Towards the end of hostilities, the Allied powers considered the problem of what was to happen to Germany in the aftermath. The world was war-weary, but war crimes were to be investigated and the guilty punished. It was in such an atmosphere that the Control Commission for Germany was organised, a vast civilian bureaucracy which was to be responsible for every aspect of the country's economy. The stated intention was to reduce Germany to a pastoral state for at least 25 years, preventing any resurgence of militarism, as after 1918. Needless to say, this barely lasted two years before the intransigence and ambitions of the USSR manifested themselves, particularly in Berlin. The plans were hurriedly revised, and all haste made to revive and rejuvenate a new Germany, one essential to western strategy.
展开▼
