Plowshares into Swords

The reemergence of Germany within the community of nations after the Second World War is a remarkable story. Having suffered defeat twice over the course of the last 30 years since the fateful events of July 1914, Germany in 1945 stood a long ways away from national pride, statehood, and the "place in the sun" they had craved since unification. However, within 10 years, they had reemerged as a powerful ally alongside the United States, having undergone a painful catharsis within its society and military amidst deep soul-searching. It is this remarkable story that must be told, for while there existed immense outside forces, the clash of the Cold War systems, the complicated nature of American foreign policy, and the residual, reappearing apparition of Germany's history, there was an equally important struggle within the Federal Republic of Germany's borders, the desire for a renewed military tradition combined with the fear of the wartime legacy they had labeled an abomination. Within the atmosphere of Cold War tension and European uncertainty, the efforts of German politicians and former Wehrmacht officers proved central to the reconstruction of the West German military. While paving over war crimes and pre-war political connections, they managed to work together within the international Cold War context with the West, particularly America, to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship for German rearmament.

Within the framework of German rearmament, reunification, and reacceptance into the international community, important elements played out, sometimes in congruence, sometimes in opposition. One must not forget the importance of American political factors in molding domestic and foreign approaches in response to perceived international threats, which played just as significant a role in Germany as it did in the United States. Through the emphasis on the Cold War and the self-imposed necessity of American leadership on political and defense affairs in the continent, the US diplomatic and military apparatus had established a presence in Europe that serves as a testament to the myriad considerations and facets of a post-WWII Europe, a presence which has long outlived the Cold War, and fundamentally changing the way everyone perceives Germans, and the way Germans perceive everyone else. In addition to US-led efforts during the Cold War, international alliances such as NATO also played a large role in the future of all of Germany, a process hastened by the urgent crisis developing at the time in Korea. [1] The threadbare state of the American army in Western and Central Europe at the time led to increasing calls for the Germans to assume some of the responsibility. The European Defense Community, initially a sign of defiance to American dominance of politics, provided an important landmark in the passage of these events, and reflects the conflicting mentalities and uncertainties of the rest of Europe with regards to a Germany whose power would be reinstated not ten years after the last global conflagration. Though it would eventually fall prey to Gaullist rejection and non-ratification, the effort was not forgotten; for while the EDC's noble call for a fully supranational integrated military envisaged a limited role for a West German military, Pleven's failure gave birth to German entry into NATO three years later, amidst return of full sovereignty.[2] To the French, who shot themselves in the foot, the irony was not lost. And finally, across the Rhine, a similar illness had afflicted the Germans. Most of the population was still traumatized by the experience of the last war, and many feared that it was the end of the German national experiment. While a few had already covertly organized an expansion and rearmament similar in scope to that of the Weimar decades, the issue struck deep within the German public, the entire nation having undergone a hellish Gotterdammerung less than a decade ago. The problems of the past remained central to any new military, the challenge of dealing with a proud military tradition infused with the political past of Germany's leaders and their policies was as formidable a challenge as any. The conversion of the sovereign nation to once again believe in its own right to bear arms, the return of the trust to do so, and the ways in which this miracle was accomplished is a remarkable story. It is a story that held divergent themes and paths, for the path to rearmament differed significantly from the path to German sovereignty. The way that these German domestic and military planners dealt with their European and American allies and their own past was central to the greater domestic transformation of attitudes towards the military, and subsequent return of ploughshares back into swords involved many domestic as well as international factors.[3]

