How was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed? Does NATO still have a purpose in a post-Cold War Europe? How did US foreign policy toward Germany seek to rectify the problem of a power vacuum in Central Europe during the period between the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961? How were US policy goals defined and what were the means of implementing those goals?
US foreign policy sought to fill the power vacuum created in Central Europe with the military defeat and occupation of Germany by creating alliances with West Germany and the other western powers to contain the Soviet Union. US policy focused on preventing the Soviet Union from taking over West Germany and the other western powers militarily. US policy also sought to integrate West Germany and the other western powers in a military and economic alliance that would contain Soviet expansionism (and thus the spread of Communism) and ensure economic viability for capitalist, non-Communist states. The ultimate goal of US foreign policy was containment, to contain the Soviet Union militarily in Central Europe. West Germany was vital to the global US policy of containment against the USSR. The result was the creation of NATO.
The Policy of Containment Emerges
As World War II neared its end, US foreign policy goals were to contain the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism. Germany would be the point of engagement between the two new global superpowers. World War II ended with US and American armies occupying Germany. With the military defeat of Nazi Germany, a power vacuum resulted in Central Europe. Both the US and USSR sought to fill this power vacuum. Following the Potsdam conference of July 17 to August 2, 1945, US President Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill (replaced by Clement Attlee following the victory of the Labor Party), worked out the occupation and administration of post-war Germany. The US, the UK, the USSR, and France would be assigned zones of occupation for Germany as well as the city of Berlin, which was 100 miles inside the Soviet zone. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had argued that the Allies---the US, USSR, UK, and France---should work in "cooperation" in the post-war period. By 1949, the de facto division of Germany resulted as the US and the USSR were at an impasse on how to resolve the issue.
At the beginning of the US occupation of Germany, the US had no clear-cut policy goals with regard to German policy, "no conceptual road map, no clear image of Germany's place in the world, no idÙe maitresse with which to plot Germany's future." (1) There was "administrative disorganization" on the part of US officials. (2) US High Commissioner in Germany John J. McCloy stated that "everything … was in a state of chaos. There was no planning, no cooperation, no high purpose." (3)
In Joint Chiefs of Staff directive 1067 of April 1945, the US policy goals were defined as "demilitarization", "denazification", "decartelization", and "democratization" and "preventing Germany from becoming again a threat to the world." The policy was not as harsh as the rejected Carthaginian Morgenthau Plan of US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau which sought to destroy the German economy and industrial capacity and create a "pastoral" nation, an agrarian society. High Commissioner John J. McCloy first sought the "moral integration" of Germany, which "could begin only when Germans came to terms with the horrors of the Nazi era, both by prosecuting the perpetrators of the crimes and making amends to the victims." (4) Thus, before Germany could be reintegrated into the West, there must first be a "reckoning with the past" (Vergangenheitsbewaltigung). The Nazi crimes committed during the Holocaust and against citizens in the occupied countries of Europe needed to be acknowledged, prosecuted, and punished.
Economic considerations also went into the formulation of US policy. The "revisionist school" emphasized the importance of economic factors in American foreign policy during the Cold War. There was a US commitment not just to stop Communism but to defend the economic interests of the US, to defend capitalism, ideologically and materially. American policy makers had learned "several lessons" from the last three decades regarding economic matters: "They concluded that American prosperity depended at least in part upon a thriving international economy." (5) Thus, a repeat of the Versailles punitive reparations regimen meant to utterly destroy the German economy was to be avoided. Nevertheless, under the 1067 directive, any measures which were aimed "toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany" or which were "designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy" were prohibited.
In the initial stages of the US occupation of Germany, the US lacked a policy with regard to the future of Germany. Major General Lucius Clay stated: "Our first objective is to smash whatever remaining power Germany may have with which to develop a future war potential." US policy began to change in 1947 with the emergence of the so-called Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine was a foreign policy abandonment of co-operation with the USSR. The US would seek to confront and contain Communist/Soviet expansion around the globe. This was the policy of containment directed against the USSR and global Communism. Greece and Turkey were the first test cases. The Truman Doctrine entailed the commitment of the US to contain Communism, to wage a world-wide war against it. The Cold War had begun.
