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190-660: The British occupation zone in Germany (German: Britische Besatzungszone Deutschlands ) was one of the Allied-occupied areas in Germany after World War II . The United Kingdom, along with the Commonwealth , was one of the three major Allied powers that defeated Nazi Germany . By 1945, the Allies had divided the country into four occupation zones: British, Soviet , American and French lasting until 1949, whence

380-733: A Lambeth Conference in 1897, and Bernard and his brother Harold were educated at The King's School, Canterbury . In 1901, Bishop Montgomery became secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel , and the family returned to London. Montgomery attended St Paul's School and then the Royal Military College, Sandhurst , from which he was almost expelled for rowdiness and violence. On graduation in September 1908 he

570-530: A 3 million ton limit). Steel plants thus made redundant were to be dismantled by the allies - the resources being sent back to the respective country. Coal production in the Ruhr accounted for 93% for all zones combined. The French in particular wanted to place the area under international control. The British however refused and had begun to pursue an anti-Soviet foreign policy which strongly influenced its occupational policy. The British thus feared Soviet influence in

760-858: A Cabinet agreement on bringing these officers to trial, and all were transferred from Island Farm (also known as Special Camp 11) in Bridgend , Wales , to Munsterlager to await trial. Tensions had also mounted between the War Office and Foreign Office over the morality and political desirability of British war crimes trials. This resulted in a decision to call a halt to all other outstanding war crimes proceedings by 1 September 1948. Brauchitsch died that October and Rundstedt and Strauss were released on medical grounds in March 1949. Manstein did have prominent British support such as author B. H. Liddell Hart and Labour politician Reginald Paget . Manstein's trial

950-590: A danger to British security and compete with the weakened British economy. In January 1946 the Allied Control Council set the foundation of the future German economy by putting a cap on German steel production capacity. The British had argued for a less-limited reduction of twelve million tons of steel per year, but had to submit to the will of the US, France, and the Soviet Union (which had argued for

1140-566: A decisive victory, and put into action his beliefs with the gathering of resources, detailed planning, the training of troops—especially in clearing minefields and fighting at night —and in the use of 252 of the latest American-built Sherman tanks , 90 M7 Priest self-propelled howitzers, and making a personal visit to every unit involved in the offensive. By the time the offensive was ready in late October, Eighth Army had 231,000 men on its ration strength. The Second Battle of El Alamein began on 23 October 1942, and ended 12 days later with one of

1330-482: A final German peace treaty. This treaty was expected to confirm the shifting westward of Poland's borders, as the United Kingdom and United States committed themselves to support the permanent incorporation of eastern Germany into Poland and the Soviet Union. From March 1945 to July 1945, these former eastern territories of Germany had been administered under Soviet military occupation authorities, but following

1520-586: A final determination of the inter-zonal borders. The three powers divided "Germany as a whole" into four occupation zones for administrative purposes under the three Western Allies : the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. This division was ratified at the August 1945 Potsdam Conference . This set aside an earlier division into three zones (excluding France) proposed by the September 1944 London Protocol . Stalin agreed that France would have

1710-730: A fourth occupation zone in Germany and this was formed from parts of the American and the British zones. In the final offensive the First Canadian Army wheeled left and liberated the northern part of the Netherlands and captured adjoining areas of Germany, and the British Second Army swept into and occupied much of north-west Germany. The liberation of the concentration camps such as Bergen Belsen moved

1900-516: A great success. Over 30,000 prisoners of war were taken, including the German second-in-command, General von Thoma , as well as eight other general officers. Montgomery was advanced to KCB and promoted to full general. He kept the initiative, applying superior strength when it suited him, forcing Rommel out of each successive defensive position. On 6 March 1943, Rommel's attack on the over-extended Eighth Army at Medenine ( Operation Capri ) with

2090-616: A hospital, was treated and eventually evacuated to England, where he would remain for well over a year. He was appointed a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), for his gallant leadership during this period: the citation for this award, published in The London Gazette in December 1914 reads: Conspicuous gallant leading on 13th October, when he turned the enemy out of their trenches with

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2280-543: A launch pad near Arensch in order to demonstrate the weapon. The handling and launch procedures were operated by German personnel (many of whom were "lent" by the Americans), as they were the only ones who knew the procedures. The British treatment of the German soldiers, who included enlisted men, technicians, and officers, was generous. Four rockets were launched including one on 17 October 1945 that reached an altitude of about 80 kilometres (50 mi). On 23 December 1946,

2470-722: A network for exports to the Netherlands . He carried on the supervision until Heinz Nordhoff was appointed director of the factory in 1949. Other German businesses were assisted by the Army, including the KWS Grain Factory and the Huth-Apparatebau radio factory in Hanover. The latter employed locals to make radio sets manufactured primarily from components salvaged from German military equipment. A solution by

2660-454: A number of civil servants to head the administration of liberated territory with extensive powers to remove from their post, in both public and private domains, anyone suspected, usually on behavioural grounds, of harbouring Nazi sympathies. During the early months of occupation, the British were at the forefront of bringing to justice anyone, both soldiers and civilians, who had committed war crimes against POWs or captured Allied aircrew. One of

2850-412: A particular habit, which he would keep throughout the war, of going to bed at 21:30 every night without fail and giving only a single order—that he was not to be disturbed—which was only very rarely disobeyed. The 3rd Division saw comparatively little action but, owing to the strict training methods of Montgomery, the division always managed to be in the right place at the right time, especially so during

3040-497: A punitive approach championed by Roosevelt 's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr. (the " Morgenthau Plan "). Under this plan, Germany would have been broken into four autonomous states and not only demilitarized but also deindustrialized to the point of becoming chiefly agrarian. The Morgenthau plan was opposed by Secretary of State Cordell Hull and War Secretary Henry L. Stimson , and Roosevelt distanced himself from

3230-483: A river line, only to come under attack and forced to withdraw to another position, usually behind another river. These exercises usually occurred at night with only very minimal lighting being allowed. By the spring of 1940 Montgomery's division had gained a reputation of being a very agile and flexible formation. By then the Allies had agreed to Plan D , where they would advance deep into Belgium and take up positions on

3420-693: A significant amount of equipment. On his return Montgomery antagonised the War Office with trenchant criticisms of the command of the BEF and was briefly relegated to divisional command of 3rd Division, which was the only fully equipped division in Britain. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath . Montgomery was ordered to make ready the 3rd Division to invade the neutral Portuguese Azores . Models of

3610-600: A structure that conformed to military principles. After numerous former members of the Wehrmacht had left the GCLO over time, new members were hired by the British and it used its right to forcibly recruit staff if necessary. Most German captives were released by the end of 1948. The GCLO was transferred to the German Service Organisation (GSO) on 21 October 1950. In January 1945, the basic German ration

3800-692: A study group of the British Interplanetary Society submitted a redesign of the V-2 rocket to the British Ministry of Supply but the proposal was never adopted. There was also the Target Intelligence Committee (TICOM) which was a secret project to find and seize German intelligence assets, particularly in the field of cryptology and signals intelligence . This was an Anglo-American project with

3990-620: A week after Montgomery had taken command. Alan Brooke said that Churchill was always impatient for his generals to attack at once, and he wrote that Montgomery was always "my Monty" when Montgomery was out of favour with Churchill. Eden had some late night drinks with Churchill, and Eden said at a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff the next day (29 October 1942) that the Middle East offensive was "petering out". Alanbrooke had told Churchill "fairly plainly" what he thought of Eden's ability to judge

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4180-580: A whole' in respect of West Germany and Berlin. At the same time, East Germany progressed from being a satellite state of the Soviet Union to increasing independence of action; while still deferring in matters of security to Soviet authority. The provisions of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany , also known as the "Two-plus-Four Treaty", granting full sovereign powers to Germany did not become law until 15 March 1991, after all of

4370-653: A working legal system, and given that 90% of German lawyers had been members of the Nazi Party, the British decided that 50% of the German Legal Civil Service could be staffed by "nominal" Nazis. Similar pressures caused them to relax the restriction even further in April 1946. The following year the British handed over all their denazification panels to the Germans. Controversy came to a head when in

4560-844: The 21st Army Group for the rest of the North West Europe campaign , including the failed attempt to cross the Rhine during Operation Market Garden . When German armoured forces broke through the US lines in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge , Montgomery received command of the northern shoulder of the Bulge. Montgomery's 21st Army Group, including the US Ninth Army and the First Allied Airborne Army , crossed

