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Home , Allied Control Council, Eupen, Petersberg Agreement, Potsdam Agreement, Soviet occupation zone, Zero hour (1945)

1949 Crisis

1 | Page April 13th Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Table of Contents

Staff Welcome Letters …………………………………………………….………………………. 3

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………….………...... 4-5

Brief Overview……………………………………………………………………………………….. 5-6

Topics at Hand ……………………………………………………….…………...………………….. 6-17

Questions to Answer …………………….…………………………..……………………………. 18

What is Crisis ………………………………………………………………………………………… 19-20

2 | Page

Letter from the Chair

Dear Esteemed Delegates,

Welcome to the Crisis Committee! Being a delegate in this committee with offers you an invaluable learning experience that with help shape your understanding of global geopolitics after the Cold War. My name is Madison Colaco, and I am a senior Political Science major, Public Administration minor here at the Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. I am very excited to be serving as your chair for this committee.

Good luck and Best Wishes,

Madison Colaco

Letter from Crisis

Hello, I am Mason Smith and am the crisis director for Cold War Berlin. I am a first year Master's student and also a full-time teacher. I have been in MUN since my sophomore year in college and have attended more conferences in more places than I could name. My favorite committee was probably the Great Schism at UPenn years ago, for reasons that I can't really discuss. I am looking forward to having an excellent discussion and reformation of Germany, and I hope we divert from the terrible ideas that were implemented in our actual history. I have lived in a half dozen cities across the world and am passionate about Education

3 | Page Good luck and best wishes,

Mason D. Smith

Introduction

The World has just begun to recover from one of the deadliest incidents in recorded

history, World War II. Over two years, an estimated eleven million men, women, and

children were brutally slaughtered by the Nazis in concentration camps. After the war, the

conquering powers divided the country into four districts and administered the same

cruelty and famine conditions to the entirety of the German people. After four years, the

powers have satisfied their cravings for revenge and are willing to begin allowing the

German people to reestablish themselves, with strong oversight from the conquering

Powers. The year is 1949 and the Powers have decided to convene a conference to

determine the fate of Germany. The Western allies, the US, UK, and have sent their

best negotiators and heads of state while allowing a plethora of people from amongst the

controlled districts to attend. The eastern power, the USSR has decided that they will not

easily acquiesce to the demands of the West and see the potential for future conflict from

Germany.

The year is 1949 and Germany finds itself at the centerpiece of world history. The main forces of the world stand on two sides with conflicting ideology and the people of

Germany lie in the middle. On the one side, the traditional powers of the ,

France, and relatively recently joining the world stage due to incredible profits with little

4 | Page losses from the World Wars, the of America, while on the other side stands a

new coalescing superpower in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The two main parties

have agreed to set apart their stark differences and come to a once-in-a-lifetime meeting regarding the delineation between the two powers and what to do with Germany as they begin to rebuild after their devastation caused by Hitler and the conquering, and now occupying forces. The representatives of the people of Germany have been invited to attend, however, due to their recent behavior causing the World Wars, they have been relegated to the background despite their influences on the current events.

Brief Overview

As a consequence of the defeat of in World War II, Germany was

divided between the two global blocs in the East and West, a period known as the division

of Germany. Germany was stripped of its war gains and lost territories in the east to

and the . At the end of the war, there were in Germany some eight million

foreign displaced persons; mainly forced laborers and prisoners; including around 400,000

from the concentration camp system, survivors from a much larger number who had died

from starvation, harsh conditions, murder, or being worked to death. Over 10 million

German-speaking arrived in Germany from other countries in Central and Eastern

Europe. Some 9 million were POWs, many of whom were kept as forced laborers

for several years to provide restitution to the countries Germany had devastated in the

war, and some industrial equipment was removed as reparations.

5 | Page The Cold War, which at the time were considered a sense of heightened tensions

divided Germany between the Allies in the west and Soviets in the east. Germans had little

voice in government until 1949 when two states emerged:

Federal Republic of Germany(FRG), commonly known as , was a

parliamentary with a free capitalist economic system and free churches and

labor unions.

German Democratic Republic (GDR), commonly known as , was the

smaller Marxist-Leninist socialist republic with its leadership dominated by the Soviet-

aligned Socialist Unity Party of Germany(SED) in order to retain it within the Soviet sphere

of influence.