Initially, American attitude towards Germany was characterized by anger and a sense of shock. Despite the large German-American population, there was a sense of betrayal and vengeance. Leaders like Eisenhower, Lucius Clay, and even Roosevelt himself had seen punishment as an acceptable way of handling the German question after the war. "Let Germany find out what it means to start a war," said Eisenhower in Frankfurt at the time.[4] This is reflected in the poor post-war treatment of German POWs, who were controversially denied the right of other prisoners-of-war, food, and shelter. On top of that they were forced to clear minefields for the French and perform "reparations labor" for the British.[5] German citizens and displaced persons alike, systematically abandoned and deprived by occupation authorities, lived or perished on less than 1500 calories a day, compared to the 2900 in Britain, and 4000 in the US Army.[6] The quintessential example of the program policymakers had intended upon Germany is none other than the Morgenthau Plan itself. Initially mentioned at the 2nd Quebec Conference in 1944, the Morgenthau Plan's derivative, occupational directive JCS 1067, took direct aim at lowering Germany's standard of living, completely destroying or dismantling heavy industry, as well as achieving complete and total denazification.[7] This amounted to a scaling down of industry and the heavy deforesting of Germany, with the intention of transforming the European manufacturing giant into a pastoral, agrarian, and pre-urbanized state, never capable of war-making again.[8] Signed by President Truman in May 1945, this framework epitomized immediate postwar attitudes towards Germany.

However, American attitude was to rapidly undergo a complete reversal in the next few years following German surrender, first regarding the German state as a whole, and then, of the whole, the issue of rearmament. This broad change was induced by a number of factors. A groundbreaking speech by Secretary of State Byrnes, Restatement of Policy on Germany, delivered in 1946, resolved many of these harsh and publicly unpopular policies regarding occupation and the future of West Germany with heady rhetoric. [9] Beneath the tone of conciliation, of welcome, and of reintegration into the Atlantic and European community, cold steel prevailed. A reassessment of the postwar European and worldwide situation prompted a sense of exigency within the Western, and, particular, the American governments. Despite the genuine good-feeling and forgiveness that Byrnes had tried to convey, the shift in policy from a harsh, vengeful JCS 1067 to a restorative JCS 1779 was primarily on the basis of what Truman termed "national security grounds." It was a policy change with regards to American interests themselves, in the face of Communism and the rapid relative rise of the Soviet Union. Under these new considerations of an ideological opponent, many feared that a Germany deprived of its prewar living standard and forced to adhere to a completely unpopular system of occupation would become ideologically unstable. Even without the systematized starvation of the German population, political stability wasn't guaranteed, as France and Italy had shown.[10] Indeed, as Lucius Clay noted, "There is no choice between being a communist on 1,500 calories a day and a believer in democracy on a thousand."[11] It was a political environment that required the return of industrial production, of the powerhouse of the Ruhr, and the return of a strong European economy. A Swiss delegate to Grand Palais concluded that, in the process of obtaining coal, there will always be an insurmountable barrier, and "it is the fact that Germany is not there which paralyzes our calculations." The author of that same article in the Times summarized this indirect, yet correlating relationship of economic stability to political security when he suggested that there was "less to fear from a producing Germany than from a supine Germany which would cause the rest of Europe to slide into economic chaos, Communism and war."[12] It was an important relationship to consider in the context of rearmament, for the economic calculus played integral, yet different roles in both rearmament and statehood. Ultimately, economic potential assisted the Federal Republic in terms of its political value to Europe, and the prerequisites for a strong German military included a stable socio-economic foundation of the West German state, and that of Western Europe as a whole.

As Hitchcock writes, the inverse relationship between perception of the Soviet Union and Germany became all the more apparent in this post-war time. While the FDR tone towards the Soviet Union remained "hopeful if naïve," Washington under Truman had turned increasingly "harsher, simplistic, and aggressive."[13] In the meantime, the attitude towards West Germany, exemplified by denazification, changed from "punishment to restoration".[14] US post-war foreign policy on the continent was targeted at containment and the prevention of a further expansion into Central Europe.[15] However, many of the factors that would come together to establish the new role of Germany in the alliance would come from beyond European shores.