4750-590: The 21st Army Group , landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944. Having fought all the way through Northern France and the Low Countries, they had reached the German borders by the end of the year. The "Big Three" ( Winston Churchill , Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin ) met at the Yalta Conference between 4 and 11 February 1945 to discuss Germany's post-war occupation, which included coming to

4940-558: The 33rd Division and took part in the Battle of Arras in April–May. In July he transferred over as a GSO2 to IX Corps , part of General Sir Herbert Plumer 's Second Army . It was in this role that Montgomery served at the Battle of Passchendaele which began in late July 1917. He was promoted to the temporary rank of major in February 1918, and brevet major in June. He finished

5130-572: The Allied Control Council (ACC). At first, Allied-occupied Germany was defined as all territories of Germany before the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria . The Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945 defined the new eastern German border by giving Poland and the Soviet Union all regions of Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line (eastern parts of Pomerania , Neumark , Posen-West Prussia , East-Prussia and most of Silesia ) and divided

5320-498: The Allied Control Council de facto broke down on 20 March 1948 ( restored on 3 September 1971) in the context of growing tensions between the Allies, with Britain and the US wishing cooperation, France obstructing any collaboration in order to partition Germany into many independent states, and especially: the Soviet Union unilaterally implementing from early on elements of a Marxist political-economic system (enforced redistribution of land, nationalisation of businesses). Another dispute

5510-466: The Battle of Arras in April–May 1917. He also took part in the Battle of Passchendaele in late 1917 before finishing the war as chief of staff of the 47th (2nd London) Division . In the inter-war years he commanded the 17th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers and, later, the 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment before becoming commander of the 9th Infantry Brigade and then general officer commanding (GOC), 8th Infantry Division . During

5700-527: The British First Army for Operation Torch , the invasion of French North Africa . A story, probably apocryphal but popular at the time, is that the appointment caused Montgomery to remark that "After having an easy war, things have now got much more difficult." A colleague is supposed to have told him to cheer up—at which point Montgomery said "I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about Rommel !" Montgomery's assumption of command transformed

5890-480: The Church of England and Roman Catholic senior chaplains objected; Brooke told Monty that he did not want any further errors of this kind, though deciding not to get him to formally withdraw it as it would remove any "vestige of respect" left for him. Although Montgomery's new command was a Regular Army formation, comprising the 7th (Guards) , and the 8th and 9th Infantry Brigades along with supporting units, he

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6080-502: The Essex Regiment : Personally, my whole attention was given to defeating the rebels but it never bothered me a bit how many houses were burnt. I think I regarded all civilians as 'Shinners' and I never had any dealings with any of them. My own view is that to win a war of this sort, you must be ruthless. Oliver Cromwell , or the Germans, would have settled it in a very short time. Nowadays public opinion precludes such methods,

6270-537: The Fedden Mission was set up to exploit German aeronautics and deny German technical skills to the Soviet Union. The mission was sent by the Ministry of Aircraft Production to gather technical intelligence about German aircraft and aero-engines . Operation Surgeon was also created: a list of 1,500 German scientists and technicians was drawn up, with the goal of forcibly removing them from Germany to lessen

6460-918: The First World War , the Irish War of Independence and the Second World War . Montgomery first saw action in the First World War as a junior officer of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment . At Méteren , near the Belgian border at Bailleul , he was shot through the right lung by a sniper, during the First Battle of Ypres . On returning to the Western Front as a general staff officer, he took part in

6650-595: The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and Bremerhaven became exclaves within the British Zone. By 22 June 1945, of the 7,614,914 prisoners (of all designations) held in British and American camps, 4,209,000 were soldiers captured before the German capitulation and who were therefore considered "POWs". The rest were classed as Disarmed Enemy Forces by the Americans and Surrendered Enemy Personnel by

6840-594: The French Army . In April and May 1945, the French 1st Army had captured Karlsruhe and Stuttgart , and conquered a territory extending to Hitler's Eagle's Nest and the westernmost part of Austria. In July, the French relinquished Stuttgart to the Americans, and in exchange were given control over cities west of the Rhine such as Mainz and Koblenz . All this resulted in two barely contiguous areas of Germany along

7030-652: The General Treaty (German: Deutschlandvertrag ) entered into force. However, upon the creation of the Federal Republic in May 1949, the military governors were replaced by civilian high commissioners , whose powers lay somewhere between those of a governor and those of an ambassador. When the Deutschlandvertrag became law, the occupation ended, the western occupation zones ceased to exist, and

7220-659: The Indian Army Staff College (now the Pakistan Command and Staff College ) in Quetta , British India. On completion of his tour of duty in India, Montgomery returned to Britain in June 1937 where he took command of the 9th Infantry Brigade with the temporary rank of brigadier . His wife died that year. In 1938, he organised an amphibious combined operations landing exercise that impressed

7410-551: The Kübelwagen until 1946, when the factory produced about 1,000 cars a month. With the start of civilian series production by 27 December 1945, the Wolfsburg plant became the first automotive factory in Germany to resume production after the war. Aside from some remaining military production, civilian output reached almost 9,000 units in 1947, and for 1948 total production increased to 19,244 cars. Hirst also managed to establish

7600-551: The Nuremberg trials also took place, this being an 'International Military Tribunal' in the American zone of occupation but with all four allied powers being involved. Judge Geoffrey Lawrence was President of the Judicial group. An interrogation was set up at Bad Nenndorf by the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) – it was notorious for its alleged mistreatment of detainees, allegedly involving torture using buckets of cold water, beatings, and burns with lit cigarettes. A public scandal ensued, with

7790-411: The River Dyle by the time the German forces attacked. Brooke, Montgomery's corps commander, was pessimistic about the plan but Montgomery, in contrast, was not concerned, believing that he and his division would perform well regardless of the circumstances, particularly in a war of movement . Montgomery's training paid off when the Germans began their invasion of the Low Countries on 10 May 1940 and

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7980-423: The Staff College in Camberley , Surrey (his only hope of ever achieving high command). But at a tennis party in Cologne , he was able to persuade the Commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the British Army of Occupation, Field Marshal Sir William Robertson , to add his name to the list. After graduating from the Staff College, he was appointed brigade major in the 17th Infantry Brigade in January 1921. The brigade

8170-422: The War Office to help write the Infantry Training Manual in mid-1929. In 1931 Montgomery was promoted to substantive lieutenant-colonel and became the Commanding officer (CO) of the 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment and saw service in Palestine and British India . He was promoted to colonel in June 1934 (seniority from January 1932). He attended and was then recommended to become an instructor at

8360-430: The Western Desert campaign of the Second World War, Montgomery commanded the British Eighth Army from August 1942. He subsequently commanded the British Eighth Army during the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Allied invasion of Italy and was in command of all Allied ground forces during the Battle of Normandy ( Operation Overlord ), from D-Day on 6 June 1944 until 1 September 1944. He then continued in command of

8550-513: The retreat into France . By 27 May, when the Belgian Army on the left flank of the BEF began to disintegrate, the 3rd Division achieved something very difficult, the movement at night from the right to the left of another division and only 2,000 yards behind it. This was performed with great professionalism and occurred without any incidents and thereby filled a very vulnerable gap in the BEF's defensive line. On 29/30 May, Montgomery temporarily took over from Brooke, who received orders to return to

8740-576: The zone , in the northern area of the district of Emsland , as well as Oldenburg and Leer . The administrative centre was the city of Haren and was renamed Maczków (after divisional commander Stanisław Maczek ) from 1945 to 1947. Polish units within the British Army were demobilised in June 1947 the last elements leaving the following year. The Norwegian Brigade Group in Germany had 4,000 soldiers based in Hanover. It would later have headquarters in Oerlinghausen , Neumünster and Rendsburg . Allied-occupied Germany The entirety of Germany

8930-437: The 3rd Division advanced to its planned position, near the Belgian city of Louvain . Soon after arrival, the division was fired on by members of the Belgian 10th Infantry Division who mistook them for German paratroopers ; Montgomery resolved the incident by approaching them and offering to place himself under Belgian command, although Montgomery himself took control when the Germans arrived. During this time he began to develop

9120-515: The Allied position at the First Battle of El Alamein , but after a visit in August 1942, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, replaced him as C-in-C with General Sir Harold Alexander and William Gott as commander of the Eighth Army in the Western Desert . However, after Gott was killed flying back to Cairo , Churchill was persuaded by Brooke, who by this time was Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), to appoint Montgomery, who had only just been nominated to replace Alexander, as commander of