US Policy of "Double Containment"
To contain the USSR in Central Europe, the US needed to strengthen West Germany. But wasn't the US foreign policy goal in West Germany to prevent the resurgence of German militarism? The US faced a dilemma with regard to the occupation of Germany. Should the US demilitarize Germany or should Germany be re-armed? This was the issue that US foreign policy grappled with in Germany. Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Lucius Clay, and US President Harry S. Truman favored a demilitarized Germany. Germany had to be "contained" to ensure peace.
The Soviet Union, however, sought to fill the power vacuum that resulted from this policy of keeping Germany disarmed. The Soviet Union thus strengthened its military position in Central Europe. The Russians had 27 divisions in East Germany, their zone of occupation, as well as a German Barracks-based "People's Police" (Kasernierte Volkspolizei) of up to 100,000 men, which were seen as a camouflaged army. The US had to thus contain the Soviet Union as well. So a policy of "double containment" resulted where the US sought to contain both Germany and the USSR.
The problem was complicated by the fact that Four Powers occupied Germany jointly. Dean Acheson, the US Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953, argued that "American ideas had changed greatly in the four years since the harsh occupation policy laid down in the April 1945 Joint Chiefs of Staff directive (JCS 1067)." (6) Acheson maintained that JCS directive 1067 had these policy goals: 1) "to bring home to the Germans that they could not escape the suffering they had brought upon themselves"; 2) "to be firm, aloof, and discourage all fraternization"; 3) "to prevent Germany's ever becoming a threat to the peace" by "controlling Germany's capacity to make war" by denazification, democratization, demilitarization, and decartelization, the "Four Ds"; 4) to enable war reparations to be made and to expedite the return of POWs; 5) "to control German economy to achieve these objectives and prevent any higher standard of living than in neighboring nations." (7) Major General Lucius Clay pronounced the policy goals of JCS directive 1067 as "unworkable". (8)
James F. Byrnes, US Secretary of State from 1945 to 1947, under whom Acheson served as Under Secretary, in a speech on September 6, 1946, had argued that Germany should not be turned in an "economic poorhouse" and that the Germans themselves should be given "primary responsibility for the running of their own affairs." On May 29, 1947, Byrnes and British foreign minister Ernest Bevin agreed to unite the US and British zones into an economic unit known as "Bizonia". France, however, refused to join in this plan. On May 8, 1947, Acheson himself made a speech in Cleveland, Mississippi in which he argued that the US should "push ahead with the reconstruction of those two great workshops of Europe and Asia---Germany and Japan."
US policy goals thus shifted in mid-1947 from a Carthaginian punitive occupation of Germany to a "more liberal" policy of allowing Germany to create "a self-sustaining economy" and greater initiative. On July 11, 1947, JCS directive 1779 was issued which enunciated this change in German policy favoring a more liberal approach. The result was that German industrial output was allowed to reach the 1936 level, generally regarded as the last year before Germany went into a war economy.