By 1950, the tensions in Berlin, Communist victory in China, and an invasion of Korea beckoned for a new national security policy. Mao's victory over a depleted Nationalist Government in China and the North Koreans' early success had all exposed weaknesses and over-commitments in the US military establishment, revealing to the world a depleted, demobilized American military. It was an American national security apparatus that no longer enjoyed the nuclear monopoly, had already seen failure in its attempts to contain and limit potential Communist expansions, and was locked into an ideological and military showdown from which there existed no simple military solution at hand. The new national security policy, its planning team led by Paul Nitze, called for a massive increase in defense spending, and a much enlarged struggle against a potentially more powerful enemy, an enemy who, "unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, anti-thetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world."[16]. To the military and political leaders at that time, it was neither exaggeration nor embellishment. Secret NATO reports had, by 1951, already suggested that, even with the United States superiority in nuclear weaponry, the conventional, qualitatively improving numerical advantage of the Red Army was a decisive factor to consider. The satellite countries themselves, including the large amount of trained and semi-trained population available for wartime mobilization, possessed "significant offensive capabilities... [Even] without support of Soviet tactical forces."[17] Thus, within the context of the Cold War atmosphere, US military commanders, as early as 1950, along with Acheson and Truman, had spoken of the need for a West German contribution for the defense of Western Europe, upon seeing the threadbare status of the NATO forces as a whole. Omar Bradley, at the time the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, believed any ground war with the Soviets would end in definite defeat.[18] Nor was the desperate image portrayed on the military front mitigated in any measure by the general European economic stall and the success of Communist parties in many of the Western European states.[19] With the visionary ideas of George Kennan's X Article in mind, NSC 68 became the blueprint of this new Cold War strategy, and one of the crucial pillars to the foundation the revision of the question of German rearmament.

Within Europe itself, a similar series of initially conflicting attitudes developed towards Germany, almost immediately following the war. Churchill himself typified the broad change in perspective; in his mention to Adenauer, he admitted that while others may say he had fought against Germany all his life, "in reality it was only five years." Indeed, Churchill had first proposed the idea of a United States of Europe, as well as the initial push for rearmament following disaster in Korea. This idea saw much support among British leadership, who, as Alter words, "had been one of the midwives at the birth of the Federal Republic," and fully supported the full integration of West Germany into the European community, including defense.[20] To the British, the goal appeared twofold: in bringing Germany to the community, the dual goals of protection for and from Germany would be achieved. It is possible that Harold MacMillan narrated it best when in his autobiography, he noted that "Germany, so often the scourge of Europe, can in due course be transformed into a healthy and valuable member of the European family," and prompt action must be undertaken to avoid the nightmare of a situation in which "Germany...despised... will once more be courted by each of the two groups... a pampered courtesan of Europe, selling her favours to the highest bidders."[21] Thus from 1946 onwards, Britain developed a policy of engaging the West Germans in cooperation and advocating the creation of the West German state, and subsequently the German military. These resulted in the Bevin and Eden Plans, both of which reflected the changed attitudes of the British, both of which called for a revived German sovereignty and an eventual reunification on the foundations of the Bonn state. Despite the legislative failure of many British initiatives, they sent a clear message of divergence from the wartime alliance with the Soviets, one that saw Germany as part of the Western community again.[22] And for those outside of Britain who favored a reintegration of West Germany and a strengthening of the defense community, their opinion is perhaps best summarized by the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, which noted of Germany: with its "particular geographical position at the centre of Europe, the size of its territory, its production capacity and its demographic potential, Germany would appear to be a reality which certainly cannot be ignored in the political, economic and military organisation of the continent."[23] Within the scope of the new international struggle, in which a ravaged Western Europe and weakened America were ostensibly matched against a numerically superior, ruthless, and insatiable Soviet Union, contemporaries spoke of the dire need for a West German contribution to the defense, a rebirth that would cement security and stability, if not out of fair play, then out of political necessity.

