After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation

AFTER THE REICH is a good compilation documenting the total collapse of the German government and of a German people at the complete mercy of the victors. The book is complete with many first person narratives of the difficult lean years following the end of the European war. The account makes no judgement as to whether the Germans deserved what they got or whether the Allies were too harsh on a people that they, for better or worse, gained responsibility for once an area was overrun. It really becomes a question as to whether or not you view Germany as liberated or conquered.

Much of this story has been told before and appeared in various books such as THE LAST DAY OF THE WAR, THE LAST 100 DAYS, THE BATTLE OF BERLIN, and so on. I also read a German book, loosely translated, THE OCCUPIERS AND THE OCCUPIED. As such you find many of the same themes: Bombed out cities, forced evacuations, winters with no heat, households with no food, and nasty deeds committed by the Red Army and its clients. What I did find new with this book was more detailed information about the fate of the German territories and population east of the Oder Neisse line, as well as the remaining German population in East Prussia. There was also quite a bit about how the vengeful Czechs were apt pupils of their former masters and took revenge to the extreme.

The book also spends several chapters discussing Austria and how quickly the Austrians disassociated themselves from the Germans and Germany. It is not difficult to imagine the Austrians flying the swastika one day and digging through their closets to display Austrian flags the next.

The book's narrative timeline begins during the last months of war. Only a year prior to the surrender the Third Reich occupied almost half of Europe. By May 1945,though the last vestiges of the German army continued to fight on, "liberated" Germans were already feeling the victors' wrath. As the Allies did not yet have a unified plan for post war Germany the people were generally treated as little more than serfs in their own bombed out country. The eleventh hour French wanted revenge, the British sought to restore some order by pushing for the restoration of limited self government, while the Americans pushed through Germany with little to no plan at all. Meanwhile the Soviets were busy annexing half of East Prussia and making a gift of the remaining German lands east of the Oder to the Poles. The Soviets moved into Germany with a no-holds-barred approach to private property and personal civil rights. Life was certainly cheap for Germans in the eastern territories.

What becomes clear is that as the German forces were pushed back or rapidly withdrew they left a power vacuum in their wake. This was very evident in the east. For those "Germans" left behind in eastern Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia law and order disappeared overnight. The void was rapidly filled by competing armed mobs, bandits claiming to be resistance fighters, and other armed irregulars whose only purpose seemed to be to rob, pillage, torture, and kill. The Czechs in particular took over operation of former Nazi camps and herded in Germans by the thousand. "German" was a broad definition applied to legitimate German nationals, people who spoke German, professionals, and essentially anyone who had something the armed brigands wanted.

In the midst of the crisis the Red Army turned a blind eye to the plight of soldiers and civilians alike. Remember that to the communist Russian way of thinking there was no distinction between German soldier and German civilian. Everyone was considered a potential war criminal. However, even though the Soviets were carting off whole factories and emptying out museums the Red Army did restore some order. In occupied Austria and Berlin they organized local governments, reopened theaters, and prompted the resumption of newspapers and radio. In this the Russians were leagues ahead of the western Allies.

The British, French, and Americans all handled their zones with different political agendas. Over the course of several chapters it is clear that the western Allies moved away from their philosophy that Germany would never rise again once the Cold War kicked into high gear. In essence Germany benefited from the Cold War in that attention was turned toward the evil Communist east and West Germany was finally united as a political unit.

The reason I gave AFTER THE REICH only three stars is that it suprsingly lacks balance when discussing the toils and tribulations of the Germans themselves. Surely there must have been German farmers, family households, and businessmen who did not suffer lost homes, ruined cities, unheated houses, or desperate hunger. Not every village was flattened by bombs or forfeited to Poland. For the most part the book focuses on the German soldiers and civilians who suffered in the worst possible situations. No doubt there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who did. As such there had to be an equal number who managed somewhat better and did not lose all of their possessions. I suppose those stories would not make much in the way of intersting reading.

AFTER THE REICH is a book that should be read in conjunction with other references on the subject. In fact a great companion volume for AFTER THE REICH is ENDGAME.