History

Following the German leaders’ unconditional surrender in May 1945, the

country lay prostrate. The German state had ceased to exist, and sovereign authority

passed to the victorious Allied powers. The physical devastation from Allied bombing

campaigns and from ground battles was enormous: an estimated one-fourth of the

country’s housing was destroyed or damaged beyond use, and in many cities, the toll

exceeded 50 percent. Germany’s economic infrastructure had largely collapsed as factories

and transportation systems ceased to function. Rampant inflation was undermining the

value of the currency, and an acute shortage of food reduced the diet of many city dwellers to the level of malnutrition. These difficulties were compounded by the presence of

6 | Page millions of homeless German refugees from the former eastern provinces. The end of the

war came to be remembered as “,” a low point from which virtually everything

had to be rebuilt anew from the ground up.

At the Conference (17 July to 2 August 1945), after Germany's

unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945, the Allies divided Germany into four military

occupation zones — France in the southwest, Britain in the northwest, the United States in

the south, and the Soviet Union in the east, bounded eastwards by the -Neisse line.

Berlin, the former capital, which was surrounded by the Soviet zone, was placed under joint

four-power authority but was partitioned into four sectors for administrative purposes. An

Allied Control Council was to exercise overall joint authority over the country. At Potsdam

these four zones in total were denoted as 'Germany as a whole', and the four Allied Powers

exercised the sovereign authority they now claimed within Germany in agreeing 'in

principle' the future transfer of lands of the former east of 'Germany as a

whole' to Poland and the Soviet Union. These eastern areas were notionally placed under

Polish and Soviet administration pending a final but in actuality were

promptly reorganized as organic parts of their respective sovereign states.

In addition, under the Allies' Berlin Declaration (1945), the territory of the

extinguished German Reich was to be treated as the land area within its borders as of 31

December 1937. All Nazi land expansion from 1938 to 1945 was hence treated as

automatically invalid. Such expansion included the League of Nations administered City-

State of Danzig (occupied by Nazi Germany immediately following Germany's 1 September

1939 invasion of Poland), , the occupied territory of , Suwalki,

7 | Page Alsace-Lorraine, Luxembourg, post 27 September 1939 "West ", post 27 September

1939 "Posen Province", northern Slovenia, Eupen, , the part of Southern ultimately detached from 1918 Germany by action of the Versailles Treaty, likewise, the

Hultschiner Laendchen.

These arrangements did not incorporate all of prewar Germany. The Soviets unilaterally severed the German territories east of the Oder and Neisse rivers and placed these under the direct administrative authority of the Soviet Union and Poland, with the larger share going to the Poles as compensation for territory they lost to the Soviet Union.

The former provinces of , most of , and Silesia were thus stripped from Germany. Since virtually the entire German population of some 9.5 million in these and adjacent regions was expelled westward, this amounted to a de facto annexation of one-fourth of Germany’s territory as of 1937, the year before the beginning of German expansion under Hitler. The Western Allies acquiesced in these actions by the Soviets, taking consolation in the expectation that these annexations were merely temporary expedients that the final peace terms would soon supersede.

Expulsion

The northern half of East Prussia in the region of Königsberg was administratively assigned by the to the Soviet Union, pending a final Peace Conference

(with the commitment of Britain and the United States to support its incorporation into

PrussiaRussia); were and was incorporated then annexed into byPoland the Soviet on a similar Union. basis;Gdańsk the and Allies the havingsouthern assured half of the East

8 | Page Polish government-in-exile of their support for this after the Conference in 1943. It was also agreed at Potsdam that Poland would receive all former German lands east of the

Oder-Neisse line, although the exact delimitation of the boundary was left to be resolved at an eventual Peace Conference. Under the wartime of the United Kingdom with the

Czechoslovak and Polish government-in-exile, the British had agreed in July 1942 to support "..the General Principle of the transfer to Germany of German minorities in Central and South after the war in cases where this seems necessary and desirable". In 1944 roughly 12.4 million ethnic Germans were living in territory that became part of post-war Poland and the Soviet Union. Approximately 6 million fled or were evacuated before the occupied the area. Of the remainder, around 2 million died during the war or in its aftermath (1.4 million as military casualties; 600,000 as civilian deaths), 3.6 million were expelled by the Poles, one million declared themselves to be

Poles, and 300,000 remained in Poland as Germans. The territories, surrendered to Germany by the Agreement, were returned to Czechoslovakia; these territories containing a further 3 million ethnic Germans. 'Wild' expulsions from

Czechoslovakia began immediately after the German surrender.

