European Advisory Commission

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The European Advisory Commission ( EAC ; German  Advisory Committee for Europe ) was a diplomatic committee set up by the foreign ministers of the three great powers and based in London . Its establishment was decided at the Moscow Foreign Ministers' Conference in 1943 . The commission should discuss the Allied surrender conditions vis-à-vis the German Reich and its occupation and administration after the surrender and develop proposals for this. The constituent meeting took place on December 13, 1943, the commission was dissolved in August 1945 at the end of the Potsdam Conference .

The results of the commission were recorded in so-called zone protocols . The first protocol of September 12, 1944 contains a plan for the formation of three zones of occupation in Germany as well as a special occupation system for Berlin . The starting point was the borders of Germany from December 31, 1937 , i.e. the territorial status after the reintegration of the Saar area , which had taken place after the referendum of January 13, 1935 , and before the National Socialist annexations .

The basis for the protocol was the British master plan, which was presented to the ambassadors of the United States of America and the Soviet Union on July 2, 1943 and handed over in the form of an aide-mémoire . It was composed of three components:

  1. the instrument of surrender, long referred to by the British as " armistice ",
  2. the plan for zones of occupation, including a separate zone for Berlin,
  3. the control commission of the three victorious powers for the domination of Germany from Berlin, which was supposed to govern by means of " indirect rule ", ie via German executive authorities.

Within a few weeks of the first meeting of the EAC, Josef Stalin agreed to the basic idea of ​​the British framework plan. This also included a map with the demarcation lines of the initially three occupation zones.

Another focus of the EAC was the coordination of the Allied prosecution of German war crimes . Like the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), the EAC only had an advisory function and no executive powers. In contrast to the UNWCC, whose main task was the recording and documentation of war crimes, the EAC dealt with the clarification of problems with the holding of war crimes trials as well as modalities for the identification and arrest of war criminals.

The final additional protocol was signed on November 14, 1944 by the representatives of the three powers, even before the decision that France should also become an occupying power. Great Britain ratified in December. The USA followed on February 1, 1945, the Soviet Union on February 7.

France, which was still occupied by Germany until the Allied troops landed in Normandy in June 1944, only became involved in the commission's work on October 24, 1944 after the USA recognized its provisional government under de Gaulle . This decision is dated November 11, 1944. Therefore, all zone protocols were made before the arrival of the French representative. A zone of occupation in Germany and a sector in Berlin at the expense of the zones and sectors of the USA and Great Britain had only been offered to France at the Yalta conference . They were later included in the Potsdam Agreement .

literature

  • Holger Lessing: The first Dachau trial (1945/46). Nomos, Baden-Baden 1993, ISBN 3-7890-2933-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: The British master plan for the occupation of Germany , in: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Hrsg.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review . Published on behalf of the Military History Research Office . Munich 1995. ISBN 3-492-12056-3 , p. 62
  2. ↑ See Holger Lessing: The first Dachau trial (1945/46). Baden-Baden 1993, p. 50 f.