I had just finished reading two books The Germans in Normandy, and the Bitter Road to Freedom, a new history of the Liberation of Europe. I thought After the Reich would be a good follow up to find out the rest of the story. The book did not disappoint me. I took the book with me during a recent vacation and thought that I might be better served reading a historical fiction or more contemporary novel. The book exceeded my expectations ! At times, it was a bit academic and presumed a previous knowledge of history, geography, art, literature, etc which only sharpened my desire to learn more. I found the antecedote comments of the author and the quotes and comments of persons who had real life experiences during the period to be enlightening. The author skillfully tied the events and circumstances to the people that lived them. I felt as if I was reading a first person history of people who had witnessed the times and events. There were so many facts that were presented which were outside of the information normally contained in history books that I was shocked and unaware of what had occurred during the period of occupation. I was assigned to an Army Military, counter intelligence unit, in Germany in 1963 as a young draftee and was surprised that there were still DP's in Germany at that time. This book helped portray how significant the Displaced Person issue was after the war and what a colossal task the Allies had ahead of them to sort out the damage to persons and property. I believe the author was honest and straighforward, without sugar coating, the roles of the various participants responsible for the occupation of Germany. I wondered, as I read the book, how I would have personally dealt with the events if I had been a US soldier as part of the occupation. It certainly was a moral and ethical gut check ! I highly recommend the book. The next time that I visit Germany, I will have a better appreciation and different perspective of the history that has occurred over the past years.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in the real story of the final days and occupation of Germany during and after WWII rather than the glossed over baby boomer version many of us were fed growing up. It isn't pretty. The Red Army systematically raped women aged 14 to over 80, nuns, and even patients in hospital beds by the thousands. Those men who tried to protect them and some women that resisted were shot. Whatever alcohol was available anywhere to drink was confiscated and the raping increased tenfold. Whatever was not nailed down, and indeed much that was, was looted and taken back to Russia. The rest was often burned down in many cases. The French behavior was not much better. Again, rape on a large scale. I have yet to see anything official from either country recognizing these atrocities, much like the Japanese history in China and the Turks in Armenia. Nor have I seen anything regarding the US mismanagement of the german POWs and allowing thousands to starve. If you doubt it, go to Remagen and visit the little museum next to the remains of the bridge.

I have heard ugly Americans and even read some despicable comments by Israeli journalists and book reviewers that "they had it coming to them", because 30 odd percent of the voters in this country voted for Hitler, long before his designs of massive extermination and a scortched earth policy in defeat was widely known. This is akin to Bin Laden's claim that there are no innocent US citizens, because enough people vote and pay taxes. THus 9-11. Then you have atrocities responded with by more atrocities.

The book is smooth reading, and breaks down the final days and the occupation for Germany and Austria under the different occupying powers. Seperate regions also recieve special attention based on the topics. All sources are listed as well.

History should include all stories, whether they are flattering or not. This book is an important gap filler which is being filled by similar books that have come out in the past decade.

“After the Reich” is to my mind the definitive account of Germany’s post-war experience. Even a casual reader of Modern European history will have acquired, if only by osmosis, a reasonably solid understanding of how and why the Germans reaped what they had sown, will be familiar with the success and shortcomings of the Nuremberg war trials and the years-long jousting between the victorious allies about how to allocate the spoils. But, not surprisingly, it turns out that this knowledge only skims the surface of the real story, a story that will make readers both cringe and marvel, and inevitably come away with a whole new appreciation of the war’s aftermath.

The first part of the book unsurprisingly reads very much like “Savage Continent,” Keith Lowe’s account of the retributive machinations of damaged and disaffected populations throughout the continent taking advantage of their bloody victories to settle old scores with surpassing brutality. MacDonogh naturally focuses on the German experience and his descriptions of the predations of all of the occupying forces, and especially the Russian orgy of rapine, is at least as difficult, if edifying, to get through as Lowe’s accounts.

But the story is of course much more than that and, indeed, so much more that a knowledgeable reader will likely credit this as the definitive work on the subject. I found especially interesting the author’s reflections on the shaky legal underpinnings of the Nuremberg trials and the disconcerting conclusions of his research demonstrating beyond contradiction that an amazing number of bad Nazi actors not only escaped justice but in many instances did so simply because both Allied and German prosecutorial officials grew tired of the game. Finally, I know of no better account of how thoroughly Russia dominated the tripartite spoils competition, partly due to Stalin’s preternatural gall and duplicity, the fact that Russian forces first occupied territories that Britain and America knew were not going to relinquished without a fight they were unable to offer, and the combination of Roosevelt’s failing health and inexplicable, if difficult to quantify, trust in Stalin.

Our modern vision of Germany as a peaceful, prosperous and progressive nation makes this book all the more important because it demonstrates as nothing else that I’ve read how close to Hell the country and its people had to come before the eventual redemption. Believe me when I say that no associative readings in European history have equipped you with the knowledge this book provides. I recommend it as essential reading for the serious History buff.

