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Anniversary Message from the
Commanding General, OMGUS
To: U.S. Military Government Personnel in Germany
It is difficult to establish a birthday for U.S. Military Government. Many
of its present personnel belonged to the U.S. Group Control Council which
started planning for military government in England in 1944. - Many others
belonged to the Military Government Detachments of Supreme Headquarters,
Allied Expeditionary Forces, and had exercised planning and executive respon-
sibilities prior to the surrender of Germany. However, on the day SHAEF
was dissolved, military government in the U.S. Zone of Germany became a
direct responsibility of U.S. Military Government. Therefore, we can well
call
14 July our birthday.
The personnel of Military Government do not need to be reminded now of
the gravity of the war which had ended just a few weeks before the birth
of
Military Government, and the effect which that war had on Europe as a whole.
Many of you had seen its effect in Allied countries. All of you have seen
its
effect in Germany.
When Military Government was established in Germany, you were confront-
ed with the ruins of war and with a dislocated political and economic life
which threatened chaos, hunger, and disease. You were charged with -the
government of a people so indoctrinated in Nazism as to have lost all feeling
of self-responsibility.
You have worked hard to restore order and stability; to destroy militarism
and Nazism not only as a part of the social structure of Germany but to re-
move it from the heart and minds of the German people.
Our program in Germany is a difficult program. It requires a firm determ-
ination to destroy Germany's war potential through demilitarization, denazi-
fication, and the removal of war-making capacity in heavy industry to be
given in partial reparation to the countries which suffered from German ag-
gression. It demands the punishment of those who led Germany into the sup-
pression of individual rights and then into aggressive war with ruthless
pur-
pose. Simultaneously, it calls for the restoration of the responsibility
for self-
government to the German people through democratic processes. It requires
the reeducation of the German people to a liberal philosophy of life. It
re-
quires firm justice in exacting punitive measures tempered with considerate
courtesy and aid to those in Germany who will work to restore democracy.
During the past year the American Army and you working together have
accomplished such. The German Army is disbanded. Nazi leaders have been
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