9310-418: The Americans ceded land south of Baden-Baden , land south of the Free People's State of Württemberg (which became Württemberg-Hohenzollern ), the Lindau region on Lake Constance , and four regions in Hesse east of the Rhine . The British ceded the Saarland , the Palatinate , and territories on the left bank of the Rhine as far as Remagen (including Trier , Koblenz , and Montabaur ). Also created

9500-399: The BAFO had shrunk to ten squadrons at three airfields, all directly under control of the Air Headquarters at Bad Eilsen . The Control Commission for Germany (CCG/BE) was set up consisting of British civil servants as well as military personnel. It took over aspects of local government, housing, transport and (through its new Special Police Corps, also known as the British Civil Police or

9690-407: The British Commander-in-Chief, neither French nor Haig, and only twice did I see an Army Commander. The higher staffs were out of touch with the regimental officers and with the troops. The former lived in comfort, which became greater as the distance of their headquarters behind the lines increased. There was no harm in this provided there was touch and sympathy between the staff and the troops. This

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9880-404: The British Control Commission. Many German POWs were formed into Civilian Labour units – they still had the status of Surrendered Enemy Personnel but they were used where help was needed such as unloading supplies. The German Civil Labour Organisation (GCLO) was set up on 1 August 1947, after the Labour Service units were broken up. The Germans were given the choice of either joining

10070-447: The British Zone. They requisitioned German buildings for military administration and accommodation. Some 800,000 soldiers from BAOR were in Germany by the end of 1945, and new barracks had to be built due to the intense damage done to German cities during the war, particularly Hamburg. The Canadians had a temporary occupation force (CAOF) peaking at 853 officers and 16,983 other ranks. The Canadian government only made them available during

10260-435: The British for the Germans to become self sustaining industry was to build up a strong, free trade union movement in Germany . In early 1947 several unions joined to form the Gewerkschaftsbund in der britischen Besatzungszone . On 23–25 April the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund , DGB was founded in Bielefeld as a confederation of twelve unions. By 30 June 1949 the DGB within the British zone had some 2,885,036 members. To solve

10450-420: The British implemented government modeled on the UK system, placing heavy emphasis on local level democracy. The goal was to create a British-style administration with employees who viewed themselves as public servants, on the basis that this would help to reeducate Germans to democratic modes of thought. To that end the British introduced new local government structures, including a nonpolitical position similar to

10640-426: The British occupation zone, the most notorious being the Belsen trial following the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945. Taken to trial were 45 former SS men, women and kapos . Eleven were sentenced to death and hanged, including Commandant Josef Kramer and Irma Grese on 13 December 1945. There was also the Hamburg Ravensbrück Trials  – several in all that were held at

10830-475: The British until 1957. The Royal Navy seized the majority of the harboured German naval fleet: mainly in Kiel . The U-Boats were disposed of during Operation Deadlight : the Royal Navy towed the submarines to three areas about 100 miles (160 km) north-west of Ireland to sink them. A number of Germany's capital ships were seized: on 27 May 1945, the German cruiser Prinz Eugen and the light cruiser Nürnberg —the only major German naval vessels to survive

11020-475: The British zonal advisory board (Zonenbeirat) was established, with representatives of the states, the central offices, political parties, trade unions, and consumer organisations. As indicated by its name, the zonal advisory board had no legislative power, but was merely advisory. The Control Commission for Germany – British Element made all decisions with its legislative power. In 1947, the American Zone of Occupation, being landlocked, had no port facilities – thus

11210-488: The British. According to Allied agreements, these were supposed to be split between Britain and the United States. The British in their zone were in possession of just over 2,000,000 German POWs, but were unable to handle this many – feeding, housing and looking after them became a logistical nightmare. The British had no choice but to renegotiate with the Americans on their split. The British reported that they did not have places to keep them or men to guard them on

11400-466: The Castle. At this point another IRA officer, Pat O'Sullivan, whistled to Montgomery drawing his attention to scores of IRA volunteers who had quietly taken up firing positions all around the square—surrounding Montgomery's forces. Realising his precarious position, Montgomery led his troops out of the town, a decision which raised hostile questions in the House of Commons but was later approved by Montgomery's own superiors. Unknown to Montgomery at this time,

11590-400: The Communist party. Bernard Montgomery Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein KG , GCB , DSO , PC , DL ( / m ə n t ˈ ɡ ʌ m ər i  ...   ˈ æ l ə m eɪ n / ; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed " Monty ", was a senior British Army officer who served in

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11780-427: The Council , Herbert Morrison , negotiated a deal with the Americans whereby 675,000 long tons (686,000 t) of grain was shipped to Germany in return for a reduction of 200,000 long tons (200,000 t) in shipments to Britain. The British also had to deal with active resistance groups known as Werwolfs . Violence however failed to mobilize a spirit of popular national resistance, largely due to war-weariness of

11970-402: The Curio house in the Rotherbaum quarter of Hamburg, lasting two years. Executions relating to these trials were carried out on the gallows at Hamelin prison by renowned hangman Albert Pierrepoint . Between December 1948 and October 1949 he executed 226 people, often over ten over a day, and on several occasions groups of up to seventeen over two days. Between November 1945 and October 1946,

12160-425: The English town clerk ("city director") that replaced the office of mayor. In general, the British believed strongly in reeducation as a means to achieve democracy, which led them to prioritize the reestablishment of schooling and university education in their zone. The French were less concerned with improving Germany's moral and civic character, focusing instead on ensuring France's future security and utilizing

12350-499: The French border which met at just a single point along the River Rhine . Three German states ( Land ) were established: Rheinland Pfalz in the north and west and on the other hand Württemberg-Hohenzollern and South Baden , who later formed Baden-Württemberg together with Württemberg-Baden of the American zone. The French zone of occupation included the Saargebiet , which was disentangled from it on 16 February 1946. By 18 December 1946 customs controls were established between

12540-404: The French occupation zone, was separated from Allied-occupied Germany to become a French protectorate with its constitution took effect on 17 December 1947, however the separation was opposed by the Soviet Union and Germans here were not expelled. In October 1946, the population of the various zones and sectors was as follows: The original Allied plan to govern Germany as a single unit through

12730-407: The French zone) and Hesse (without Rhenish Hesse and Montabaur Region , both part of the French zone) with a new capital in Wiesbaden , and of northern parts of Württemberg and Baden . Those formed Württemberg-Baden and became northern portions of the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg founded in 1952. The ports of Bremen (on the lower Weser River ) and Bremerhaven (at

12920-469: The French zone, let alone into the separated Saar protectorate. However, the native population, returning after Nazi-imposed removals (e.g., political and Jewish refugees) and war-related relocations (e.g., evacuation from air raids), were allowed to return home in the areas under French control. The other Allies complained that they had to shoulder the burden to feed, house and clothe the expellees who had to leave their belongings behind. In practice, each of

13110-443: The GCLO or being sent to a prisoner-of-war camp until they were released into civilian life. By late 1947, over 50,000 Germans were employed and organized in units that were attached to parts of the British Army or the RAF as labourers, drivers, mechanics and in many other roles. They had a staff of between 220 and 475 men. Although the GCLO was considered a civil organisation, its members wore a kind of uniform and were incorporated into

13300-530: The GDR declared it its capital (Hauptstadt der DDR). Allied aims with respect to postwar Germany were first laid out at the Yalta Conference , where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin signed an agreement stating that they intended to: disarm and disband the German armed forces ; break up the German General Staff ; remove or destroy all German military equipment; eliminate or control German industry that could be used for military production; punish war criminals; exact reparations for damage done by Germany; wipe out

13490-424: The GDR established a military, the National People's Army (NVA). Despite the grants of general sovereignty to both German states in 1955, full and unrestricted sovereignty under international law was not enjoyed by any German government until after the reunification of Germany in October 1990. Though West Germany was effectively independent, the western Allies maintained limited legal jurisdiction over 'Germany as

13680-453: The German commander, Erwin Rommel, to attack with the heights as his objective, something that Rommel soon did. Montgomery ordered all contingency plans for retreat to be destroyed. "I have cancelled the plan for withdrawal. If we are attacked, then there will be no retreat. If we cannot stay here alive, then we will stay here dead", he told his officers at the first meeting he held with them in