Giles MacDonogh’s, After the Reich, covers the postwar period and reveals some information that has formerly bordered on the taboo. That is the reason for his mandatory disclaimer, “I make no excuses for the crimes the Nazis committed.” There is a fear that pointing out the crimes of the allied forces will somehow diminish to outrage against the crimes of the Nazis. He reveals that it was occupation policy to restrict food distribution to the defeated Germans to include the destruction of kitchen waste. This was part of the engineered famine that led to the death of an undetermined but large number of people. He also deal frankly with what can only be described as a massive slave trade organized by the victors.
I have only three criticisms of the book. He makes three references to Ilse Koch’s collection of lampshades made of human skin (pp. 85, 343 and 462). Isle Koch may, in fact, had a collection of human lampshades made of human skin. But he should have pointed out that there is some controversy on this subject. After she was convicted of war crimes General Clay reduced her sentence concluding, “It was absolutely proven that the lamp shades were made out of goat skin.”1 When an individual attempted to donate a lampshade to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, he was told that the concentration camp lampshades were probably a myth.2 The Nazi committed countless barbarities and it should be unnecessary to embellish them. Bogus claims only give ammunition to people who want to discredit legitimate claims.
MacDonogh refers to the provision in JCS 1067 that states the allies would “help Germans only when it was necessary to avoid disease or unrest.” This phrase is from the original Basic Handbook. It was modified in JCS 1067 to read: “as would endanger the occupying forces.” This modification was intended to allow disease and unrest as long as it did not endanger the occupying forces
My other criticism is his statement about postwar conditions: “Stalin did not want a war, hot or cold: and it was the Western Allies . . . who pushed him into it” (p. 496). Of course Stalin did not want war. I suppose Hitler did not want war. As long as your adversary is willing to agree to all of your objectives peacefully there is no need for war. The idea that Stalin only wanted security is fantasy. He would only feel completely “secure” when the entire world was ruled from Moscow.

Max Hastings, in Retribution, said it right: "But in an imperfect world, it seems unrealistic to expect that any combatant in a war will grant adversaries conspicuously better treatment than his own people receive at their hands."

Rule-of-law and government were non-existent throughout the land 1945 and later. Expulsions of many different ethnic populations from many different countries was rampant: Germans from the Sudetenlands, Ukrainians from Poland, Romanians, Slovaks, Hungarians--all exchanging populations via forced expulsions.

"After The Reich" complains that the Germans were not treated fair after they lost the war. The Germans, of course, did not treat anybody with fairness (ever) and expulsions were rampant throughout the continent--not only the Germans.

The purpose may be to promote a claim to compete with the Jewish Holocaust that the good guys, the Allies, are just as reprehensible by creating a German holocaust. A bit slippy-slidey in this writer's opinion but there are some excellent books telling the story 1945 and later now on the market.

It did come to pass that the Germans payed a high price for their misdeeds. That can at least be acknowledged.

And make no mistake, the German people, the German ordinary citizens did enthusiastically support Hitler's criminal regime as documented on the DVD sold here on Amazon, The Rise Of The Nazi Party, and can be seen on television's history and military channels as: Nazis: Evolution of Evil.

Recommendations: A Savage Continent (Keith Lowe), Witnesses of War (stargardt), Eisenhower and the German POWS.
also: Year Zero, A History of 1945 by author, Buruma

This book chronicles the atrocities, that have so conspicuously, not been labeled as war crimes against the German people after the war. Unfortunately the author cherry picks instances of "the warm welcome" of red army liberators in Austria, and the enthusiasm of the Germans to "forget" the past because of the atrocities of the Nazis, all while circumventing the fact that he himself, has told you of the brutal treatment of the German people during this time. Enthusiasm with a gun to your head, as I would call it. Completely disregarding the context of the rise of N.S. government because of the crippling treatment of Germany under the Treaty of Versailles. A depression that starved thousands of Germans.
He also uses the specter of nazi Germany as an example of the necessity to eliminate Europe's many unique national identities, and pander for the need for a "European Entity which will make them a single European unit"... the E.U.

This book opens a window on one of the most underexamined period in 20th Century history. The post war occupation of both Europe and Japan is treated like a dark secret not discussed in front of the children.

One reason might be the deification of the WWII generation. Hard truths might tarnish the idealized view we have of them.

Novels, historys and movie treatments are rare. "The Third Man" is one of the few movies that dealt with that period. The"Teahouse of the August Moon" and "I was a male war bride" touched on the occupation but only as backdrop.

The author obviously has his own axe to grind but the book is well documented. I would recommend this book to my friend to fill an blank space that seems to exist between 1945-1950.