The subsequently sanctioned the "orderly and humane" transfer to Germany of individuals regarded as "ethnic Germans" by authorities in

Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary. The Potsdam Agreement recognized that these expulsions were already underway and were putting a burden on authorities in the

German Occupation Zones, including the re-defined . Most of the

Germans who were being expelled were from Czechoslovakia and Poland, which included most of the territory to the east of the Oder-Neisse Line. The stated:

9 | Page Since the influx of a large number of Germans into Germany would increase the

burden already resting on the occupying authorities, they consider that the Allied Control

Council in Germany should in the first instance examine the problem with special regard to

the question of the equitable distribution of these Germans among the several zones of

occupation. They are accordingly instructing their respective representatives on the

control council to report to their Governments as soon as possible the extent to which such

persons have already entered Germany from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and to

submit an estimate of the time and rate at which further transfers could be carried out,

having regard to the present situation in Germany. The Czechoslovak Government, the

Polish Provisional Government and the control council in Hungary are at the same time

being informed of the above and are being requested meanwhile to suspend further

expulsions pending the examination by the Governments concerned of the report from

their representatives on the control council.

Many of the ethnic Germans, who were primarily women and children, and

especially those under the control of Polish and Czechoslovakian authorities, were severely

mistreated before they were ultimately deported to Germany. Thousands died in forced

labor camps such as Lambinowice, Zgoda labor camp, Central Labour Camp Potulice,

Central Labour Camp Jaworzno, Glaz, Milecin, Gronowo, and Sikawa. Others starved, died of

disease, or froze to death while being expelled in slow and ill-equipped trains; or in transit camps.

The intended governing body of Germany was called the , consisting of the commanders-in-chief in Germany of the United States, the United

10 | Page Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union; who exercised supreme authority in their respective zones, while supposedly acting in concert on questions affecting the whole country. In actuality, however, the French consistently blocked any progress towards re- establishing all-German governing institutions; substantially in pursuit of French aspirations for a dismembered Germany, but also as a response to the exclusion of France from the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Berlin, which lay in the Soviet (eastern) sector, was also divided into four sectors with the Western sectors later becoming and the Soviet sector becoming , capital of East Germany.

Reparations

The issue of German reparations proved particularly divisive. The Soviet Union, whose population and territory had suffered terribly at the hands of the Germans, demanded large-scale material compensation. The Western Allies initially agreed to extract reparations but soon came to resent the Soviets’ seizures of entire German factories as well as current production. Under the terms of inter-Allied agreements, the Soviet zone of occupation, which encompassed much of German agriculture and was less densely populated than those of the other Allies, was to supply foodstuffs to the rest of Germany in return for a share of reparations from the Western occupation zones. But when the Soviets failed to deliver the requisite food, the Western Allies found themselves forced to feed the

German population in their zones at the expense of their own taxpayers.

The Americans and British therefore came to favor a revival of German industry so as to enable the Germans to feed themselves, a step the Soviets opposed. When the Western

11 | Page powers refused in 1946 to permit the Soviets to claim further reparations from their zones, cooperation among the wartime allies deteriorated sharply. As day-by-day cooperation became more difficult, the management of the occupation zones gradually moved in different directions. Even before a formal break between East and West, opposing social, political, and economic systems had begun to emerge.

Denazification

Despite their differences, the Allies agreed that all traces of had to be removed from Germany. To this end, the Allies tried at Nürnberg 22 Nazi leaders; all but three were convicted, and 12 were sentenced to death (see Nürnberg trials). The swastika and other outward symbols of the Nazi regime were banned, and a Provisional Civil Ensign was established as a temporary German flag. It remained the official flag of the country

(necessary for reasons of ) until East Germany and West Germany were independently established in 1949.

The Soviets summarily removed former Nazis from office in their zone of occupation; eventually, antifascism became a central element of East Germany’s ideological arsenal. But, since the East German regime denied any connection to what happened in

Germany during the Nazi era, there was little incentive to examine Nazism’s role in German history. The relationship of Germans to the Nazi past was more complex in West Germany.

On the one hand, many former Nazis survived and gradually returned to positions of influence in business, education, and the professions, but West German intellectuals were

12 | Page also critically engaged with the burdens of the past, which became a central theme in the novels of Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, and many others.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union had agreed at Potsdam to a broad program of decentralization, treating Germany as a single economic unit with some central administrative departments. These plans never materialized, initially because

France blocked any establishment of central administrative or political structures for

Germany; and also as both the Soviet Union and France were intent on extracting as much material benefit as possible from their occupation zones in order to make good in part the enormous destruction caused by the German ; and the policy broke down completely in 1948 when the Russians blockaded West Berlin and the period known as the

Cold War began. It was agreed at Potsdam that the leading members of the Nazi regime who had been captured should be put on trial accused of crimes against humanity, and this was one of the few points on which the four powers were able to agree. In order to secure the presence of the western allies in Berlin, the United States agreed to withdraw from

Thuringia and in exchange for the division of Berlin into four sectors. The State

Department and individual U.S. congressmen pressured to have this policy lifted. In June

1945 the prohibition against speaking with German children was loosened. In July troops were permitted to speak to German adults in certain circumstances. In the entire policy was dropped.