13870-525: The German people themselves to build a better Germany from the ruins. A radio station was set up in Hamburg as the sole broadcasting station by British authorities to provide information to the population of the area. Hugh Carleton Greene , on secondment from the BBC was sent to create a public service broadcasting in their Zone. On 22 September 1945, Radio Hamburg became Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) which

14060-629: The German surrender, leaving Northern Germany to be occupied by the British. The British Army of the Rhine was formed on 25 August 1945 from the British Liberation Army . In July the British withdrew from Mecklenburg 's capital Schwerin which they had taken over from the Americans a few weeks before, as it had previously been agreed to be occupied by the Soviet Army . The Control Commission for Germany (British Element) (CCG/BE) ceded more slices of its area of occupation to

14250-688: The Montgomery ancestral estate of New Park in Moville , a small town in Inishowen in the north of County Donegal in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland . There was still £13,000 to pay on a mortgage , a large debt in the 1880s (equivalent to £1,825,976 in 2023) and Henry was at the time still only an Anglican vicar. Despite selling off all the farms that were in the townland of Ballynally, on

14440-542: The Nazi government in 1937. The British also created the new German states of: Also in 1947, the American zone of occupation being inland had no port facilities – thus the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and Bremerhaven became exclaves within the British zone. At the end of October 1946, the British zone had a population of: The British headquarters were originally based in Bad Oeynhausen from 1946, but in 1954 it

14630-421: The Nazi party and its institutions; remove all Nazi and militarist influences from public life; and take any other measures in Germany as might be necessary to ensure future peace and safety. The consensus among the Allies was that it was necessary to ensure Germany could not cause further world wars, but beyond that their opinion on what Germany's future should look like differed. The US originally considered

14820-515: The Nile Delta. He moved his field HQ to Burg al Arab, close to the Air Force command post in order to better coordinate combined operations. Montgomery was determined that the army, navy and air forces should fight their battles in a unified, focused manner according to a detailed plan. He ordered immediate reinforcement of the vital heights of Alam Halfa, just behind his own lines, expecting

15010-590: The Portuguese islands, also did not go ahead and in July 1940, Montgomery was appointed acting lieutenant-general and after handing over command of his division to James Gammell , he was placed in command of V Corps , responsible for the defence of Hampshire and Dorset and started a long-running feud with the new Commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of Southern Command, Lieutenant-General Claude Auchinleck . In April 1941, he became commander of XII Corps responsible for

15200-532: The Potsdam Agreement they were handed over to Soviet and Polish civilian administrations and ceased to constitute part of Allied-occupied Germany. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, United States forces had pushed beyond the agreed boundaries for the future zones of occupation, in some places by as much as 320 km (200 miles). The so-called line of contact between Soviet and U.S. forces at

15390-587: The Public Safety Branch) policing. The CCG/BE re-established the city of Hamburg as a German state but with borders that had been drawn by the Nazi government in 1937. George Ayscough Armytage and Governor Henry V. Berry identified with the city and worked through indirect rule , asking prospective Hamburg inhabitants to resume office in the administration. The British also created three new German states in Ordinance No. 46 : In March 1946

15580-601: The Rhine in Operation Plunder in March 1945. By the end of the war, troops under Montgomery's command had taken part in the encirclement of the Ruhr Pocket , liberated the Netherlands, and captured much of north-west Germany. On 4 May 1945, Montgomery accepted the surrender of the German forces in north-western Europe at Lüneburg Heath , south of Hamburg , after the surrender of Berlin to the USSR on 2 May. After

15770-472: The Ruhr (IAR) was signed and came into effect on 28 April 1949. In 1946 a short documentary film, A Defeated People , made by the Crown Film Unit and directed by Humphrey Jennings , depicting the shattered state of Germany after the war. The film was one of the first to show the consequences of the war for ordinary German civilians and showed what needed to be done – both by the British zone and

15960-570: The Ruhr and were prepared to snub the French. Once this internationalisation had receded, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and US Secretary of State George C. Marshall agreed that the Ruhr's industries should be distributed to help the economy of war weary Europe. In Essen the British set up its headquarters for the North German Coal Control at the Krupp Mansion at Villa Hügel . From there they organised

16150-573: The Saar area and Allied-occupied Germany. The French zone ceded further areas adjacent to the Saar (in mid-1946, early 1947, and early 1949). Included in the French zone was the town of Büsingen am Hochrhein , a German exclave separated from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of neutral Swiss territory. The Swiss government agreed to allow limited numbers of French troops to pass through its territory in order to maintain law and order in Büsingen. At

16340-408: The Saar region, fusing it with France in a customs and currency union and encouraging the development of export industries. As a result, the French managed to extract a surplus from their occupation zone, and prevented it from becoming a financial liability the way the British and American zones were to their respective occupying powers. Soviet aims in Germany were similar to those of the French, with

16530-533: The September 1990 Peace Treaty) the northern portion of East Prussia became the Kaliningrad Oblast within the Soviet Union (today Russian Federation ). A small area west of the Oder, near Szczecin , also fell to Poland. Most German citizens residing in these areas were subsequently expropriated and expelled . Returning refugees, who had fled from war hostilities, were denied return. Saarland, an area in

16720-564: The South-Eastern Army to promote offensive spirit. During this time he further developed and rehearsed his ideas and trained his soldiers, culminating in Exercise Tiger in May 1942, a combined forces exercise involving 100,000 troops. In 1942, a new field commander was required in the Middle East, where Auchinleck was fulfilling both the role of C-in-C of Middle East Command and commander Eighth Army . He had stabilised

16910-665: The Soviet Union – specifically the Amt Neuhaus of Hanover and some exclaves and fringes of Brunswick , for example the County of Blankenburg , and exchanged some villages between British Holstein and Soviet Mecklenburg under the Barber-Lyashchenko Agreement . Within the British zone of occupation, the CCG/BE re-established the city of Hamburg as a German state , but with borders that had been drawn by

17100-783: The Soviet imposition of the Berlin Blockade that was enforced from June 1948 to May 1949. The three western zones were merged to form the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) i.e. West Germany in May 1949, and after that the Soviets followed suit in October 1949 with the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) i.e. East Germany. In the west, the occupation continued until 5 May 1955, when

17290-573: The Soviets, and as such many refused to go back. The British initially used them as watchman and labour units, but set up the Mixed Service Organisation , using these displaced persons as drivers, clerks, mechanics and guards. Another organisation was needed to control the flow of refugees and prevent smuggling. In 1946 the Frontier Control Service was set up, which was a civilian frontier force administered by

17480-505: The Soviets. The biggest discovery was the "Russian FISH", a set of German wide-band receivers used to intercept Soviet high-level radio Teletype signals. These were sent back to England, reconstructed, and tested at Steeple Claydon in Buckinghamshire ; they soon encountered Russian radio traffic. Over 300,000 Germans (non-Nazi officers and men) were released from captivity by the British between June and September 1945 to work on

17670-514: The United Kingdom, as GOC of II Corps for the final stages of the Dunkirk evacuation . The 3rd Division, temporarily commanded by Kenneth Anderson in Montgomery's absence, returned to Britain intact with minimal casualties. Operation Dynamo—codename for the Dunkirk evacuation—saw 330,000 Allied military personnel, including most of the BEF, to Britain, although the BEF was forced to leave behind

17860-1071: The Weser estuary of the North Sea ) were also placed under U.S. control because of the U.S. request to have certain toeholds in Northern Germany . At the end of October 1946, the American zone had a population of: The headquarters of the American military government was the former IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main . Following the complete closure of all Nazi German media, the launch and operation of completely new newspaper titles began by licensing carefully selected Germans as publishers. Licenses were granted to Germans not involved in Nazi propaganda to establish those newspapers, including Frankfurter Rundschau (August 1945), Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin; September 1945), and Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich; October 1945). Radio stations were run by

18050-406: The accommodation shortage even worse and also caused a reduction in the food ration in early 1946. Over the next year, however, many refugees obtained accommodation and work as the economy recovered – the vast majority were granted German citizenship. In addition to this the British had to deal with tens of thousands of displaced persons . Many of these were from Eastern European nations occupied by

18240-415: The aim to seek out and capture the cryptologic secrets of Germany. The concept was for six teams of cryptologic experts, mainly drawn from the code-breaking center at Bletchley Park . They went to Germany just after the war had ended to capture the documents, technology and personnel of the various German signal intelligence organizations before these precious secrets could be destroyed, looted, or captured by

