&link... http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/

The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during 1945--1949. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, American forces had pushed beyond the previously agreed boundaries for the future zones of occupation, in some places by as much as 200 miles. The line of contact between Soviet and American forces at the end of hostilities was temporary. After two months in which they had held areas that had been assigned to the Soviet zone, American forces withdrew in the first days of July 1945. Some have concluded that this was a crucial move that persuaded the Soviet Union to allow American, British, and French forces into their predesignated zones in Berlin, which occurred at roughly the same time (July 1945), although the need for intelligence gathering (see Operation Paperclip) may also have been a factor.

In order to impress the German people with the Allied opinion of them, a strict non-fraternization policy was adhered to by General Eisenhower and the War Department. However, thanks to pressure from the State Department and individual US congressmen this policy was lifted in stages. In June 1945 the prohibition against speaking with German children was made less strict. In July it became possible to speak to German adults in certain circumstances. In September the whole policy was completely dropped in Austria and Germany.

By December 1945 over 100,000 German civilians were interned as security threats and for possible trial and sentencing as members of criminal organizations.

The food situation in occupied Germany was initially very dire. By the spring of 1946 the official ration in the U.S. zone was no more than 1275 calories per day, with some areas probably receiving as little as 700. Some U.S. soldiers used this desperate situation to their advantage, exploiting their ample supply of food and cigarettes (the currency of the black market) as what became known as frau bait (The New York Times, 25 June 1945). Some Americans still felt the girls were the enemy, but used them for sex nevertheless.

The often destitute mothers of the resulting children usually received no child support. In the earliest stages of the occupation, U.S. soldiers were not allowed to pay maintenance for a child they admitted having fathered, since to do so was considered "aiding the enemy". Marriages between white U.S. soldiers and Austrian women were not permitted until January 1946, and with German women until December 1946.

The children of black American soldiers, commonly called Negermischlinge ("Negro half-breeds"), comprising about 3 percent of the total number of children fathered by GIs, were particularly disadvantaged because of their inability of conceal the foreign identity of their father. Black soldiers were reluctant to admit to fathering Negermischlinge since this would invite reprisals, and even in the cases where a soldier was willing to take responsibility he was prohibited from doing so by the U.S. Army which until 1948 prohibited interracial marriages. The mothers of Negermischlinge would often face particularly harsh ostracization. A considerable proportion of Negermischlinge were abandoned, some were even murdered by their mothers.

Between 1950 and 1955 the Allied High Commission for Germany prohibited "proceedings to establish paternity or liability for maintenance of children." Even after the lifting of the ban West German courts had little power over American soldiers.

In general, the British authorities were less strict than the Americans about fraternization, and the French and Soviets more.

While Allied servicemen were ordered to obey local laws while in Germany, soldiers could not be prosecuted by German courts for crimes committed against German citizens except as authorized by the occupation authorities. Invariably, when a soldier was accused of criminal behavior the occupation authorties preferred to handle the matter within the military justice system. This sometimes led to harsher punishments than would have been available under German law - in particular, U.S. servicemen could be executed if court-martialed and convicted of rape.

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[IustitiaPax]

@lambchopxoxo Investigate the Morgenthau Plan. And investigate what Stettinius said to Roosevelt about it. And how dear ex-president Herbert Hoover protested and finally in March 1947 could open the isolated occupied western German occupation zones of the western Allies. After him, the Catholic Church also started to save the German starving children and elderly and weakened adults from starvation and the ruling famine. Ask your mom for the Winter of 1946-1947 and starvation of babies and child.

[IustitiaPax]

@lambchopxoxo Between the Herbert J. Hoover CARE deliveries, Catholic Caritas emergency food from march 1947 until the Marshall Aid start in 1948, there was a May 1945 until March 1947 21 months period, in which millions of German civilians were deliberately starved. At the Dutch-German border, even German farmer girls would come to beg for some food, as a priest-friend of mine from 's-Heerenberg (near Arnhem, Holland) reminded me. He was in seminary there in 1947. Germans were begging for food.

[IustitiaPax]

@lambchopxoxo Compared to the raping Soviet squads (especially in early May, but again after Bersarin's death - Bersarin was a Soviet orderly city commander who curtailed the Soviet mass rapes and some theft, but died in June 1945 already, after which theft and rape continued more heavily again). the American officer elite corps in Berlin was better. But Berlin citizens were suffering from lack of food even there. Only in 1948 food blockade did the Germans of Berlin come to love the USA and west

[IustitiaPax]

@lambchopxoxo Berlin was never conquered (taken) by the American U.S. Army or forces in May/April 1945, but by the Soviets. And vast lands west of Berlin were also conquered ("liberated") by the Soviet Army too. You speak about the situation after the Soviet mass raping, when in Summer 1945, the Americans took over an occupation sector of the divided occupied German capital Berlin? Maybe in Berlin the Americans wanted to convince German survivors of western humanity. But not in other zones.

[lambchopxoxo]

@IustitiaPax "But the urban Germans being starved did not do so. "

Berlin. Is that urban enough for you? You have no clue.

[lambchopxoxo]

@IustitiaPax "and freedoms for the subjugated German starving post-war civilians"

you have no idea of what you are talking about. the Marshall Plan was aid that we provided to europe after the war. when you stop with the opinion rant and revisionist history i'll bother commenting back to you

[lambchopxoxo]

@IustitiaPax "The USA also support the Saudi and Sunni Bahrain dictatorship "kings" these days"

dude you are all over the place. you have some other agenda. i was talking about WWII. thats IT.

[lambchopxoxo]

@IustitiaPax ""fight for democracy against the Hitler dictatorship""

where did i say it was a "fight for democracy"?? quit putting words in my mouth.

[IustitiaPax]

@lambchopxoxo Where was your mother? Not in the Rhine Meadow Camps? Not in the Winter of 1946. Did she work for the U.S. Military Occupation authorities or live on a German farm with more home-made food? Then she could have hailed the Americans first. But the urban Germans being starved did not do so. Nor did most German youths. Anti-American slogans were common in the western zones too. As were anti-French imperialist slogans from German boys, starving in Freiburg and Stuttgart.

[lambchopxoxo]

@IustitiaPax We never did a thing to stop the Nazis and extermination of Jews until we had to. THEN we allied with Russia. When Germany was defeated we then went into Germany to prevent the Russians from occupying. Anything else is opinion and revisionist history. You need to chill dude. Sorry