Under the Monnet Plan, France—intent on ensuring that Germany would never again have the strength to threaten it—began in 1945 to attempt to gain economic control of the remaining German industrial areas with large coal and mineral deposits; the

13 | Page , the Ruhr and the Saar (Germany's second largest center of mining and industry,

Upper Silesia, had been handed over by the Allies to Poland at the Potsdam conference and the German population was being forcibly expelled)The Ruhr Agreement had been imposed on the Germans as a condition for permitting them to establish the Federal

Republic of Germany. (see also the International Authority for the Ruhr (IAR)). French attempts to gain political control of or permanently internationalize the Ruhr was abandoned in 1951 with the West German agreement to pool its coal and steel resources in return for full political control over the Ruhr (see European Coal and Steel Community).

With French economic security guaranteed through access to Ruhr coal now permanently ensured France was satisfied. The French attempt to gain economic control over the Saar was temporarily even more successful.

Political Entities in New Germany

Beginning in the summer of 1945, the occupation authorities permitted the formation of German political parties in preparation for elections for new local and regional representative assemblies. Two of the major leftist parties of the Weimar era quickly revived: the moderate Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei

Deutschlands; SPD) and the German Communist Party (Kommunistiche Partei

Deutschlands; KPD), which was loyal to the Soviet Union. These were soon joined by a new creation, the Christian Democratic Union (Christlich-Demokratische Union; CDU), with its

Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union(Christlich-Soziale Union; CSU). The leaders of this Christian Democratic coalition had for the most part been active in the moderate parties of the , especially the Catholic Centre Party. They sought to win

14 | Page popular support on the basis of a nondenominational commitment to Christian ethics and

democratic institutions. Germans who favored a secular state and laissez-faire economic

policies formed a new Free Democratic Party (Freie Demokratische Partei; FDP) in the

Western zones and a Liberal Democratic Party in the Soviet zone. Numerous smaller

parties were also launched in the Western zones.

Under pressure from the occupation authorities, in April 1946 the Social Democratic

Party leaders in the Soviet zone agreed to merge with the Communists, a step denounced

by the Social Democrats in the Western zones. The resulting Socialist Unity Party (SED)

swept to victory with the ill-concealed aid of the Soviets in the first elections for local and

regional assemblies in the Soviet zone. However, when in elections were held

under fairer conditions in Berlin, which was under four-power occupation, the SED tallied

fewer than half as many votes as the Social Democratic Party, which had managed to

preserve its independence in the old capital. Thereafter the SED, which increasingly fell

under communist domination as Social Democrats were systematically purged from its

leadership ranks, avoided free, competitive elections by forcing all other parties to join a

permanent coalition under its leadership.

The occupying powers soon approved the formation of regional governmental units called Länder (singular Land), or states. By 1947 the Länder in the Western zones had freely elected parliamentary assemblies. Institutional developments followed a superficially similar pattern in the Soviet zone, but there the political process remained less than free because of the dominance of the Soviet-backed SED.

15 | Page When it had become apparent by 1947 that the Soviet Union would not permit free,

multiparty elections throughout the whole of Germany, the Americans and British

amalgamated the German administrative organs in their occupation zones in order to

foster economic recovery. The resulting unit, called Bizonia, operated through a set of

German institutions located in the city of am Main. Its federative structure would

later serve as the model for the West German state.

In the politics of Bizonia, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats quickly

established themselves as the major political parties. The Social Democrats held to their

long-standing commitment to the nationalization of basic industries and extensive government control over other aspects of the economy. The Christian Democrats, after initially inclining to a vaguely conceived “Christian socialism,” swung to an espousal of a

basically free-enterprise orientation. In March 1948 they joined with the laissez-faire Free

Democrats to install as the architect of Bizonia’s economy Ludwig Erhard, a previously

obscure economist who advocated a “social market economy,” essentially a free-market

economy with government regulation to prevent the formation of monopolies or cartels

and a welfare state to safeguard social needs.