Yet while the bells tolled for a resumption of the military preparedness that had abandoned Europe in the wake of war, Germany's neighbors were still haunted by the fear and ghost of German militarism. While favorable to an eventual agreement and cooperation within which Germany would thrive as a partner, most European powers, especially France, were reluctant to move too quickly. Resistance to the timing of such developments, including NATO, demonstrates the fears and concerns that still lurked in the minds of European statesmen and leaders.[24] In France, the residual, smoldering resentment of the Germans and their responsibility for the devastation over the last three wars echoed far and wide in the population. De Gaulle's initial opinions took a hard stance against anything German, attaching importance to the economic recovery of France vis-à-vis the occupation of the Ruhr, at the same time "violently opposed to recreating any kind of unified, centralized Reich."[25] Even those within France who supported some kind of German contribution within the defense alliance expressed reservation at full rearmament, here voiced by Jean Monnet, who observed that, even during emergency, "the contribution made by German divisions will be largely outweighed by the resulting weakness springing from the rivalries and concerns at the risks that have always been associated with German militarism."[26]

By 1950, plans had already entered development for the incorporation of the Western European states into a multinational defense force known as the European Defense Community, driven forward by the appalling military weakness of Western Europe and the wakeup call of the Korean War. The Pleven Plan initially attempted to harness this German rearmament and limit the independence that a completely separate 'coalition-style' military arrangement would give Germany.[27] Indeed, to the French Government, "the formation of German divisions, of a German Ministry of Defence, would sooner or later be bound to lead to the rebuilding of a national army and, by that token, to the revival of German militarism," a threat they viewed as potentially disastrous for Germany and all her neighbors, citing within these clauses the suffering France had undergone since the unification of Germany in the 19th century.[28] The laborious process of negotiation eventually produced a final document a year later by 1952, with the Conference of the Six having radically altered the original French plan of a supranational 100,000 man army of battalion-sized contributions into a much larger force of forty national divisions. However optimistic the new arrangement looked, its actual military efficiency was limited by the command structure imposed by the French. France's fear of the possibility of a German supreme commander and a lack of practicality in the corps-sized detachments of varying nationalities rendered it vulnerable to attacks from both sides of the political spectrum.[29] German newspapers criticized its clear anti-German message, French newspapers wrote of the concern for a dangerous rearmed Germany anyway, and the Americans, in the meantime, grew increasingly impatient at the lack of progress. The EDC's defeat, while a temporary setback, much resembled the failure of ratification of the League of Nations, its host nation destroying its own brainchild. To its own immense discredit, a combination of party division, left-wing influence, and apparent détente in the wake of Korea and Stalin had defeated its own idea by a vote of 319-264 in August of 1952.[30] A last ditch mediation effort by one of the EDC's opponents, Mendes France, failed to change this, and "in one of his weekly radio addresses he confronted the French nation categorically with the dilemma: 'You must choose between German rearmament controlled by the EDC and German rearmament that you can no longer control in any way.'"[31] With the failure of the European Defense Community and the half-baked effort represented by the Western European Union, the question of German rearmament no longer rested directly within a European arrangement, but returned to the broad table of the Atlantic Alliance, where it was contingent not only upon American Cold War exigencies, but upon Germans themselves.

The issue of German rearmament within the Federal Republic was one that had divided the public and many in the government. The country faced not only economic and political collapse after the war, but a moral one as well. The reconstruction of the military necessitates a reevaluation of what Stephen Szabo terms the "strategic culture" of West Germany. The unpleasant legacy of the Third Reich, of the Holocaust, as well as the memories of Wilhelmine imperialism and militarism had created a society deeply suspicious of military expansion, especially one so close on the heels of complete destruction. The security of this new state demanded protection from these internal forces, as well as from outside forces ranging from the East German People's Police to the Red Army. For the nascent defense establishment itself, the membership of Germany in Atlantic and European defensive alliances precluded any development of a strategic culture that is not, first and foremost, multilateral and multinational.[32] Within the fabric of German society itself, following a particularly disastrous occupation by the Red Army in the closing stages of the war, uncertainty prevailed. To add to that, the new occupation by American forces had created differing responses, some of them positive, some of them negative. As a result of these intervening factors upon the average German, a variety of politics emerged to make sense of the developments and make policy for the future of Germany. Among these, the question of military tradition and the officers of previous wars proved central.

