Nazis in The East German Government (Focus Magazine, 1953)
More on Post-War Germany can be read here…
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Aftermath (WWII)
Learn about post-WW II Europe with these old magazine articles. Find information on occupied Germany in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Anti-Nazi POWs Schooled in the Ways of Democracy (American Magazine, 1946)
Counted among the hundreds of thousands of captured Nazi combatants during the war were thousands of anti-Nazi German draftees who were predictably alienated from the majority of German P.O.W.s in their respective camps. Subjected to kangaroo courts, hazings and random acts of brutality, these Germans were immediately recognized by their captors as a vital element that could prove helpful in the process of rebuilding Germany when the war reached an end.
And so it was early in 1944 when the U.S. Army’s Special Projects Division of the Office of the Provost Marshal General was established in order to take on the enormous task of re-educating these German prisoners of war
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Post-War Nazis (Pathfinder Magazine, 1951)
By clicking the title link posted above you will see a photo of what appears to be the Fascist’s answer to the von Trapp Family Singers – but hold, good reader – it was something far more sinister.
Read about American censorship in Occupied-Japan…
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The English-German Phrase Book for Occupying Forces (U.S. Army, 1943)
Printed years before Germany’s surrender, here is the digitized copy of the English/German phrase book that was printed by the U.S. Army for distribution among those soldiers who would be occupying that country in 1945. It is beautifully illustrated by the cartoonist Milton Caniff and is sixty-seven pages in length.
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Germany, The Unrepentant (See Magazine, 1950)
Filed from Berlin by the respected American journalist William Shirer (1904 – 1993), he read the findings of a German opinion poll revealing that
• A majority of Germans tended to hold that Nazism was good, when properly administered.
• Antisemitism was rapidly assuming its customary spot within German society.
• War guilt was largely non-existent and Nazi publications were rolling off the smaller presses with predictable regularity.
Shirer also reported that unrepentant, senior Nazis like Max Amann were getting out of prison, expecting to wield the power they once enjoyed as as one of Hitler’s yes-men.
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The Hunt in Occupied-Germany (Pic Magazine, 1946)
While the hunt for Nazis and hidden weapons cachés was taking place in allied-occupied Germany, a small number of U.S. Army detectives happened upon the entire archives of the Nazi Party.
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The American Sector (United States News, 1945)
Written seven months after VE-Day, this article reported on life in the American zone of occupation:
Today, with every facet of his life policed by foreign conquerors, the German civilian faces the worst winter his country has known in centuries. And it is likely to be but the first of several such winters. He is hungry now, and he will be cold. Shelter is inadequate. His property is looted by his neighbor. Lawlessness and juvenile delinquency disturb him. Public health teeters in precarious balance which might tip the disaster.
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The Abusive Occupying Army (Collier’s Magazine, 1946)
This editorial lends credibility to Andrei Cherny’s 2007 tome, The Candy Bombers
Stories keep coming back to this country about American soldiers sticking up Berlin restaurants, or beating up German citizens, or looting German homes. How much of this stuff goes on, we don’t know. We do know that some of it goes on, and that any of it is too much. Not that we believe in sobbing unduly over the German people, they let themselves be razzle-dazzled into the war by Hitler and his mobsters.
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The Policy Behind the Occupation of Germany (Yank Magazine, 1945)
In the aftermath of World War II Germany found themselves occupied by four armies; in the attached article General Eisenhower explained what the policy of the German occupation was to be:
‘His idea is that the biggest job for right now is riding herd on the rehabilitation of Germany’s political and economic structure…We are working toward a government of Germany by the Germans under the supervision of the Allied General Control Council,’ he said. The government will pass more and more under German civil control. At first we’ll have to look down the German’s necks in everything they do.’
-To read more 1940s articles about General Eisenhower, click here.
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The Post-War Miracle that was Volkswagen (Pic Magazine, 1955)
Out of the smoldering ruins of Japan came the Honda factories; while Germany amazed their old enemies by rapidly beating their crematoriums into Volkswagens. Confidently managed by a fellow who only a short while before was serving as a lowly private in Hitler’s retreating army, Volkswagen quickly retooled, making the vital improvements that were necessary to compete in the global markets.
Ludwig Erhard (1897 – 1977), West Germany’s Minister of Economics between the years 1949 and 1963, once remarked that Germany was able to launch its Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) by implementing the principles of a market economy and laissez-fair capitalism within the framework of a semi-socialist state.
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