Why was there a change in US policy? The US State Department quickly realized that a weak German economy was leading to "economic misery" in Western Europe which resulted in strengthening Communism parties and movements in those countries. By punishing Germany economically, the US was inadvertently helping in the rise of Communism in Europe. This was the rationale for the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program). George C. Marshall, the new US Secretary of State since January 21, 1947, sponsored this aid program that offered loans, raw materials, and food stuffs to the impoverished European nations. To implement the plan, currency reform was needed in Germany. Most production and price controls were ended in Bizonia in 1948 by the economic director of the zone, Ludwig Erhard. The new Deutsche Mark (DM) was also introduced in the Western sectors of Berlin. The Soviets objected to this measure, however, intending to introduce a uniform currency for all of Berlin themselves. Acheson agreed that "the much-needed currency reform for West Germany (though, at this time, not for Berlin, still regarded as under four-power control) triggered the final break with the Soviet Union in Germany." (9)
The sequence of events leading to the Berlin Blockade began on March 17, 1948 when Britain, France, and the Benelux countries signed the Brussels Defense Pact, a mutual defense treaty that was to last for fifty years. The Soviet representative walked out of the Allied Control Council meeting in Berlin three days later. The US, UK, France, and the Benelux countries met in London and announced on June 7 their recommendations that sought to revitalize the German economy and provide political institutions with "the minimum requirements of occupation and control." On June 11, the Soviets stopped rail traffic between Berlin and West Germany for two days. On June 18, the US, UK, and France announced that they would initiate currency reform in West Germany. The Soviets responded with their own currency reform for East Germany and all of Berlin on June 23. The US, UK, and France then introduced currency reform in West Berlin. The next day, the Soviets retaliated with a full land blockade of Berlin. As Acheson described in his memoirs, this confrontation over Berlin came close to precipitating a war with the USSR. General Clay had first assumed the Russians were bluffing but then became convinced that "it was clear the Russians meant business" when they stopped an allied military train. The Soviets had superiority on the ground and so would overpower a US response. The US, however, held air superiority. So the airlift option was decided upon. The ball was then placed in the Soviet court. The Soviets could either not interfere in the airlift or attack the planes, initiating a military conflict in an area where they lacked superiority, in air power. Moreover, the onus would be on whomever fired the first shot in starting a potential war. In many ways, this confrontation was the precursor to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cold War was now in full swing.
What resulted in this US-Soviet confrontation over Germany was thus the Berlin Blockade, the total land blockade of Berlin beginning on June 24, 1948. The US responded with the Berlin Airlift in which the Western Allies flew approximately 200,000 air sorties into the city to deliver 1.5 million tons of food, coal, and other material. The blockade lasted for eleven months. What eventually emerged from this political impasse was the division of the city of Berlin into an East and West Berlin. Ernst Reuter of the SPD became the mayor of West Berlin while Friedrich Ebert of the SED became the mayor of East Berlin. Berlin became a microcosm of Germany as a whole. Acheson noted that in those four years, the Soviet "control of Eastern Europe" had "intensified" and had "produced dangerous action farther west, of which the most ominous was the blockade of Berlin."
More accurately, US policy evolved over those four years from one of a harsh and punitive military occupation to one of greater German integration into the Western alliance system and greater German economic and political freedom. It should be pointed out that US foreign policy in Germany was not static, but evolutionary, evolving over this post-war period.
A "Forward Strategy"
On September 21, 1949, West Germany was created. On April 4, 1949, the US had signed the North Atlantic Treaty creating NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a "defensive" military alliance between the US, UK, Canada, France, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, and the Benelux countries. This alliance would be under the leadership of the US and pledged that each nation would provide mutual military assistance and "that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." In 1952, Greece and Turkey joined NATO. West Germany, however, was excluded from NATO. Indeed, in November, 1949, the new chancellor of West Germany Konrad Adenauer, signed an Occupation Statute with the high commissioners that mandated the continued demilitarization of Germany and prohibited the formation of armed forces of any sort.
Even by 1949 there still lingered a powerful "taboo" against "militarism" in Germany that was shared by Adenauer, the German public, French leaders, and US policy makers. The extent of the aversion to "German militarism" is shown by the prohibition of glider planes and fencing because they were categorized as "military exercises." US foreign policy reflected this goal of the total demilitarization of Germany.
There was a major and dramatic shift, however, in this US policy. Why was there such a drastic change in US policy away from West German demilitarization? When did it occur?