The former German military establishment proved invaluable to the formation of the new Bundeswehr, from the General Staff all the way down to non-commissioned officers and enlisted men. Indeed, the Bundeswehr's name itself was inspired by Hasso von Manteuffel, a distinguished Panzer General during the war and an important figure in the political push for rearmament.[33] The experience of the Wehrmacht was not only important in re-establishing the new military and filling out its personnel, it also provided the most extensive resource for how to deal with the Soviet military. This overcame not only foreign but domestic resistance, having to walk a fine line, bringing back the organizational and professional abilities of the vanquished wartime military while avoiding the emphasis on the political nature of the military elite and certain aspects of its tradition. This tradition encompassed not only the militaristic culture promoted by Wilhelmine Germany, but also the extensive relationship the military had forged with the government during Weimar and Nazi regimes, something which had corrupted the Prussian tradition and the officer corps since the late 19th century.[34] This black mark carried with it the guilt of many who had served in Germany's ranks during WWII, their conscious support of Hitler's policies, and the implicit negligence of the 19th century Prussian code of honor. From a historically objective standpoint, there is virtually no doubt that all high-ranking Wehrmacht officers were either complicit or negligent of the war crimes in the East. Yet with the emergence of a new political reality and the ensuing Cold War politico-military atmosphere, these memories were papered over and forgotten, by US Army and German civilians alike. As Eisenhower mentioned, he had "come to know that there is a real difference between the regular German soldier and officer and Hitler and his criminal group."[35]

The rebuilding of the German army involved an extensive catharsis and rethink of the entire German military tradition itself. The undesired prospect of seeing young Germans for the third time in half a century was immensely unpopular, and rearmament proponents focused a key part of their strategy to selling this to the German public.[36] "The Bonn government...would simultaneously have to rehabilitate the professional soldier while reforming the political conception of his place in state and society."[37] Popular disgust with the endemic militarism that had plagued previous regimes had to be reconciled with the need for a tradition for the new NATO West German military. The questions of morality dominated discussion of rearmament within Germany, as it asked of Germans whether the past should still matter.[38] Planners rethought the answer to this question to effectively incorporate both classic German military culture dating from the early 19th century, in Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Clausewitz, as well as the plotters of the July 20th assassination attempt, as a central historical aspect of Innere Führung. A concept whose direct translation, inner leadership, is inadequate in description, Innere Führung aimed at reconciling civil and military society, the idea that the Bundeswehr soldier can defend his nation while remaining a citizen with civil and political rights and responsibilities.[39] The efforts of Amt Blank and the Himmerod meeting accomplished not only the initial preparation for any rearmament, but the virtual reintegration of the military into German society as an accepted element of state again. However, this was ridiculed, especially Amt Blank's significant involvement with the "old boy network" and the close-knit environment of the senior staff officers upon which the logistics of rearmament rested.[40] Despite the criticisms of many for the use of former Wehrmacht officers in the reconstruction of the military, it was a practical, unavoidable move in light of the dire need for military expertise and experience.[41]

The role of these former Wehrmacht men, especially the senior command officers, proved central to the reorganization of Germany's military and its reformation within the Cold War grand strategy. The German Report Series, chronicled by the Department of the Army after the war with senior Wehrmacht officers in captivity, reflected this new geopolitical environment of the Cold War.[42] Among many other publications and interviews conducted with high-ranking Third Reich officers, some of them notably done by Liddell Hart, these documents represented the different political motives of not only the Germans, but also the people asking those questions. In short, the people who recorded the histories of these generals looked for specific answers and perspectives, and they received exactly what they sought. Of course, the bestselling value of these wartime accounts and memoirs were historically questionable, not only in the transfer of complete war guilt to Hitler and the Nazis, but also in the portrayal of their own operations in the course of the war. This poor historiography was often contradicted by contemporary war accounts, as one Brigadier General attached to the Historical Section of the Cabinet Office remarked 'that a great many of the statements made now in good faith by the German leaders from Rundstedt downwards are contradicted by their own contemporary records.'[43] Liddell Hart was one of the most influential of these historians and experts to attempt the task of essentially re-humanizing and re-socializing these men by writing their history. Yet while one cannot underestimate the historical value of such a noble effort to restore their reputation, even this had its deeper political motives. His support of rapid German rearmament and writings in an effort to influence the public opinion in general was a springboard for many senior officers to once again return to the level of professional respect they had previously enjoyed, and the top positions which came with that respect. This "rehabilitation of the top generals was seen as a crucial component of the public relations campaign which had to be waged," and indeed, such a rethink of the competence of the German officer was central to the reinvention of the German military tradition, as well as the outside perception of Germany itself.[44]

