Frank L. Howley

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Frank L. Howley on March 20, 1949 at a press conference on the occasion of the introduction of the Westmark in West Berlin

Frank Leo "Howlin" Howley (born February 3, 1903 in Hampton , New Jersey , † July 30, 1993 in Warrenton , Virginia ) was an American brigadier general in the United States Army and later Vice Chancellor of New York University . Howley was from December 1, 1947 to September 1, 1949 - during the Berlin Airlift - in command of the American sector in Berlin . Because of his persistent dealings with the Soviet occupation authorities , he was also called Howlin 'Howley (' Roaring Howley ').

Youth and education

Howley dropped out of school and went to sea at the age of 15, but soon dismissed his American merchant ship and graduated from college in 1920. He then served a year in the National Guard of New Jersey . Howley attended Parsons The New School for Design in New York and also took lectures in economics and art at the Sorbonne in Paris . He graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics . After completing his studies at the Sorbonne, Howley traveled through France , Germany and Italy . After returning to the United States, he worked successfully as an advertising specialist despite the global economic crisis , and founded the advertising agency Frank L. Howley & Associates in Philadelphia .

Military career

Howley joined the US Army Reserve Corps in 1932 and was activated in 1940. His first assignment was at an Air Corps school, where he was promoted to captain . In 1941 Howley moved to the cavalry and became a staff officer at the Cavalry School in Fort Riley , Kansas . He later became executive officer of the Third Cavalry Mechanized in Cap Gordon , Georgia and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In the summer of 1934 he had a motorcycle accident and spent more than five months in hospital. He was given three options:

  1. Leaving the army,
  2. Transfer to the Military Government Department ,
  3. Collaboration in the 'Civil Affairs' department, which was responsible for liaising with the administration and the population of the occupied territories during times of occupation.

He chose the Civil Affairs department.

Second World War

Already during the time the American troops were being transported across the Atlantic to England and preparing for the later landing in Europe , he registered for one of the first training courses for future military government tasks in Germany. He attended schools in the United States and later in England and became director of the Military Government Officers Division in Shrivenham . Thanks to his persistence, he was also able to take part in the Normandy landing , where he was designated as the commander of the Civil Affairs department, code-named A1A1. In Normandy he landed on the fourth day of the invasion in Omaha Beach with an American-British group together with French liaison officers. After the Wehrmacht left Cherbourg , Howley's A1A1 division carried out its first exercise in restoring the administration of the city.

A few weeks later, in August 1944, the army administration appointed Howley to command a group of 136 officers and 300 soldiers who had come to Paris with the first troops . His task was to improve the living and housing conditions of the capital city after the end of the German occupation without a fight. During the stay in Paris, Eisenhower's military government chief chose Lieutenant General Arthur Edward Grasett Howley to lead the military government department in Berlin . The British troops of his unit were ordered back to England to make their own preparations for the occupation of Berlin.

In December 1944, Howley set up his headquarters south of Paris in Barbizon to prepare for Berlin. In the SHEAF , Barbizon was called “Howley's mystery town”, in which specialists prepared themselves for all eventualities, “except for the strange behavior of our Russian allies” (“for virtually all eventualities, except, of course, the curious behavior of our Russian allies'). Governing Berlin was definitely not going to be an easy undertaking as it had to be done on a unanimous four-power basis. The various occupying powers had to agree on every point, from food supplies to educational issues.

City Commander of Berlin

Preconditions

At the Yalta Conference it was decided to divide Germany into three, later into four zones of occupation and to divide Berlin into four sectors. However, Berlin had been conquered by Soviet troops while the Americans had occupied large parts of Saxony and Thuringia , which were assigned to the Soviet occupation zone. On June 5, the Allied Control Council met for the first time in Berlin with Zhukov , Bernard Montgomery , Eisenhower and Lattre de Tassigny . Here Major General Floyd L. Parks was appointed the first American town commander under Lucius D. Clay and Howley's unit was placed under Clay 's headquarters.