In this US policy shift on the rearmament of Germany, several factors played a role. This US policy change occurred only after a "long series of hurdles" were cleared, which included "self-doubts, widespread European reluctance, and Soviet obstructionism." (10) Germany had been an "ideological, not a traditional enemy" of the US. (11) More importantly, the Russians fought the major battles with Germany during World War II. The US fought its major battles against Japan. In acknowledgment of this fact, General Dwight D. Eisenhower agreed to let the Russians take Berlin, the capital of the Third Reich. Up until 1944, there was only one front in Europe, the Russian Front. By this time, however, the Russians were already near to occupying German territory. By October, 1944, Russian troops had advanced into East Prussia. So, arguably, by the time of the D-Day landing, Germany was already militarily defeated by Russia. And, indeed, the battle of Kursk-Orel in mid-1943, which broke the back of the Germany army, decided the war. The German Army lost offensive strategic capability following that disastrous engagement. German forces were in retreat by the summer of 1943 on the Russian Front. The bulk of the German armed forces, over three million men, along with 150,000 Romanian troops, Spanish, Italian, Croatian, Bosnian Muslim, Hungarian volunteers, were deployed in the Soviet Union. All the elite German formations, including the Waffen SS divisions, were deployed in Operation Barbarossa. The Einsatzgruppen (Action Squads) police units were also sent into Russia which engaged in the mass executions of not only Jews, but Communist "commissars", guerrillas, hostages, and civilians. The Russians, thus, felt the full brunt of the Nazi war machine. The US did not. This is an important factor in showing why the US was willing to be more lenient or "liberal" in its occupation policy towards Germany. Moreover, the German invasion and occupation of the USSR destroyed the economic infrastructure of those areas. The losses were massive. The Soviets thus were eager to obtain reparations, especially in kind, including heavy industrial equipment, from Germany.
By contrast, the US economic infrastructure was not impacted by Germany. So consequently the US did not need to be made whole by Germany. These factors are important in analyzing differing US and Soviet attitudes toward Germany, especially with regard to militarization. Thus, there was much greater antipathy to the rearmament of Germany in the USSR and the other countries of Europe who had been occupied by Germany during the war, such as France, than there was in the US.
US policy continued to oppose the rearmament of Germany as late as August, 1950. A US State Department statement declared that it had "opposed, and still strongly opposes, the creation of German national forces." A rearmed Germany "frightened" the State Department. George Kennan stated that the "German people are still politically immature and lacking in any realistic understanding of themselves and their past mistakes."
In April, 1950, US High Commissioner in Germany John McCloy argued, however, that German economic restrictions should be lifted and Germany should be made "a full partner" in the future. The punitive approach was "unrealistic" according to McCloy. This had been the reasoning behind the Marshall Plan. Only an economically strong Western Europe could resist the incursion of Communism. Italy, for instance, had a large Communist movement.
The change in US policy evolved in 1950. It began with National Security Council resolution 68 which argued that the US should "conclude separate arrangements with Japan, Western Germany, and Austria which would enlist the energies and resources of those countries in support of the free world." The major shift in US policy with regard to German rearmament was reflected in NSC-71 in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff argued that Germany should be rearmed: "the appropriate and early arming of Germany is of fundamental importance to the defense of Western Europe against the USSR." There was, however, still lingering opposition. President Truman stated that the proposal was "decidedly militaristic" while Acheson regarded the creation of a German army as "quite insane". In his memoirs, Acheson stated that as late as June 5, 1950, he opposed the rearmament of Germany, a view shared by the State Department, but not the Defense Department: "the United States would continue the policy of German demilitarization." (12) Acheson recounted how General Omar Bradley had suggested to him the next day that "from a strictly military point of view, I do believe the defense of western Europe would be strengthened by the inclusion of Germany." McCloy had recommended in July that Germany be rearmed. Thus, US policy was gradually evolving towards German rearmament, towards including West Germany in US military alliances to contain the USSR.
The decisive event that changed US policy in Germany was the June 25, 1950 North Korean invasion of South Korea. Acheson sated that a reassessment of US policy in Germany was now in order: "it was time to consider our plans for European defense in the light of Korea."