For some officers, their martial and tactical competence was arguably more important than their complicity in war crimes during the war. For others, their knowledge of the potential enemy was exchanged for a de facto acquittal from trial and the inhospitable treatment of the Soviets. Yet a broad current flows beneath all of these men: the apparent, complete reaffirmation of status of, as Liddell Hart writes, these "apolitical vacuum-men who have hitherto concentrated upon their professional work and have never thought about wider questions" and with it, the ignorance and denial of their own ethical failings.[45] In fact, as pointed out by Hans Speier, "military expertness is no guarantee of firm political loyalty and may, in fact, be combined conveniently with politically opportunistic behavior."[46] Central to German rearmament, however, was the question of how these negative aspects of wartime behavior could be marginalized while these same officers contributed to staff and rebuild the German national security system.

Erich von Manstein is arguably the best example of the new valuation of military ability over questionable moral practices, and the reinvention of these officers as apolitical, dutiful Germans. Von Manstein's success in France and on the Eastern Front drew many, such as B.H. Liddell Hart, to see him as the best commander the Wehrmacht possessed during the duration of the war, and with that recognition amongst wide recommendation, the potential Chief-of-Staff of any new German military.[47] Despite his own efforts at absolving blame during the war crimes trials, his guilt was impossible to ignore, evident in the cross examination of his support of the Commissars Order, which ordered no mercy to be conferred upon Soviet political officers, and the scorched earth tactics he had ordered in his retreat with Army Group South. Told that SS groups operated in his rear-areas, rounding up and killing civilians, Manstein ignored these reports, and turned a blind eye to Hitler's racial policies, simply stating at his trial that "it was not granted to me...to perceive Hitler's true nature, or the moral deterioration of his regime to the extent to which we can obviously do today."[48] Regardless of his own defense, it was impossible to overlook the daily communications from Ohlendorf, the commander of the Einsatzgruppe in the area, to the 11th Army staff.[49] Imprisoned briefly before a combination of public outcry, even from Montgomery and Churchill, and physical illness released him in 1953, he went on to be called upon by Adenauer for consultation regarding the new Bundeswehr, well respected, and even regarded as an unofficial chief-of-staff.[50] His post-war career was not the only example of the successful reinvention of a top Wehrmacht officer either and the let-bygones-be-bygones attitude the West adopted towards them. Indeed, Hans Speidel and Hasso von Manteuffel were among the others, the former eventually becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied ground forces in Central Europe, the latter a FDP representative in the new Bundestag.

The career of Reinhard Gehlen reflects not only the change of attitudes and the success of wartime senior officers in the new German defense establishment, but perhaps more importantly, the mutually beneficial negotiations and "amnesia" behind the scene as the war drew to a close. Serving in Foreign Armies East for most of the war, Gehlen was responsible for notorious failings during the German campaign in Russia, guessing wrong on enemy strength and intentions more than once, in particular the decisive defeat of Army Group Center during Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944. However, Gehlen continued his role in German command, and eventually joined others in the July 20th plot against Hitler. Successfully escaping the swift retribution, he went on to surrender to the Americans, and avoided the post-war denazification purges, impressing US intelligence officers with his extensive knowledge and connections in the East. While the end of the war meant an end to most Wehrmacht officers' careers, Gehlen succeeded where his wartime intelligence had failed. His supposed knowledge of the Soviets bought his freedom, and Gehlen went on to found the Gehlen Organization, the nucleus of the modern-day BND, or Federal Intelligence Service. In a situation where his wartime activities proved ineffective, the spymaster's role in the postwar West German intelligence community was perhaps even more abominable. The repeated failure of many intelligence operations and the revelation that many spies and informants of the Gehlen Organization were in fact double agents planted by the Soviets depicted the Cold War incompetence of this same man.[51] Among the many war criminals brought back into service were the likes of Konrad Fiebig who ran Einsatzgruppe B, responsible for the deaths of over 11,000 Jews, and Erich Deppner, who deputized in the organized deportations of over 100,000 Dutch Jews and the executions of Russian prisoners-of-war.[52] Many of these individuals after the war were kept on a secret payroll, their very identity a source of national embarrassment for the new Federal government. It was a relationship that the CIA continued to foster, often at substantial cost, for Cold War intelligence aims, and Reinhard Gehlen reflects this tradeoff of morals, knowledge, and politics as the German national security program underwent rebirth.

