The Allied Control Council (ACC) or Allied Control Authority (), also referred to as the Four Powers (), was the governing body of the Allied occupation zones in Germany (1945–1949/1991) and Austria (1945–1955) following the end of World War II in Europe. Its members (Four-Power Authorities) were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. Following the defeat of the Nazis, Germany (less its former eastern territories) and Austria were occupied as two different areas, both by the same four Allies. Both were later divided into four zones by the 1 August 1945 Potsdam Agreement. The organisation was based in Schöneberg, West Berlin.
The council was convened to determine several plans for postwar Europe, including how to change borders and transfer populations in Central Europe. As the four powers had joined themselves into a condominium asserting supreme power in Germany, the Allied Control Council was constituted the sole legal sovereign authority for Germany as a whole, replacing the civil government of Germany under the Nazi Party. In 1948, the Soviets withdrew from the ACC due to its conflict with the Western Allies, who then established the Allied High Commission. In 1949, two German states (West and East Germany) were founded.
Creation
Allied preparations for the postwar occupation of Germany began during the second half of 1944, after Allied forces began entering Germany in September 1944. Most of the planning was carried out by the European Advisory Commission (EAC) established in early 1944. By 3 January 1944, the Working Security Committee in the EAC concluded that:
The EAC also recommended the creation of a tripartite British, US and Soviet agency to conduct German affairs following the Nazis' surrender. The British representative at the EAC, Sir William Strang, was undecided on whether a partial occupation of Germany by Allied troops was the most desirable course of action. At the first EAC meeting on 14 January 1944, Strang proposed alternatives that favored the total occupation of Germany, similar to the situation following the First World War when Allied rule was established over the Rhineland. Strang believed that a full occupation would limit the reliance on former Nazis to maintain order within Germany. He also believed that it would make the lessons of defeat more visible to the German population and would enable the Allied governments to carry out punitive policies in Germany, such as transferring territories to Poland. The main arguments against total occupation were that it would create an untold burden on Allied economies and prolong the suffering of the German population, possibly driving new revanchist ideologies. However, his final conclusion was that a total occupation would be most beneficial, at least during the initial phase.Foreign Relations of the United States 1944, vol. I, pp. 141–144 In August 1944, the US government established the United States Group to the Control Council for Germany, which served as a liaison group within the EAC for planning the future occupation of entire Germany. The chairman of this group was Brigadier general Cornelius W. Wickersham.
As the German collapse approached, Strang became convinced that Germany was about to undergo a total collapse, in which case a total occupation and control would be inevitable. He even proposed a draft declaration to be issued by the Allied governments in case no political authority remained in Germany due to chaotic conditions.Memorandum by Sir William Strang, 30 March 1945, Foreign Relations of the United States 1945, vol. III, pp. 208–209 For a brief period, this prospect was feared by some Allied representatives.
Following the suicide of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945, Karl Dönitz assumed the title of in accordance with Hitler's last political testament. As such, he authorised the signing of the unconditional surrender of all German armed forces, which took effect on 8 May 1945 and tried to establish a government under Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk in Flensburg. This government was not recognised by the Allies and Dönitz and the other members were arrested on 23 May by British forces.
The German Instrument of Surrender signed in Berlin had been drafted by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force and was modeled on the one used a few days previously for the surrender of the German forces in Italy. It was not the document which had been drafted for the surrender of Germany by the "European Advisory Commission" (EAC). This created a legal problem for the Allies, because although the German military forces had surrendered unconditionally, no counterpart civilian German government had been included in the surrender. This was considered a very important issue, inasmuch as Hitler had used the surrender of the civilian government but not of the military, in 1918, to create the "stab in the back" argument. The Allies understandably did not want to give any future hostile German regime any kind of legal argument to resurrect an old quarrel. Eventually, determined not to accord any recognition to the Flensburg administration, they agreed to sign a four-power declaration of the terms of the German surrender instead. On 5 June 1945, in Berlin, the supreme commanders of the four occupying powers signed a common Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany (the so-called Berlin Declaration of 1945), which formally confirmed the total dissolution of Nazi Germany with the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945 and the consequent termination of any German governance over the nation:
This imposition was in line with Article 4 of the Instrument of Surrender that had been included so that the EAC document, or something similar, could be imposed on the Germans after the military surrender. Article 4 stated that "This act of military surrender is without prejudice to and will be superseded by any general instrument of surrender imposed by, or on behalf of the United Nations and applicable to GERMANY and the German armed forces as a whole". In reality, of course, German authority had ceased to exist since all remaining German armed forces had surrendered before. These parts of the Berlin declaration, therefore, merely formalised the de facto status and placed the Allied military rule over Germany on a solid legal basis.
