US Army

Berchtesgaden under new management

After the Nazi government fell on May 7/8. 1945, Germany was divded into four military occupation zones -- American, Russian, British, and French -- plus Berlin, which was itself divided into four sectors. Each had its own form of military government, although the U.S. had hoped for a unified, combined 4-power rule. I took this 1946 photo of the Berchtesgaden MG entrance and was promptly stopped by a Third Army MP for being out of uniform (I was wearing an AAF-issued parka in sub-freezing weather). Military Government in the American Zone was a mixed experience. It had two incompatible goals: it was to impose "denazification" on the entire population by arresting all Nazi administrators, publishers, teachers, police, judiciary, etc., remove all textbooks, newspapers, movies, etc., and then individually review millions of "Fragebogen" questionnaires (all written in German) to ferret out any hidden Nazis; at the same time Military Government was to implement the Democratization of the new German society. Within a year, the U.S. and British Military Governments threw up their hands and turned the Denazification chores over to the GermansOn "April Fool's Day," 1946, a special law established 545 civilian tribunals ("Spruchkammer") under German administatonand staffed with 22,000 lay judges. Corruption was soon rampant. The goal changed from punishment to rehabilitation. The Russians took a different approach. Any Nazi who failed to follow orders was arrested and packed off to Siberia for some years of hard labor.