The US was evolving a "forward strategy" before the Korean attack in 1950. As Acheson noted, "the need for increased military strength was in the air, given a renewed fillip by the Korean attack." General Bradley described this "fundamental change" in US foreign policy strategy with regard to Germany as follows: "Communism is willing to use arms to gain its ends. This is a fundamental change, and it has forced a change in our estimate of the military needs of the United States."
The Korean scenario was now transposed onto Germany by US policy makers. If East Germany invaded West Germany, the West Germans would be out-manned and outgunned because Germany was demilitarized. The USSR acquired atomic weapons in 1949 so the US no longer had the nuclear deterrent. According to Acheson, there were only 12 NATO divisions in Europe compared to 27 Soviet divisions in East Germany and up to 100,000 East German police units that could quickly be converted into a military force. (13)
The Korean invasion changed everything. Acheson did an about-face on German rearmament: "My conversion to German participation in European defense was quick." The Korean events had changed his views: "Korea had speeded up evolution." It meant that West Germany now had the primary role in the "balancing of power in Europe." According to Acheson, US defense strategy against the USSR in Europe "had to be based on a forward strategy."
This was the key decision in US policy towards West Germany. Germany would now be integrated into US military alliances to contain the USSR in Central Europe. This policy of German inclusion would remain the focus of US containment policy throughout the rest of the Cold War. What followed now was a search for a way to realize a forward strategy with German military participation.
A rearmed Germany was opposed, however, by France, the USSR, and even by the German population that had undergone five years of demilitarization. Now, the US was asking that the Germans reverse their anti-militarist position.
Stalin proposed a solution of his own. He proposed that Germany be united, with both the East and West German governments joining as equals. The requirement was that Germany adopt a neutral policy towards East and West, that the united Germany be "neutralized".
The way to solve the problem, it was decided, was by creating a European Army which would include German troops at the regimental level. The idea of creating a European army resulted from the Pleven Plan, proposed by French prime minister Rene Pleven. Acheson had "shocked" French defense minister Jules Moch at a NATO meeting in September, 1950, by proposing that there be a "rapid creation" of ten German divisions. (14) Moch and French foreign minister Robert Schuman opposed the creation of German divisions. Full support of the European Defense Community (EDC) plan became official US policy in 1951.
Acheson proposed that the German divisions be "in an integrated command" which would be led by a US commander. In conjunction with the formation of German divisions, Acheson envisioned the stationing of additional US divisions in Europe. In addition, France would receive additional military aid.
The US played a central role in negotiations that transformed the Pleven Plan into the treaty that created the European Defense Community (EDC). On May 26, 1952, the EDC treaty was signed. The treaty effectively died two years later, however, when the French national Assembly refused to ratify it because it was seen as infringing national sovereignty by putting French troops under supranational command. The EDC plan entailed the violation of national sovereignty:" from a traditional nationalist viewpoint the EDC was a wildly improbable project." (15) Moreover, Acheson, being an "Atlanticist", not a "Europeanist", generally opposed a European solution that would in effect create a United States of Europe.
German leaders opposed the EDC as well. Kurt Schumacher dismissed the EDC because it treated German troops as "second-class human beings and first-class blood donors." The Germans would thus function as mercenaries or cannon fodder in the EDC scheme. A "traditional nationalism" underpinned German rejection of the EDC. Germans would be rearmed but not Germany. (16) The EDC never gained the approval of more than a third of the West German population. The French Assembly refused to ratify the EDC treaty on August 30, 1954. The "EDC was effectively dead." (17)
By this time, President Dwight Eisenhower was the new US President and John Foster Dulles the new Secretary of State. On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin had died. So a change of political leadership resulted in both the US and USSR in 1953. They continued the Truman and Acheson policy with regard to Germany. The rejection of the EDC by France startled Dulles, which he called "a crisis of almost terrifying proportions." Dulles rejected a policy that would necessitate a reliance on "a course of narrow nationalism." Dulles envisioned a supranational solution to the rearmament of Germany. Adenauer saw the French rejection as wasting three years of diplomatic effort and saw the French as wrecking the "European idea."