18430-552: The bayonet. He was severely wounded. After recovering in early 1915, he was appointed brigade major , first of the 112th Infantry Brigade , and then with 104th Infantry Brigade , then training in Lancashire . He returned to the Western Front in early 1916 with his brigade, seeing service with it during the Battle of the Somme later in the year. In January 1917 he was assigned as a general staff officer, grade 2 (GSO2) with

18620-508: The biggest single non-nuclear detonations in history . The blow shook the main island several miles down to its base, changing its shape; and as a result an area known as the ' Mittelland ' was created. As well as disarmament there was much to find in the way of war booty and intelligence. With the completion of the T-Force and the Alsos missions which had gathered intelligence and booty in

18810-433: The brief hiatus between Italy's departure from the war and the German seizure of the country. He eventually reached British lines on 5 December 1943, to the delight of his stepfather, who sent him home to Britain to recuperate. In January 1929 Montgomery was promoted to brevet lieutenant-colonel. That month he returned to the 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment again, as Commander of Headquarters Company; he went to

19000-511: The centre eventually being closed down. Other smaller trials continued, but by 1948 these became few and far between as the political situation with the Soviet Union deteriorated. By this time also, the British government wanted the rebuilding of the German economy to take precedence over the imprisonment of Nazi criminals. By 1948 WCIT had brought around 350 cases to trial involving over 1,000 accused Nazis. Of these, 667 were imprisoned and 230 sentenced to death. In October 1945, in order to constitute

19190-461: The continent. In addition it was thought that moving them to England would arouse public resentment and adversely affect morale. Another problem the British faced was that they had the largest population of the four allied powers. This was exacerbated by the great number of German refugees who had come by sea fleeing the Soviets, as well as forced expulsion from Eastern Europe . German POWs from abroad also arrived by sea in their thousands, thus making

19380-451: The defence of Kent . During this period he instituted a regime of continuous training and insisted on high levels of physical fitness for both officers and other ranks. He was ruthless in sacking officers he considered unfit for command in action. Promoted to temporary lieutenant-general in July, overseeing the defence of Kent, Sussex and Surrey . In December Montgomery was given command of South-Eastern Command . He renamed his command

19570-596: The desert, he briefly wore an Australian broad-brimmed hat before switching to wearing the black beret (with the badge of the Royal Tank Regiment and the British General Officer's cap badge ) for which he became notable. The black beret was offered to him by Jim Fraser while the latter was driving him on an inspection tour. Both Brooke and Alexander were astonished by the transformation in atmosphere when they visited on 19 August, less than

19760-415: The desert, though, in fact, Auchinleck had no plans to withdraw from the strong defensive position he had chosen and established at El Alamein. Montgomery made a great effort to appear before troops as often as possible, frequently visiting various units and making himself known to the men, often arranging for cigarettes to be distributed. Although he still wore a standard British officer's cap on arrival in

19950-429: The division's arrival overseas, Montgomery faced serious trouble from his military superiors and the clergy for his frank attitude regarding the sexual health of his soldiers, but was defended from dismissal by his superior Alan Brooke , commander of II Corps , of which Montgomery's division formed a part. Montgomery had issued a circular on the prevention of venereal disease, worded in such "obscene language" that both

20140-447: The economy started to revive. The destroyed German transportation infrastructure created additional logistical difficulties, with rail lines, bridges, canals and terminals left in ruins. The turnaround time for rail wagons was five times higher than the pre-war average. Only 1,000 of the 13,000 kilometres of track in the British zone were operable. Urban centres often had to be supplied with horse-drawn carriages and wheeled carts. One of

20330-644: The end of October 1946, the French zone had a population of: (The Saar Protectorate had a further 0.8 million.) From November 1945, Luxembourg was allocated a zone within the French sector. The Luxembourg 2nd Infantry Battalion was garrisoned in Bitburg and the 1st Battalion was sent to Saarburg . The final Luxembourg forces in Germany, in Bitburg, left in 1955. The Soviet occupation zone incorporated Thuringia , Saxony , Saxony-Anhalt , Brandenburg and Mecklenburg . The Soviet Military Administration

20520-505: The end of hostilities, mostly lying eastward of the July 1945-established inner German border , was temporary. After two months during which they held areas that had been assigned to the Soviet zone, U.S. forces withdrew in the first days of July 1945. Some have concluded that this was a crucial move which persuaded the Soviet Union to allow American, British and French forces into their designated sectors in Berlin, which occurred at roughly

20710-555: The factory was given over to food production. He discovered an intact Volkswagen Beetle within the factory from which he was able to present at headquarters. Hirst recognized that economical vehicle production would help in remedying the transport bottlenecks of the British Army. On 22 August he received an order to produce a vast number of Volkswagen Beetles for the British military administration. Cars were put together with old-stock and whatever could be found, many using parts from

20900-653: The fighting spirit and abilities of the Eighth Army. Taking command on 13 August 1942, he immediately became a whirlwind of activity. He ordered the creation of the X Corps , which contained all armoured divisions, to fight alongside his XXX Corps , which was all infantry divisions. This arrangement differed from the German Panzer Corps: one of Rommel's Panzer Corps combined infantry, armour and artillery units under one corps commander. The only common commander for Montgomery's all-infantry and all-armour corps

21090-517: The fighting, all these were turned over to the US Field Information Agency, Technical (FIAT). FIAT was authorized to "coordinate, integrate, and direct the activities of the various missions and agencies" interested in scientific and technical intelligence but prohibited from collecting and exploiting such information on its own responsibility. As a result, the British set up a number of new post-war operations within their zone:

21280-402: The final. Eventually an attempt to stage a German championship paid off from all four zones. A championship was staged with the best two clubs from the British zone championship who qualified for the tournament. In 1948 German football championship was created with 1. FC Nürnberg becoming champions. Army units from other countries were stationed within the British occupation zone. The largest

21470-460: The first large-scale, decisive Allied land victories of the war. Montgomery correctly predicted both the length of the battle and the number of casualties (13,500). Historian Correlli Barnett has pointed out that the rain also fell on the Germans, and that the weather is therefore an inadequate explanation for the failure to exploit the breakthrough, but nevertheless the Battle of El Alamein had been

21660-492: The four missing officers had already been executed. In May 1923, Montgomery was posted to the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division , a Territorial Army (TA) formation. He returned to the 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1925 as a company commander and was promoted to major in July 1925. From January 1926 to January 1929 he served as Deputy Assistant Adjutant General at the Staff College, Camberley, in

21850-596: The four occupying powers wielded government authority in their respective zones and carried out different policies toward the population and local and state governments there. A uniform administration of the western zones evolved, known first as the Bizone (the American and British zones merged as of 1 January 1947) and later the Trizone (after inclusion of the French zone). The complete breakdown of east–west allied cooperation and joint administration in Germany became clear with

22040-609: The fourth child of nine, to a Church of Ireland minister, Henry Montgomery , and his wife Maud ( née Farrar). The Montgomerys, an Ulster Scots ' Ascendancy ' gentry family, were the County Donegal branch of the Clan Montgomery . The Rev. Henry Montgomery, at that time Vicar of St Mark's Church , Kennington, was the second son of Sir Robert Montgomery , a native of Inishowen in County Donegal in

22230-703: The high commissioners were replaced by normal ambassadors. West Germany was also allowed to build a military, and the Bundeswehr , or Federal Defense Force, was established on 12 November 1955. A similar situation occurred in East Germany. The GDR was founded on 7 October 1949. On 10 October the Soviet Military Administration in Germany was replaced by the Soviet Control Commission , although limited sovereignty

22420-648: The idea after it was reported on by major American newspapers. Ultimately, US occupation policy came to be determined chiefly by the War Department , with long-term objectives summed up by the four Ds : denazification , democratization , demilitarization , and decentralization (or decartelization ) . Initially, the US was extremely rigorous in its efforts to prevent fraternization with German civilians. US soldiers were forbidden to shake hands with Germans, visit their homes, play games or sports with them, exchange gifts, take part in social events, or walk in

22610-406: The islands were prepared and detailed plans worked out for the invasion. The invasion plans did not go ahead and plans switched to invading Cape Verde island also belonging to neutral Portugal. These invasion plans also did not go ahead. Montgomery was then ordered to prepare plans for the invasion of neutral Ireland and to seize Cork , Cobh and Cork harbour. These invasion plans, like those of