The third meeting of the three victorious powers was to take place in Potsdam in mid-July , but Zhukov and the Soviet city commander Bersarin refused any request by the Americans to move into the planned sectors or to provide quarters and offices for the future occupation units. That is why Berlin has been under Soviet control for two months since the surrender on May 7, 1945. It was only with the formal order from the White House to organize the accommodation of President Harry S. Truman that Major General Parks was allowed to fly to Berlin on June 22, 1945. Parks agreed that Saxony and Thuringia should be evacuated by the Americans and that they should be allowed to move into Berlin. The crew strength was set at 30,000 Americans and 25,000 British.

Moving into Berlin

From Berlin, Parks commissioned Howley to work with an advance department in Berlin to explore accommodation options in the American sector. Howley's department had prepared for this assignment and confiscated a number of German vehicles and given them American paintwork, including a Horch convertible that was to lead the first American convoy to Berlin. After a stopover in Halle (Saale) , which was then still occupied by the Americans , the convoy, consisting of around 500 officers and men and 120 vehicles, set off for Berlin on the morning of June 17, 1945. After crossing the Elbe near Dessau on a pontoon bridge , they were greeted by a large arch with portraits of Lenin and Stalin and the inscription “Welcome to the Fatherland”, which was probably intended for the returning DPs . A Russian officer awaited the convoy and escorted it to a roadblock, where Howley learned that, according to the Berlin declaration, only 37 officers, 175 men and 50 vehicles were allowed.

The Russians did not enter into any discussion, and on the orders of Major General Parks, part of the convoy returned to Halle. After the luggage had been reloaded, Howley drove on towards Berlin with exactly the permitted number of officers, men and vehicles, led by the Russian officer in a looted rickety German car. But instead of taking them to Berlin, the Russians took them to the Babelsberg film site . But that was a mistake, because a department was expected to prepare the premises for the accommodation of the delegations for the upcoming Potsdam Conference . Howley's command met other American officers here who had already flown in for the conference and who all felt themselves to be de facto prisoners because they were not allowed to leave the premises. Nonetheless, Howley managed, under the pretext of meeting important American officers at the airfield (probably Gatow ), touring Tempelhof Airport and getting a rough idea of ​​the future American sector.

Since all the American military still felt like "prisoners", Howley made an objection to the Soviet officers to ensure that his previous scouts were allowed to return to Halle in order to replace them with more useful personnel who could repair the accommodations. In Halle, more food was taken and instead of the previous jeeps , 10-ton trucks were made ready to drive. Since the restriction to 37 officers, 175 men and 50 vehicles still existed, this led to renewed quarrels at the Russian checkpoint. Howley was now very angry, and the convoy was finally allowed to pass towards Babelsberg.

After the accommodations for the delegations had been prepared, Howley first returned to his unit in Halle. On June 30th he received the order to finally go to Berlin. The Russians had given the ultimatum to evacuate Saxony and Thuringia within three days and to complete the exchange of territory with the American sector. On July 1, the Americans poured into Berlin, which had previously been sealed off, and the street was crowded with tanks, trucks and other vehicles from the military government department and other troops. The Russians suspected the columns because they could not imagine that the Americans would withdraw from the occupied territories without first looting them. Arrived in Berlin, hundreds of officers and men wandered around the ruins to find accommodation. A prior inspection of the future American sector and the organization of accommodation had been forbidden by the Soviet troops Howley, despite previous appointments, so that most of them spent the night in their uniforms outside.

Howley's department was better prepared with their field equipment. So Howley decided to have his advance team set up tents in Grunewald . It formed a wagon castle with its vehicles and posted guards. The first regular US troops began their presence in Berlin as "campers".

Takeover of the American sector

On July 4, 1945, the Americans celebrated the official takeover of their sector with a small parade in the former Prussian main cadet institute , which was now to be called "Andrews Barracks" and which had previously served as barracks for the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler . General Omar Bradley was flown in for the ceremony to represent the United States at the historic event. The commander of the Soviet sector , Alexander Gorbatov , did not appear at the ceremony, but sent his representative Baranov, a one-star general, which the Americans considered an affront .