The French rejection of the EDC plan led to a major shift in US policy towards Germany by the Eisenhower administration. Eisenhower now regarded West Germany as the closest ally of the US on continental Europe: "We could get along without France but not without Germany." Germany thus went from a pariah and military threat to the closest ally of the US in Europe.
West Germany Becomes a NATO Member
The Eisenhower administration policy was to make West Germany the focus or bulwark of US containment policy against the USSR on the European continent. This was, in essence, always the US foreign policy goal with regard to West Germany from 1945 onwards: To use West Germany as an ally in the containment of the USSR. But before this policy could be openly declared and followed, West Germany had first to be integrated into the US military and economic and political alliance system or framework. But once integration was achieved, then there was no obstacle to making Germany the bulwark of US containment policy in Central Europe.
This policy shift necessitated treating West Germany as a partner and ally rather than as an occupied foe. What occurred in 1954 was the granting of full sovereignty to West Germany by the US. Similarly, the Soviet Union granted full sovereignty to East Germany, the DDR. On October 23, 1954, the Paris Protocols mandated the end of the military occupation of West Germany and its admission into NATO. West Germany was also admitted into the reconstructed Western European Union. On May 5, 1955, the occupation of West Germany officially ended and on May 9, West Germany became a member of NATO.
The Soviets responded with the signing of the Warsaw Pact Treaty on May 14. The Warsaw Pact was a military alliance that the Soviet Union established to counter NATO. What emerged in central Europe were two military blocs or alliances that opposed each other. West Germany was a member of NATO while East Germany was a member of the Warsaw Pact.
With the defeat of the EDC plan and the admission of West Germany into NATO, the US assumed full responsibility for the defense of Western Europe. Under the EDC plan, the goal was to create a united western Europe that would act as a third force in international affairs along with the US and USSR. The NATO plan precluded such a third bloc.
NATO was a hierarchical organizational structure that was under the leadership of the US. In other words, the US would be directly responsible for the security of western Europe now. This policy entailed that the US would have to station troops in western Europe and devise a defense or security strategy for western Europe. Allowing West Germany to join NATO meant that the US assumed greater responsibilities and commitments in the defense of western Europe. The border between West and East Germany thus became the confrontation line between the US and USSR in the Cold War in Europe.
What were the policy goals of NATO? Lord Ismay, the first Secretary General of NATO from 1952 to 1957, stated that the objective of NATO was "to keep the Americans in (the alliance), to keep the Russians out, and to keep the Germans down." Ismay's dictum was later invoked as: "To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." To be sure, the US policy goal was to continue the containment of the USSR, to integrate the US and West Germany in a defensive alliance in Central Europe to support this containment, and to ensure that West Germany is integrated in a US military alliance, under direct US military control.
West Berlin became the "trip wire" for any possible new war between the superpowers. Surrounded by Soviet and East German troops, West Berlin was vulnerable. For the Soviets, it allowed East Germans to emigrate to West Germany. Now that the Cold War confrontation had solidified and crystallized in East and West Germany, now that West Germany was part of the US-led NATO forces, the US was responsible for devising a defensive strategy.
Nuclear Deterrence: The New Look
The policy the Eisenhower administration adopted was nuclear deterrence, "massive retaliation", the reliance on atomic weapons to deter Soviet expansion into western Europe. The policy was known as the New Look. To counter overwhelming Soviet troop strength in Europe, the US would have to deploy ground troops in Europe as necessitated by the NATO alliance because the US had now assumed primary responsibility for the defense of western Europe.
Eisenhower wanted to avoid the massive expenditure needed for such a deployment. The cost-effective approach adopted was to equip US forces with tactical nuclear weapons. Eisenhower announced: "In the event of hostilities, the United States will consider nuclear weapons to be as available for use as other munitions." In 1954, NATO Supreme Commander, General Alfred Gruenther declared that any future war in Europe would "inevitably be atomic". In December, 1957, NATO authorized the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons would compensate for NATO's conventional inferiority to the Warsaw Pact in Europe, they would be the equalizer.