22800-577: The issue with the Ruhr, an Authority was set out in the communiqué issued 7 June 1948, after the London Six-Power Conference . The Authority would "supervise the production, organization, trade and ownership policies of the Ruhr industries and distribute their products so that all countries cooperating for the common economic good will have adequate access to them". The Statute for the International Authority for

22990-490: The land and bring in the harvest, in a project named Operation Barleycorn . The project, masterminded by Major General Gerald Templer was successful, and as a result more prisoners were released for transport and mining. Much of Germany's industrial plant fell within the British zone, especially the industrial power house, the Ruhr . There was a concern that rebuilding a former enemy's industrial powerhouse would eventually prove

23180-593: The largest concentration of German armour in North Africa was successfully repulsed. At the Mareth Line , 20 to 27 March, when Montgomery encountered fiercer frontal opposition than he had anticipated, he switched his major effort into an outflanking inland pincer, backed by low-flying RAF fighter-bomber support. For his role in North Africa he was awarded the Legion of Merit by the United States government in

23370-400: The magazine was later renamed Der Spiegel which was first published on 4 January 1947. The British helped to revive association football in Germany. An attempt was made to stage a German football championship in 1947 but this failed. The 1947 British occupation zone football championship saw the best teams in the regional leagues compete against each other with Hamburger SV winning

23560-489: The many factories the British had taken over was the Volkswagen plant at Wolfsburg in June 1945. This was put under the overall direction of Colonel Michael McEvoy at Rhine Army Headquarters. A Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) officer Major Ivan Hirst revived the factory soon after, which had been badly damaged by allied air attacks. Hirst had the drains fixed, and bomb craters filled in; land in front of

23750-482: The men, he was under strict orders not to attack the IRA. On arriving in the town square in front of Macroom Castle, he summoned the IRA commander, Charlie Browne, to parley. At the castle gates Montgomery spoke to Browne explaining what would happen should the officers not be released. Once finished, Browne responded with his own ultimatum to Montgomery to "leave town within 10 minutes". Browne then turned heels and returned to

23940-620: The military government. Later, Radio Frankfurt , Radio München (Munich) and Radio Stuttgart gave way for the Hessischer Rundfunk , Bayerischer Rundfunk , and Süddeutscher Rundfunk , respectively. The RIAS in West-Berlin remained a radio station under U.S. control. By May 1945 the British and Canadian Armies had liberated the Netherlands and had conquered Northern Germany. The Canadian forces went home following

24130-550: The most infamous was Heinrich Himmler  – he was arrested at a British checkpoint in disguise and was taken to the headquarters of the Second British Army in Lüneburg on 23 May 1945 for interrogation. Whilst being examined by a doctor, Himmler committed suicide with a concealed cyanide pill. The British established their own War Crimes Investigation Teams also known as WCIT. Trials took place within

24320-478: The motives of others—within reasonable bounds long enough for him to have a chance of attaining high command. Both of Montgomery's stepsons became army officers in the 1930s (both were serving in India at the time of their mother's death), and both served in the Second World War, each eventually attaining the rank of colonel. While serving as a GSO2 with Eighth Army, Dick Carver was sent forward during

24510-465: The nation would never allow it, and the politicians would lose their jobs if they sanctioned it. That being so, I consider that Lloyd George was right in what he did, if we had gone on we could probably have squashed the rebellion as a temporary measure, but it would have broken out again like an ulcer the moment we removed the troops. I think the rebels would probably have refused battles, and hidden their arms etc. until we had gone. The only way therefore

24700-485: The negotiation of the Bonn–Paris conventions during 1951–1952, which terminated the occupation and prepared the way for the rearmament of West Germany. Army units from other countries were stationed within the British occupation zone. The French Republic was at first not granted an occupation zone in Germany, but the British and American governments later agreed to cede some western parts of their zones of occupation to

24890-418: The new C-in-C of Southern Command , General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell . He was promoted to major-general on 14 October 1938 and took command of the 8th Infantry Division in the British mandate of Palestine. In Palestine, Montgomery was involved in suppressing an Arab revolt which had broken out over opposition to Jewish emigration . He returned in July 1939 to Britain, suffering a serious illness on

25080-442: The new country of West Germany was established. Out of all the four zones, the British had the largest population and contained within it the heavy industry region, the Ruhr , as well as the naval ports and Germany's coast lines. By the end of 1942, Britain was already thinking about post-war strategy, and in particular the occupation of Germany. This became more of a reality when the British Liberation Army , consisting largely of

25270-468: The north-west of Ulster , the noted colonial administrator in British India ; Sir Robert died a month after his grandson's birth. He was probably a descendant of Colonel Alexander Montgomery . Bernard's mother, Maud, was the daughter of Frederic William Canon Farrar , the famous preacher, and was eighteen years younger than her husband. After the death of Sir Robert Montgomery, Henry inherited

25460-404: The north-western shores of Lough Foyle , "there was barely enough to keep up New Park and pay for the blasted summer holiday" (i.e., at New Park). It was a financial relief of some magnitude when, in 1889, Henry was made Bishop of Tasmania , then still a British colony , and Bernard spent his formative years there. Bishop Montgomery considered it his duty to spend as much time as possible in

25650-440: The officers and men of Montgomery's battalion chose to leave them where they were until darkness arrived and stretcher bearers managed to recover the two bodies, with Montgomery by this time barely clinging on to life. The doctors at the advanced dressing station (ADS), too, had no hope for him and ordered a grave to be dug. Miraculously, however, Montgomery was still alive and, after being placed in an ambulance and then being sent to

25840-570: The output and distribution from all the Ruhr coal fields. The Royal Engineers restored much of the transport infrastructure but labour shortage was a huge problem. In an effort to find more labour the British launched Operation Coal Scuttle during the autumn of 1945; where 30,000 former soldiers were released to work in the coal mines. Nevertheless this was far fewer than were needed to restore output to pre-war production levels. Severe shortages of labour and raw materials meant that production remained at very low levels throughout 1945 and 46, nevertheless

26030-554: The parade following the liberation of Lille . Montgomery was profoundly influenced by his experiences during the war, in particular by the leadership, or rather the lack of it, being displayed by the senior commanders. He later wrote: There was little contact between the generals and the soldiers. I went through the whole war on the Western Front, except during the period I was in England after being wounded; I never once saw

26220-638: The participating governments had ratified the treaty. As envisaged by the Treaty, the last occupation troops departed from Germany when the Russian presence was terminated in 1994, although the Belgian Forces in Germany stayed in German territory until the end of 2005. A 1956 plebiscite ended the French administration of the Saar protectorate, and it joined the Federal Republic as Saarland on 1 January 1957, becoming its tenth state. The city of Berlin

26410-517: The period of adjustment and disarmament following the occupation of Germany. By mid July 1946 most of the Canadians had left for home. A number of departments were set up for various purposes. The Property Control Department took over Nazi-controlled buildings and properties including looted works of art and other valuables. These objects were held for safekeeping until returned in due course to their rightful owners, most from outside of Germany. There

26600-645: The plans recast to concentrate the Allied forces, having Lieutenant General George Patton 's US Seventh Army land in the Gulf of Gela (on the Eighth Army's left flank, which landed around Syracuse in the south-east of Sicily) rather than near Palermo in the west and north of Sicily. Inter-Allied tensions grew as the American commanders, Patton and Omar Bradley (then commanding US II Corps under Patton), took umbrage at what they saw as Montgomery's attitudes and boastfulness. However, while they were considered three of

26790-416: The populace, and as a result Werwolf attacks were low and relatively few reprisals took place in the British zone. At the end of October 1946, the British Zone had a population of: Shortly after the German surrender, the Allied armies were on the hunt for notorious German war criminals, generals and high-ranking members of the Nazi Party. The British had already prepared a plan from 1942 onwards, assigning

26980-450: The primary goals being to prevent future aggression by Germany and to extract reparations. Political activity in the Soviet occupation zone was overseen by the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD), which maintained close control over the Germans and allowed little room for independent action on the part of local German officials. Key posts in local administration, particularly those dealing with security members, were given to members of

27170-424: The pursuit after El Alamein to help identify a new site for Eighth Army HQ. He was taken prisoner at Mersa Matruh on 7 November 1942. Montgomery wrote to his contacts in England asking that inquiries be made via the Red Cross as to where his stepson was being held, and that parcels be sent to him. Like many British POWs, the most famous being General Richard O'Connor , Dick Carver escaped in September 1943 during