He himself played upon the Cold War hype when he, in his memoirs, identified the threat of Communism and intelligence agencies' importance in "securing a future for the free world, and for our own freedom and security."[53]

The rebirth of these military officers, many of whom had most questionable pasts, runs a similar path to the rebirth of the German military itself. Having overcome and rewritten tradition in order to achieve a Cold War partnership with America and Western Europe, the forces behind German rearmament had imposed upon Germany and Europe the necessities of a powerful, redefined defensive contribution from the Federal Republic in the Cold War world, a contribution that would become the centerpiece of any Allied military strategy in Europe. This 'revision' of status combined with the Wirtschaftswunder and the lesser factors of foreign aid to rebuild Germany's image in the world as a state no longer interested in unilateral, militarist adventures, but instead an image of a state using its economic prowess to rebuild its community, jointly focused on a multilateral defense within any Western alliance. Despite German political and military leadership's strong role in reinforcing Cold War considerations at home, it is ultimately their ability to convey the message overseas to their allies that had the deepest impact upon the success of the German rearmament program. With military leaders like Guderian to political figures such as Theodor Blank, their convincing post-war dialogues with the Americans and Western Europeans, the process of telling them exactly what they wanted to hear, propelled the German state not only to rearmament, but back to the status of the strongest military power on the Continent as well.

[1] Marc Trachtenberg & Christopher Gehrz, "America, Europe, and German Rearmament, August-September 1950: A Critique of a Myth," in M. Trachtenberg, Ed., "Between Empire and Alliance" (Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, Maryland, 2003), 7.

[2] Ibid, 10.

[3] Thomas Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 12-13.

[4] Anonymous. (October 22, 1945). Trouble in Germany. Time. Retrieved March 26, 2008, from Time/CNN database.

[5] S.P. MacKenzie. (1994). The Treatment of Prisoners in World War II. The Journal of Modern History, 66(3). Retrieved March 26, 2008, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2801%28199409%2966%3A3%3C487%3ATTOPOW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E

[6] Richard D. Wiggers. The United States and the Refusal to Feed German Civilians after World War II, in S. B. Vardy and T. H. Tooley, Eds., "Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe" (Boulder, Colorado: Social Science Monographs, 2003), 288.

[7] United States Department of State. (1944) Foreign relations of the United States. Conference at Quebec, 1944. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

[8] Henry Morgenthau. (1944) Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

[9] James Byrnes. (September 6, 1946). Restatement of Policy on Germany, September 6, 1946. Stuttgart, Germany: Department of State Documents on Germany.

[10] William I. Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe (New York: Random House, 2003), 90-2.

[11] Wiggers, 282.

[12] Anonymous. (July 28, 1947). Pas de Pagaille! Time. Retrieved March 26, 2008, from Time/CNN database.

[13] Hitchcock, 37.

[14] Ibid, 32.

[15] T. G. Paterson, Jr., G. Clifford, S. J. Maddock, D. Kisatsky, and K. J. Hagan, American Foreign Relations, Volume 2, A History - Since 1895 (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 254-5.