When repeated meetings with the Soviets failed to produce four-power cooperation, the Western occupying powers decided in the spring of 1948 to move on their own. They were particularly concerned about the deteriorating economic conditions throughout occupied Germany, which burdened their own countries and awakened fears of renewed political extremism among the Germans. The Western powers, therefore, decided to extend to their occupation zones American economic aid, which had been instituted elsewhere in

16 | Page western Europe a year earlier under the . To enhance the effectiveness of that aid, the Americans, British, and French affected a currency reform in their zones that replaced Germany’s badly inflated currency (the ) with a new, hard , or DM. Western Germany’s economy responded quickly, as goods previously unavailable for nearly worthless money came onto the market.

The next improvement came in July 1947, when after lobbying by the Joint Chiefs of

Staff, and Generals Clay and Marshall, the administration decided that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent. In July 1947, President Harry S.

Truman rescinded on "national security grounds" the punitive occupation directive JCS

1067, which had directed the U.S. forces in Germany to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany." It was replaced by JCS 1779, which instead stressed that "[a]n orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany."

The dismantling did however continue, and in 1949 West German Chancellor

Konrad Adenauer wrote to the Allies requesting that it end, citing the inherent contradiction between encouraging industrial growth and removing factories and also the unpopularity of the policy. Support for dismantling was by this time coming predominantly from the French, and the Petersberg Agreement of November 1949 reduced the levels vastly.

17 | Page The Soviets responded angrily to the currency reform, which was undertaken

without their approval. When the new Deutsche mark was introduced into Berlin, the

Soviets protested vigorously and boycotted the Allied Control Council. Then in June 1948,

they blockaded land routes from the Western zones to the Western sectors of the old

capital, which were surrounded by territory occupied by the Soviet Red Army and lay about

100 miles (160 km) from the nearest Western-occupied area. By sealing off the railways, highways, and canals used to deliver food and fuel, as well as the raw materials needed for

the factories of Berlin’s Western sectors, with a population of more than two million

people, the Soviets sought to drive out their previous allies and to force the Western

sectors to merge economically and politically with the Soviet zone that surrounded them.

They were thwarted, however, when the Western powers mounted an around-the-clock

airlift that supplied the West Berliners with food and fuel throughout the winter of 1948–

49. In the Soviets relented and lifted the blockade.

Discussion

What will become of the German people?

Do the Germans have the right to represent themselves?

How will the new Germany interact with the world?

Which economic system should take precedence?

Your duty

18 | Page What can you do politically to ensure that your ideology takes precedence?

How can you best represent your people/country?

What can you do individually, outside of the committee room to push the German people and the occupying forces to support your position?

WHAT IS CRISIS?

Writing Notes

All crisis notes should be written like letters. Notes should include an opening, contextualization of your desired action, and a closing, the additional filler is recommended, though not at the cost of delivering your message. Remember, in this committee, you are your character, all of their ideas and goals are yours, use notes to get what you want.

When deciding who to write to, you are more than welcome to make up character names as long as they are in context; for example, as the leader of a particular company, you are bound to have one or several secretaries, it makes sense to write to these people, if you are a soldier, you are unlikely to have a secretary. Crisis notes vary in size and style depending on who is writing them, who you are addressing, and also what information you are

19 | Page sending. While creativity is greatly appreciated and definitely preferred to monotony, it is

not recommended to focus entirely on creativity at the cost of delivering a clear message. A

happy medium is the most ideal and will be looked on very favorably in this committee.

Example notes:

Note 1

Writing as the minister of war for [country Y]

Dear [first, last]:

My dearest secretary and friend,

Long have you been my closest ally against the tyranny of [country x], your support has

been extremely beneficial and I don’t know what kind of world we would be living in

without you. [Country Y] has always attempted to lead the charge against tyranny and

injustice, today is no different. I must call upon you once again for assistance against our

enemies.

I need you to call upon our conscripts. Draft [number] people for our defense force. These

troops are to be trained in [place]. Upon the completion of their training, this new force will

be placed in [place] until they are called upon.

I’m looking forward to hearing back from you!

Yours truly,

[my name], minister of war

Note 2

Writing as high priest of [religion x] in [country]

Dear [first, last]:

20 | Page My child, the evil heretics of [religion y] have been in possession of [holy site] for too long.

It’s time to do something about it. I need you to do the following:

• Announce a new crusade against the infidels

• Inform the local population of the new crusade

• Create a system which will pay for these new soldiers of [religion] with money

which we have collected through years of collecting tithe

• Train these troops in [place]

• Name this army [name]

Thank you, my son, please notify me as soon as these troops are prepared to move out,

[my name], the high priest

21 | Page