27360-442: The rank of Chief Commander. The next major Allied attack was the Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky). Montgomery considered the initial plans for the Allied invasion, which had been agreed in principle by General Dwight D. Eisenhower , the Supreme Allied Commander Allied Forces Headquarters , and General Alexander, the 15th Army Group commander, to be unworkable because of the dispersion of effort. He managed to have

27550-421: The remaining "Germany as a whole" into four occupation zones, each administered by one of the Allies. All territories annexed by Germany before the war from Austria and Czechoslovakia were returned to these countries. The Memel Territory , annexed by Germany from Lithuania before the war, was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and transferred to the Lithuanian SSR . All territories annexed by Germany during

27740-450: The resources of their occupation zone to facilitate economic recovery within France itself. Since one of their key goals was to ensure that Germany would never again be in a position to threaten France, the French were strongly opposed to a unified approach to occupation, and favored political structures that were as decentralized as possible. On the economic front, the French seized the opportunity to extract coal and steel resources from

27930-429: The rest of Germany – this included the Soviet sector of Berlin, which was legally separate from the rest of the Soviet zone. At the end of October 1946, Berlin had a population of: In 1945 Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line was assigned to Poland by the Potsdam Conference to be "temporarily administered" pending the Final Peace Treaty on Germany between the four Allies and a future German state; eventually (under

28120-465: The right lung by a sniper. Lying in the open, he remained still and pretended to be dead, in the hope that he would not receive any more enemy attention. One of his men did attempt to rescue him but was shot dead by a hidden enemy sniper and collapsed over Montgomery. The sniper continued to fire and Montgomery was hit once more, in the knee, but the dead soldier, in Montgomery's words, "received many bullets meant for me." Assuming them to both be dead,

28310-437: The risk of their falling into Soviet hands. The German scientists and technicians were, in general, very co-operative with the British interviewers, with some wishing to emigrate to the U.S. or Canada. Of the scientists relocated from 1946-1947, 100 chose to work for the UK. The British had enough material to conduct launches of V-2 rockets and set up Operation Backfire . The operation was carried out during October 1945 from

28500-483: The rural areas of Tasmania and was away for up to six months at a time. While he was away, his wife, still in her mid-twenties, gave her children "constant" beatings, then ignored them most of the time. Of Bernard's siblings, Sibyl died prematurely in Tasmania, and Harold, Donald and Una all emigrated. Maud Montgomery took little active interest in the education of her young children other than to have them taught by tutors brought from Britain, although he briefly attended

28690-456: The same fate, while the capsized German cruiser Admiral Scheer was partially broken up for scrap. The German island of Heligoland in the North Sea fell within the British zone and had contained a large U-Boat base. On 18 April 1947, in an attempt to destroy the base and remove it as a fleet base location for Germany, the Royal Navy detonated 6,700 tonnes of explosives. Known as " Operation Big Bang " or "British Bang", this resulted in one of

28880-427: The same time; the need for intelligence gathering ( Operation Paperclip ) may also have been a factor. On 20 March 1948, the Soviets withdrew from the Allied Control Council. The split led to the establishment in 1949 of two new German states, West Germany and East Germany . The American zone in Southern Germany consisted of Bavaria (without the Rhine Palatinate Region and the Lindau District , both part of

29070-409: The strategy of post-war Germany into a new direction; thus denazification was put at the forefront of British post-war policy in Germany. On 4 May 1945, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands, in north west Germany and Denmark . This was followed by the German Instrument of Surrender three days later. To form the French zone

29260-403: The streets with them. How strictly this policy was applied varied from place to place, but in many places the restrictions were frequently ignored, as a result of which the policy was quickly abandoned. Germans were also prohibited from inhabiting any part of a building in which US soldiers were housed, leading to large numbers of Germans being ejected from their homes. British occupation policy

29450-407: The summer of 1947 American war crimes prosecutors presented the British government with 'overwhelming' evidence that four German officers held in British custody, Erich von Manstein , Walther von Brauchitsch , Gerd von Rundstedt and Adolf Strauss were complicit in war crimes. The Soviets also requested their extradition of Manstein and Runstedt early the following year. This led, in early July, to

29640-417: The tactical situation from a distance, and was supported at the Chiefs of Staff meeting by Smuts . Rommel attempted to turn the left flank of the Eighth Army at the Battle of Alam el Halfa from 31 August 1942. The German/Italian armoured corps infantry attack was stopped in very heavy fighting. Rommel's forces had to withdraw urgently lest their retreat through the British minefields be cut off. Montgomery

29830-500: The temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1925, in his first known courtship of a woman, Montgomery, then in his late thirties, proposed to a 17-year-old girl, Betty Anderson. His approach included drawing diagrams in the sand of how he would deploy his tanks and infantry in a future war, a contingency which seemed very remote at that time. She respected his ambition and single-mindedness but declined his proposal. In 1927, he met and married Elizabeth (Betty) Carver, née Hobart. She

30020-437: The then coeducational St Michael's Collegiate School . The loveless environment made Bernard something of a bully, as he himself recalled: "I was a dreadful little boy. I don't suppose anybody would put up with my sort of behaviour these days." Later in life Montgomery refused to allow his son David to have anything to do with his grandmother, and refused to attend her funeral in 1949. The family returned to England once for

30210-484: The war appeared to me to be those who had a complete disregard for human life. There were of course exceptions and I suppose one such was Plumer; I had only once seen him and had never spoken to him. After the First World War, Montgomery commanded the 17th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers , a battalion in the British Army of the Rhine , before reverting to his substantive rank of captain ( brevet major ) in November 1919. He had not at first been selected for

30400-418: The war from Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland and Yugoslavia were returned to their respective countries. Deviating from the occupation zones planned according to the London Protocol in 1944 , at Potsdam, the United States, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union approved the detachment from Germany of the territories east of the Oder–Neisse line , with the exact line of the boundary to be determined in

30590-405: The war he became Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) in Germany and then Chief of the Imperial General Staff (1946–1948). From 1948 to 1951, he served as Chairman of the Commanders-in-Chief Committee of the Western Union . He then served as NATO 's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe until his retirement in 1958. Montgomery was born in Kennington , Surrey, in 1887,

30780-411: The war in November 1918 as GSO1 (effectively chief of staff ) of the 47th (2nd London) Division , with the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel, to which appointment and rank he had been assigned to on 16 July. A photograph from October 1918, reproduced in many biographies, shows the then unknown Lieutenant-Colonel Montgomery standing in front of Winston Churchill (then the Minister of Munitions ) at

30970-405: The war in serviceable condition—were escorted by the British cruisers Dido and Devonshire to Wilhelmshaven . In July German cruiser Admiral Hipper which had been severely damaged by RAF Bomber Command and then scuttled in port was raised and towed to Heikendorfer Bay and subsequently broken up for scrap between 1948 and 1952. Other severely damaged cruisers Leipzig and Emden met

31160-468: The way, to command the 3rd Infantry Division . Reporting the suppression of the revolt in April 1939, Montgomery wrote, "I shall be sorry to leave Palestine in many ways, as I have enjoyed the war out here". Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 and the 3rd Division, together with its new General Officer Commanding (GOC), was deployed to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by General Lord Gort . Shortly after

31350-402: Was 1,625 calories/day, and that was further reduced to 1,100 calories by the end of the war in the British zone. This remained at that level into the summer, with levels varying from 840 calories/day in the Ruhr to 1,340 calories/day in Hamburg. The German population was existing on rations that would not sustain life in the long term. In order to avert starvation in Germany, the Lord President of

31540-422: Was also the Public Safety Department, who seized all kinds of rifles and revolvers from German troops and civilians. A law was passed forbidding German civilians possessing arms of any kind. The RAF were also part of the occupation and were renamed British Air Forces of Occupation (BAFO) on 15 July 1945. The Malcolm Clubs were set up for RAF personnel in towns and villages across the zone. Two years later however,

31730-399: Was at the time part of the 10th Infantry Brigade of the 4th Division of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). He was promoted to temporary captain on 14 September. He saw action at the Battle of Le Cateau that month and during the retreat from Mons . At Méteren , near the Belgian border at Bailleul on 13 October 1914, during an Allied counter-offensive, he was shot through

31920-401: Was commissioned into the 1st Battalion the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a second lieutenant , and first saw overseas service later that year in India. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1910, and in 1912 became adjutant of the 1st Battalion of his regiment at Shorncliffe Army Camp . The Great War began in August 1914 and Montgomery moved to France with his battalion that month, which