Having met people from that era from many different countries. I found most of the personal stories told to me fell into two categories. Those who hated each other and looked to do nothing but do harm to each other. The other group being people that tried to help and found people in Germany (and other places) who were willing to help each other to come out of the war. I found a surprising amount of hatred from the Germans who felt betrayed by the West and thought Communism was the great evil, not Germany or the Nazi Party. That included housewives, farmers, politicians, soldiers, and SS survivors. I say SS survivors as that group bore the brunt of the hatred from all sides of the aisle. Anyone with the SS tattoo was a walking dead man (or woman) in post war Germany and other countries even into the 1970's.

One factor that our historian fails to mention was the impact that drug withdrawal issues made on the death rate in many POW Camps. An Army Doctor (who eventually wrote a treatise on these drugs) wrote that the high number of German Soldiers dying was mystifying the Doctors at various camps until they started realizing that many POW's were suffering from years of drug misuse (methamphetamine being one of the most abused drugs to keep German Soldiers focused and fighting.). Imagine trying to run a rehab program with several million addicts with no practical way (at the time) to treat them other than letting them sweat it out. Which doesn't work well for people exhausted and malnourished from war. Many of these doctors, POW Camp personnel, and Military/Civilian Logistics personnel worked to provide as much supplies, food, and petrol to Germany after the war to stabilize the Country. There was a great fear that if the Germany destabilized any further that Russians would use it as an excuse to invade (claiming as they did to other countries they were there to help.).

Was there brutality and revenge after the War? Absolutely yes. But was it part of a purposeful fantastic conspiracy to kill off all the Germans? No, it was a massive mess. Much of the World's Economy and Infrastructure was destroyed and it's Populations traumatized. One of the few untouched countries was the US and many in the US wanted to become Isolationists again after four years of war. Truman and Marshall stopped that attempt at Isolationism with massive aid to many war torn countries and later the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. They knew that no foreign aid, military assistance, or diplomatic participation would lead to Communist Domination of all of Europe. Stalin, in particular, played the West like a fiddle and used the circumstances to further his agenda of conquest and control. Which he did even before WWII started invading Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and later in the attempted takeover of Finland. There was a lot of blame to go around. But don't compare the US to the Nazi's (or Communists) for all the mistakes made by human beings trying to fix the biggest mess in history. Still, many bad players (on all sides) took advantage of it to settle old scores, make money, and gain political advantage.

The book itself tells the tale of what happened in Europe after the end of the war. But, it does so poorly.
There are many badly written passages, and it does not seem as though anyone proof read it. Ideas hinted at but not followed up upon, wildly out of place colons, people and concepts discussed before they're introduced (and then introduced as though we're meeting them for the first time), no attempt to identify who/what is the subject of sentences and paragraphs, contradictory statements made one after another without any clarifying follow-up. Also, an often painful amount of detail is given about the doings of players in German politics and arts without context of why they are important, or why person X standing in for person Y so many times is relevant or meaningful. We are introduced early to the 'economist' Eugen Margaretha, but only learn 250 pages later that he will later become president of the National Bank. It gets ridiculous.
The worst failure to follow-up on a thought occurred in the chapter relating to how the German populations were treated in Czechoslovakia. He begins the chapter with a quote about how brutal the Czechs were to the Germans despite the fact that while they occupied by them the Czechs never offered any resistance. One would assume he would return to this concept as it is a provocative quote, and appears to be leading to a compelling and interesting profile in national psychology. As it turns out, the opening quote is just a tease; what follows is simply a litany of horrors meted out to the German/German speaking populations without any attempt at all to fill in the hows, the whys or what-fors. He could have done better.

Also, Mr. MacDonough's attempts to appear equitable and even-handed when talking about the crimes of Russian and Western soldiers is laughable. Yes, rapes happened in territories held by the British, French and Americans. Yes, the occupied people were treated with less dignity than they would have liked, and things did get stolen. But, putting these facts forward after endless passages on how the Russian's raped, pillaged, starved and executed their way through their conquered territories as if to show that all the armies were alike struck me as pathetically PC. Trying to make the wholesale gang-rape of entire village populations between the ages of 8 and 80 to the point that many died in the process parallel to 'some rapes were reported' is simply asinine. (And speaking in my own pathetically PC voice, a reader could be excused for believing that all slips in discipline by the French were attributable solely to the African contingents in that army. Mr. MacDonough also seems to have something of a fetish for black American soldiers, as references to them are thrown in nilly-willy).

Regardless, worth a read if you're keen on learning more about a critically important yet oft ignored era. If you appreciate good writing prepared to be frustrated, annoyed and occasionally angry. If you're only looking for a list of bad things that happened along with some tut-tutting about mistakes that were made by the allies, then this is the book for you.