West Germany was supposed to amass an army of 500,000 troops for the Bundeswehr when it entered NATO. (18) But by the end of 1956, only a force of 67,000 had been assembled. By the end of 1959, this number had been increased to 230,000. This glaring lack of ground troops on the part of NATO necessitated a reliance on atomic weapons.
Fears of an atomic war in central Europe which such a policy entailed prompted Polish foreign minister Adam Rapacki to propose the creation of a nuclear free zone in central Europe. The threat of nuclear war became heightened as crises intensified between the US and USSR.
The crisis point was Berlin. Nikita Khrushchev wanted an end to the Potsdam treaty mandate of four-power administration of the city. During the decade, East Germany had lost up to two million citizens to emigration. They fled East Germany through West Berlin. This drain on East Germany was becoming critical.
From 1958 to 1963, Khrushchev sought to resolve the issue of the division of Berlin. Berlin was a microcosm of the wider US-USSR conflict in Germany. As during the Berlin Blockade and Airlift the decade before, the second Berlin crisis took the two superpowers again to the brink of all-out nuclear war.
The Second Berlin Crisis, 1958-1963
In November, 1958, Nikita Khrushchev proposed to the US that a new treaty be signed between the US, USSR, UK, and France that would redefine the status of Berlin. The Soviet plan proposed a "free city" of Berlin. Berlin was divided between a West and East sector, the West zone being part of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), West Germany. Initially, it was under four-power administration as mandated by the Potsdam agreement of 1945.
From the Soviet viewpoint, the divided status of Berlin was an anomaly and an anachronism. West Berlin was about 110 miles inside East Germany. Most importantly, West Berlin was the easiest way to emigrate out of East Germany and into West Germany. The Soviets and the DDR sought to prevent this refugee crisis. This is what motivated the "second Berlin crisis". Because the conflict had become "nuclearized" and because of the 1957 launch of Sputnik, which demonstrated that the USSR could launch projectiles even into space, the threat of nuclear war was paramount. McGeorge Bundy described this threat of atomic war that Khrushchev initiated: "His four-year effort constitutes the most powerful demonstration yet recorded of the limited value of attempts at nuclear blackmail undertaken in the face of opponents with weapons, commitments, and will of their own." (19) According to Bundy, the second Berlin crisis was a "single phenomenon" defined by Khrushchev and "was a Soviet exercise in atomic diplomacy". (20) Khrushchev was using the credible threat of nuclear weapons to force a change in the status quo in Berlin. Eisenhower was willing to negotiate the status of Berlin and was in favor of creating a "free city" so long as all of Berlin was included, not merely West Berlin. John Foster Dulles was willing to discuss a resolution of the Berlin crisis on a basis other than the free elections approach.
The 1960 Paris Summit between Khrushchev and Eisenhower was scuttled, however, after the infamous U-2 affair involving the Soviet shoot-down of a U-2 spy plane and the capture of pilot Gary Powers.
The Berlin crisis remained unresolved with the election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960. For McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's policy on Germany "was at once similar and different" to that of Eisenhower. (21) Kennedy publicly stated that his administration's view of the German crisis was "the same as the view expressed by the previous administration."
How did US policy goals change with regard to Germany in the Kennedy administration? Kennedy favored a greater reliance on conventional strength.
Kennedy appointed Dean Acheson to head a senior advisory group that would make new policy recommendations with regard to Berlin. Acheson recommended that American ground forces in Germany should be increased by two to three divisions and that US reserves should be increased.
In 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy met in Vienna to discuss the Berlin crisis. But nothing resulted from these discussions. The refugee flow was reaching unbearable proportions for the DDR: 30,000 refugees per month were fleeing into West Berlin, 4,000 on August 12, 1961 alone.