32110-424: Was criticised for not counter-attacking the retreating forces immediately, but he felt strongly that his methodical build-up of British forces was not yet ready. A hasty counter-attack risked ruining his strategy for an offensive on his own terms in late October, planning for which had begun soon after he took command. He was confirmed in the permanent rank of lieutenant-general in mid-October. The conquest of Libya

32300-482: Was essential for airfields to support Malta and to threaten the rear of Axis forces opposing Operation Torch. Montgomery prepared meticulously for the new offensive after convincing Churchill that the time was not being wasted. (Churchill sent a telegram to Alexander on 23 September 1942 which began, "We are in your hands and of course a victorious battle makes amends for much delay." ) He was determined not to fight until he thought there had been sufficient preparation for

32490-534: Was headquartered in Berlin-Karlshorst , which also came to house the chief rezidentura of Soviet intelligence in Germany. At the end of October 1946, the Soviet zone had a population of: While located wholly within the Soviet zone, because of its symbolic importance as the nation's capital and seat of the former Nazi government, the city of Berlin was jointly occupied by the Allied powers and subdivided into four sectors. All four occupying powers were entitled to privileges throughout Berlin that were not extended to

32680-706: Was held in Hamburg from 23 August to 19 December 1949 – the last trial the British would make against Nazis during the occupation. Manstein was found guilty and sentenced to eighteen years prison, however this was reduced to twelve years on medical grounds. British forces had to dispose of numerous German war material: many aircraft, tanks, ships, and submarines and a huge amount of ordnance had to be destroyed. The Royal Air Force disarmament wing blew up tons of ordnance and scrapped hundreds of German aircraft. In addition captured tanks, arms, vehicles were all scrapped unless they were of any use for evaluation. The British army took control of many factories; one of these

32870-432: Was made military governor of the British occupation zone, with Brian Robertson as Chief of Staff and Montgomery's deputy. Both were also on the Allied Control Council . The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) was formed on 25 August 1945 with the headquarters in Bad Oeynhausen and Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer serving as Director of Military Government. BAOR was made responsible for the occupation and administration of

33060-451: Was moved to Mönchengladbach where it was known as JHQ Rheindahlen . Another special feature of the British zone was the enclave of Bonn . It was created in July 1949 and was not under British or any other allied control. Instead it was under the control of the Allied High Commission . In June 1950, Ivone Kirkpatrick became the British High Commissioner for Germany . Kirkpatrick carried immense responsibility particularly with respect to

33250-443: Was not granted to the GDR government until 11 November 1949. After the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953, the Soviet Control Commission was replaced with the office of the Soviet High Commissioner on 28 May 1953. This office was abolished (and replaced by an ambassador) and (general) sovereignty was granted to the GDR, when the Soviet Union concluded a state treaty (Staatsvertrag) with the GDR on 20 September 1955. On 1 March 1956,

33440-408: Was not impressed with its readiness for battle. As a result, while most of the rest of the BEF set about preparing defences for an expected German attack sometime in the future, Montgomery began training his 3rd Division in offensive tactics, organising several exercises , each of which lasted for several days at a time. Mostly they revolved around the division advancing towards an objective, often

33630-418: Was not part of either state and de jure continued to be under Allied occupation of the four countries until the reunification of Germany in October 1990. For administrative purposes, the three western sectors of Berlin were merged into the entity of West Berlin being de facto part of the FRG. The Soviet sector became known as East Berlin and while not recognised by the Western powers as a part of East Germany,

33820-467: Was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II , from the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945 to the establishment of West Germany on 23 May 1949. Unlike occupied Japan , Nazi Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and former state : after Germany formally surrendered on 8 May 1945, the four countries representing the Allies (the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France) asserted joint authority and sovereignty through

34010-410: Was often lacking. At most large headquarters in back areas the doctrine seemed to me to be that the troops existed for the benefit of the staff. My war experience led me to believe that the staff must be the servant of the troops, and that a good staff officer must serve his commander and the troops but himself be anonymous. The frightful casualties appalled me. The so-called "good fighting generals" of

34200-470: Was run as part by the REME. In Hanover, Major John Seymour Chaloner who was assigned to the Public Relations and Information Services Control , a unit rebuilding the German media industry under the supervision of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office helped set up a magazine titled Diese Woche (meaning This Week in English), which had first been published in November 1946. Challoner worked with recently released German prisoner of war Rudolf Augstein and

34390-423: Was similar to that of the United States, but with a greater focus on economic problems. The British Occupation Zone included the Ruhr industrial region, which had experienced the heaviest bombing and therefore faced the greatest shortages of housing and food. Initial British occupation directives were concerned primarily with economic considerations and food supply. To further the long-term aim of democratization,

34580-457: Was stationed in County Cork , Ireland, carrying out counter-guerilla operations during the final stages of the Irish War of Independence . Montgomery came to the conclusion that the conflict could not be won without harsh measures, and that self-government for Ireland was the only feasible solution; in 1923, after the establishment of the Irish Free State and during the Irish Civil War , Montgomery wrote to Colonel Arthur Ernest Percival of

34770-523: Was the Belgian Sector allocated on 1 April 1946 to three Belgian infantry brigades of I Corps under the command of Lieutenant General Jean-Baptiste Piron . They controlled a 200 kilometres (120 mi)-strip from the Belgian-German border at the south of the British zone, and covered the cities of Aachen , Cologne , Soest , Siegen and Kassel . Corps headquarters moved to Haelen Caserne , Junkersdorf , Lindenthal, Cologne , in 1948. Polish units which included 1st Armoured Division were stationed in

34960-454: Was the Inner German Border : the boundary between the Western and Soviet occupation zones . As soon as the surrender of Germany had been announced British forces executed "Operation Eclipse": the disarmament of the German armed forces and the occupation, rehabilitation and de-nazification of Germany. Britain was responsible for north-west Germany, the Ruhr, the Netherlands and Denmark. At the end of July 1945, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery

35150-410: Was the Maschinenfabrik Niedersachsen in Hanover with two plants at Laatzen and the other Linden . Here, a group of tanks including incomplete Jagdpanther and Panther Tanks that were built under British supervision, namely the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers . In 1946/1947 the Linden plant was dismantled, and its dismantled parts sent back to the UK, while the Laatzen plant was in use by

35340-578: Was the Eighth Army Commander himself. Writing post-war the English historian Correlli Barnett commented that Montgomery's solution "was in every way opposite to Auchinleck's and in every way wrong, for it carried the existing dangerous separatism still further." Montgomery reinforced the 30 miles (48 km) long front line at El Alamein, something that would take two months to accomplish. He asked Alexander to send him two new British divisions ( 51st Highland and 44th Home Counties ) that were then arriving in Egypt and were scheduled to be deployed in defence of

35530-652: Was the absorption of post-war expellees. While the UK, the US and the Soviet Union had agreed to accept, house and feed about six million expelled German citizens from former eastern Germany and four million expelled and denaturalised Czechoslovaks , Poles, Hungarians and Yugoslavs of German ethnicity in their zones, France generally had not agreed to the expulsions approved by the Potsdam agreement (a decision made without input from France). Therefore, France strictly refused to absorb war refugees who were denied return to their homes in seized eastern German territories or destitute post-war expellees who had been expropriated there, into

35720-591: Was the sister of the future Second World War commander Sir Percy Hobart . Betty Carver had two sons in their early teens, John and Dick, from her first marriage to Oswald Carver . Dick Carver later wrote that it had been "a very brave thing" for Montgomery to take on a widow with two children. Montgomery's son, David, was born in August 1928. While on holiday in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset in 1937, Betty suffered an insect bite which became infected, and she died in her husband's arms from septicaemia following amputation of her leg. The loss devastated Montgomery, who

35910-499: Was then serving as a brigadier, but he insisted on throwing himself back into his work immediately after the funeral. Montgomery's marriage had been extremely happy. Much of his correspondence with his wife was destroyed when his quarters at Portsmouth were bombed during the Second World War. After Montgomery's death, John Carver wrote that his mother had arguably done the country a favour by keeping his personal oddities—his extreme single-mindedness, and his intolerance of and suspicion of

36100-402: Was to give them some form of self government, and let them squash the rebellion themselves, they are the only people who could really stamp it out. In one noteworthy incident on 2 May 1922, Montgomery led a force of 60 soldiers and 4 armoured cars to the town of Macroom to search for four British officers who were missing in the area. While he had hoped the show of force would assist in finding

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