Figure 1.--Here we see German civiians istening to the pronoucements of the American occupation authorities. Source George Stephens Special Coverage Unit (SPECOU).

Even before the NAZI surrender, most German cities were seized and occupied. The Allies were not sure about the attitudes of German civilians. There were hard-line NAZI devotes, but as it turned out, most Germans were just glad the War was over. Their primary concern was their own survival. Few had, however, any concern with what German had done in other countries. But the almost mystical attachment Hitler had once forged with them was irrevocably broken. One Aachen woman wrote in her diary, "I have had enough forever and a day, but in 20 year's time thee will again be enough idiots around who will ignore what has happened and be willing to start the same misery all over again." 【Trafford】 Most industrial cities by that time had been converted into piles of smoldering rubble by the Allied bombing. In the west most of the city populations had fled. As the Allies moved into the Reich they encountered cities and towns with more of the civilian population remaining. The Germans had largely evacuated many western cities cities like Aachen and Cologne, but as the Reich collapsed, there was no longer any place to which civilians could be evacuated and the rail system was ceasing to operate. An American journalist and author describes Cologne a few days after the Americans arrived, "Cologne on the Rhine is now a paradigm of destruction. Cologne has been blown up with its medieval splendor. In the rubble and holiness of physical destruction, Cologne leas on its banks, bare of any form and unadorned. Those who are still alive laboriously fight their way though the buried aide roads, a shriveled in black clothes and loaded with bundles, silent like the city." 【Flanner】 Man thought that it would be more than a generation for Germany to recover. A Stars and Stripes reporter describes Düren a typical small German town west of Cologne, " This place is just a remanent of a town. No one lives there any more. There are indications that Düren was a town with nice houses. Captain Larkin (an officer interviewed) said if the Germans want have a town called Düren again after the War they will probably find a nice place a few miles north and build something new there." A German woman writes in her diary. "We are only allowed to go out during the daytime. After 7 PM a curfew comes into effect. We're bombarded with rules and regulations. This time they really are driving militarism and national socialism out of us. They are not permitting a single trace of what life for us used to be like." Much the same was occurring in eastern Germany with the Soviet advance, but there the arrival of the Red Army meant an orgy of rape. Most civilians were unsure how they would be treated by the Western Allies, but they were sure of one thing. It would be better than by the Soviets. Civil Support Teams struggled to distribute food the desperate civilians and get the water and other utilities working again.

Created: 9:39 PM 8/23/2025
Last updated: 9:40 PM 8/23/2025