[16] National Security Council Study Group. (1950). A Report to the President pursuant to the President's directive of January 31, 1950 (NSC 68). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

[17] Anonymous. (November 23, 1950). NATO Study: Estimate of the relative strengths and capabilities of NATO and Soviet Bloc Forces at present and in the immediate future. European Historical Archive: NATO Archives: International Staff, Bruxelles.

[18] Trachtenberg & Gehrz, 2.

[19] Hitchcock, 68.

[20] Peter Alter, The German Question and Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 125-6.

[21] Ibid, 119.

[22] Ibid, 120.

[23] Ivo Luzzati. (March 30, 1950) La Germania nella difesa dell'Europa. Corriere della Sera (76). European Historical Archive. (CVCE, Trans.).

[24] Anonymous. (1950). Memorandum to the President of the French Council of Ministers (18 September 1950). European Historical Archive: Fonds AMG: Archives Jean Monnet, (CVCE, Trans.).

[25] Alter, 126.

[26] Jean Monnet. (October 20, 1950) Draft memo from Jean Monnet to the President of the Council. European Historical Archive: Fonds AMG: Archives Jean Monnet, (CVCE, Trans.).

[27]Memorandum to the President of the French Council of Ministers (18 September 1950).

[28] René Pleven. (October 24, 1950) Statement to the French national assembly. European Historical Archive: Journal officiel de la République française, (CVCE, Trans.).

[29] Robert Borchardt. (May 30, 1952) A pact with shortcomings. Süddeutsche Zeitung (123). European Historical Archive. (CVCE, Trans.).

[30] John Hulsman. (2000). The guns of Brussels: Burden sharing and power sharing with Europe. Policy Review. Retrieved April 19, 2008, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3647/is_200006/ai_n8883617/pg_1

[31] Augusto Guerriero. (August 31, 1954) Il problema fondamentale. Corriere della Sera (79). European Historical Archive. (CVCE, Trans.).

[32] Stephen F. Szabo, The Changing Politics of German Security (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 3-5.

[33] Donald Abenheim, Reforging the Iron Cross (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 126.

[34] Hans Speier. (January 1954). German Rearmament and the Old Military Elite. World Politics, 6(2). Retrieved April 26, 2008, from JSTOR database.

[35] Maria Hohn. GIs and Frauleins (London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 58.

[36] Abenheim, 43.

[37] Ibid, 68.

[38] Ibid, 292.

[39] Petra McGregor. (April 2006). The Role of Innere Führung in German Civil-Military Relations. Strategic Insights,V(4). Retrieved 4/26/2008, from http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2006/Apr/mcgregorApr06.asp

[40] Abenheim, 85.

[41] Ibid, 62.

[42] Department of the Army. (January 1952). Operations of Encircled Forces: German Experiences in Russia. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army.

[43] Alaric Searle. (1998). A Very Special Relationship: Basil Liddell Hart, Wehrmacht Generals and the Debate on West German Rearmament, 1945-1953. War in History. 5(3). Retrieved April 26, 2008, from JSTOR database.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Speier, German Rearmament and the Old Military Elite.

[47] Searle, A Very Special Relationship.

[48] Noel Annan. (1993). How Wrong Was Churchill? The New York Review of Books, 40(7). Retrieved April 18, 2008, from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2604

[49] Jörg Muth. (2006). Erich von Manstein: His Life, Character, and Operations - A Reappraisal. Axis History Factbook. Retrieved April 21, 2008, from http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=7901

[50] Ibid.

[51] John Pike. (1997). Gehlen Organization. Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from http://www.fas.org/irp/world/germany/intro/gehlen.htm

[52] Timothy Naftali. (2004). Berlin to Baghdad: The Pitfalls of Hiring Enemy Intelligence. Foreign Affairs, 83(4). Retrieved April 18, 2008, from http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040701fareviewessay83412/timothy-naftali/berlin-to-baghdad-the-pitfalls-of-hiring-enemy-intelligence.html

[53] Gehlen, Reinhard. The Service - The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen. (David Irving. Trans.). (New York: World Publishing, 1971), 371.