An additional agreement was signed on 20 September 1945 and further elaborated the powers of the Control Council.Text in Department of State Bulletin, 7 October 1945, pp. 515–521
The actual exercise of power was carried out according to the model first laid out in the "Agreement on Control Machinery in Germany" that had been signed by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union on 14 November 1944 in London based on the work of the EAC. Germany was divided into four zones of occupation — British, American, French and Soviet — each being ruled by the commander-in-chief of the respective occupation forces. "Matters that affect Germany as a whole", however, would have to be decided jointly by all four commanders-in-chief, who for this purpose would form a single organ of control. This authority was called the Control Council.
The purpose of the Allied Control Council in Germany, like the other Allied Control Commissions and Councils which were established by the Allies over every defeated Axis power, was to deal with the central administration of the country (an idea that hardly materialised in the case of Germany, as that administration totally broke down with the end of the war) and to assure that the military administration was carried out with a certain uniformity throughout all of Germany. The Potsdam Agreement of 1 August 1945 further specified the tasks of the Control Council.
Operation
On 30 August 1945, the Control Council constituted itself and issued its first proclamation, which informed the German people of the council's existence and asserted that the commands and directives issued by the commanders-in-chief in their respective zones were not affected by the establishment of the council. The initial members of the Control Council were Marshal Georgy Zhukov for the Soviet Union, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower for the United States, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery for the United Kingdom and General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny for France.
Subsequently, the Control Council issued a substantial number of laws, directives, orders and proclamations. They dealt with the abolition of Nazi laws and organisations, demilitarisation, and denazification, but also with such comparatively pedestrian matters as telephone tariffs and the combat of venereal diseases. On many issues, the council was unable to impose its resolutions, as real power lay in the hands of the separate Allied governments and their military governors and the council issued recommendations that did not have the force of law. On 20 September 1945, the council issued Directive no. 10, which divided the various official acts of the Control Council into five categories: Proclamations – "to announce matters or acts of special importance to the occupying power or to the German people, or to both"; Laws – "on matters of general application, unless they expressly provide otherwise"; Orders – "when the Control Council has a requirement to impose on Germany and when laws are not used"; Directives – "to communicate policy or administrative decisions of the Control Council"; Instructions – "when the Control Council wishes to impose requirements directly upon a particular authority".
Directive No. 11 of the same day made the work of the council more orderly by establishing English, French, Russian and German as the official languages of the council and by establishing an official gazette to publish the council's official acts.
Law No. 1 of the Control Council (also enacted on 20 September 1945) repealed some of the stricter Nazi-era laws. This established the legal basis for the council's work.
Directive No. 51 (29 April 1947), repealing Directive No. 10, simplified the council's legislative work by reducing the categories of legislative acts to Proclamations, Laws and Orders.
War criminals Directive No. 9 (30 August 1945) charged the legal division of the council with responsibility for carrying out the provisions of the London Agreement on the prosecution of German war criminals, signed in London on 8 August.
Shortly after the commencement of the Nuremberg trials, the council enacted Law no. 10 (20 December 1945), which authorised every occupying power to have its own legal system to try war criminals and to conduct such trials independently of the International Military Tribunal then sitting at Nuremberg. Law no. 10 resulted from disagreements arising among the Allied governments regarding a common policy on war criminals and marked the beginning of the decline in inter-Allied cooperation to that effect. Following the conclusion of the Nuremberg Trial of Major War Criminals in October 1946, inter-Allied cooperation on war crimes totally collapsed.
On 12 October 1946, the council issued Directive No. 38, which, while trying to impose some common rules, allowed the four occupation governments discretion as to the treatment of persons arrested by them for suspected war crimes, including the right to grant amnesty.
Dissolution of the German army and government agencies Order No. 1 of 30 August 1945 prohibited the wearing of the uniform of the German Army, which now ceased to exist.
An order dated 10 September ordered the recall of all German government agents and diplomatic representatives from the countries to which they were assigned. Another order of the same day established a procedure for disseminating information to the press on the council's work, ordering that a press release be issued following every meeting of the council.