On August 13, 1961, the East Germans began constructing a wire fence around West Berlin that would be replaced with the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall would become the symbol of the division and confrontation between the US and USSR during the Cold War. It demonstrated an impasse and a stalemate, the lack of a solution. Bundy concluded that "the Berlin crisis of 1958-63 does not display unbroken wisdom and foresight among Western statesmen." The Western Powers "staggered through the Berlin affair in considerable disarray." (21)
The Berlin Wall would embody and symbolize the division between not only East and West Berlin, between East and West Germany, but also between the US and USSR, between the two camps in the Cold War.
US foreign policy between 1949 and 1961 in Central Europe consisted of containing the Soviet Union by integrating West Germany in the US military alliance system, which became NATO. The US policy goal was always the containment of the Soviet Union. The only issue was how to achieve this. The US always sought to use West Germany as an ally partner in this containment policy against the USSR. But before this could be openly done, West Germany first had to be integrated into the US alliance system by demilitarization, denazification, decartelization, and democratization. Beginning in 1950, especially after the Korean War, US policy shifted to integrating West Germany in the US military alliance network. What resulted was the inclusion of West Germany in NATO, a military pact led by the US, which integrated West Germany into the organization, whose goal was the containment of the USSR in western Europe. This is how US policy sought to rectify the problem of a power vacuum created in Central Europe following the military defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
Conclusion
US foreign policy toward Germany from 1949 to 1961 sought to rectify the power vacuum that was created in Central Europe by the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. The US policy goals centered on the containment of the Soviet Union, primarily militarily, but, secondarily, economically. US policy gradually evolved to the full inclusion of West Germany in the US defensive alliance system that would produce NATO. This was necessary because a European defensive system excluding the US could not be worked out. Moreover, could West Germany be allowed to control its own military? The problem was resolved by integrating West Germany in NATO under essentially US command and control. This arrangement satisfied all parties involved. For the European countries, it "kept the US in", in the European military alliance system. It "kept Germany down" because West Germany was integrated in a hierarchy controlled by the US. And it "kept the Russians out" because such a joint US-European-West German military alliance was effective in the containment of Soviet power. So from 1949 to 1961, US foreign policy focused on integrating West Germany in a US led defensive military alliance which would result in the inclusion of West Germany in NATO. This was how US foreign policy rectified the power vacuum during this crucial period in the Cold War. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the goal of NATO has been the containment of the successor state to the USSR, which is the Russian Federation, or Russia. NATO has expanded eastward to incorporate former Warsaw Pact nations such as Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Does NATO have a purpose in a post-Cold War Europe? That purpose has remained one of containment, but now of Russia. NATO has tightened the noose around Russia's neck. Where formerly the US used Ossama Bin Laden and the Afghan mujahedeen to contain Soviet power under Zbiniew Brzezinski's policy of mobilizing Islamic extremists, now US policy has shifted to supporting Chechen Muslim separatists in an ongoing effort to undermine and destabilize the Russian Federation. NATO policy remains one of containment. Now it Russia and not the USSR that is the object of this containment.
Footnotes
(1) Frank Ninkovich, Germany and the United States: The Transformation of the German Question Since 1945. Updated Edition (Boston: Twayne, 1995), 81-88.
(2) Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 42.
(3) Leffler, 43-45.
(4) Thomas A. Schwartz, America's Germany (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 67.
(5) Robert A. Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945-1950 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1985), 37-41.
(6) Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (NY: Norton, 1969), 69-74.
(7) Acheson, 71-74.
(8) Acheson, 231-233.
(9) Acheson, 241-244.
(10) Ninkovich, 82-85.
(11) Ninkovich, 88.
(12) Acheson, 43.
(13) Acheson, 44-49.
(14) Frank Costigliola, France and the United States: The Cold War Alliance Since World War II (NY: Twayne, 1992), 74-77.
(15) Ninkovich, 105-109.
(16) Ninkovich, 112-117.
(17) Ninkovich, 113-118.
(18) Ninkovich, 123.
(19) McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (NY: Random House, 1988), 78.
(20) Bundy, 157-162.
(21) Ninkovich, 128-134
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