Howley then received orders to occupy the American sector district by district with all town halls at midnight. First, however, he received a note from Zhukov stating that the American sector, which was still occupied by the Russians, could not be surrendered because Berlin was to be ruled by the Allied Command, but this had not yet been established. Parks and Howley saw this as the usual Russian delaying tactic that should allow them to continue the looting. They therefore decided to take over the town halls and districts the next morning at dawn and thus create facts while the Russians were still asleep. The next morning, all district mayors were called, the town halls were occupied, the American flag was hoisted, and SHAEF Orders 1 and 2 were displayed, proclaiming the formation of a military government and the establishment of courts to prosecute crimes against the occupation forces. The Russians were immediately confronted with a " fait accompli ", the method they themselves preferred to use and the only one that they - according to Howley - understood.

In the office of director of OMGUS in the American sector, Howley served both as deputy city commander and as G5 officer among several commanders of the Berlin Brigade . These were Generals Floyd L. Parks , James M. Gavin , Ray W. Barker , Frank A. Keating , Cornelius E. Ryan, and William Hesketh . But it was Howley, whose presence ensured stability in the American sector, even though the superiors changed very quickly. Howley's success was based on two facts: he was an expert in military administration, while his various superiors were soldiers at the front, who often lacked the experience and foresight for military administration or the military government for Berlin. And he stayed in Berlin longer than any of his predecessors, with the exception of Keating, who mostly only stayed in Berlin for a short time (between one and seven months). In the two and a half years, the American management personnel were replaced three to four times more often than the Russians, who pursued a more continuous personnel policy. General Lucius D. Clay therefore promoted Howley on December 1, 1947 as the successor of Hesketh to city commander. Howley now had a free hand in dealing with the Soviets.

Excerpt of the Soviet representatives from the Allied command office

The four allied city commanders in 1949: Geoffrey Bourne , Frank L. Howley, Alexander Kotikow , Jean Ganeval

The departure of the Soviet representatives had been announced for some time. As early as March 20, 1948, as a reaction to the London Six Power Conference , Marshal Sokolowski left the Allied Control Council , which from then on no longer met, which meant an end to the joint Allied administration of Germany. The Soviets worked more and more with delays and harassment in the Allied commandantura . Meetings that previously lasted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. now lasted until midnight or longer. It was obvious that the Russians, who had missed their target in Berlin, were looking for a reason to end the work of the commandantura.

Howley describes the excerpt as follows:

“The Soviets had already left other Commandantura meetings where important matters were discussed. The final move was triggered by a minor issue. On June 16, 1948, the meeting began around ten o'clock in the morning. The Soviet city commander General Kotikow was absent due to illness, so that his deputy Colonel Alexej I. Yelisarow took his place, supported by the "sinister" (original Howley) political commissioner L. M. Maximov. From the British side the town commander Edwin O. Herbert took part, from the French side the town commander Jean Ganeval , who regularly led the meeting.

After arguing excitedly about various points, [...] hours had passed without any result. At 7 p.m. something unusual happened: a strange inspector whom I had never seen before entered the room and sat down on the Russian side of the table, where he whispered to Yelisarov and Maximov. The faces of the two then brightened visibly and Yelisarov asked for a break from the session. I watched as Maximov went nervously up and down the mysterious visitor einsprach on him and then in a black Horch drove away. I was convinced that something big was in the air now.

As the meeting went on, Yelisarov launched a sharp attack on the Western powers, and especially on the Independent Trade Union Opposition, which was founded with American support . The debate lasted until 10 p.m. and by the time it was finally taken off the agenda I was quite exhausted. After twelve hours of bickering, it seemed unlikely that the Russians would end the session, so I wanted to leave the meeting and leave my deputy, Colonel Babcock. My reasons for leaving the meeting were understandable. The Russians worked until one, two or three in the morning and slept until noon, if they liked. In the American Army, however, we get up early. My office opened at half past eight and I was always there on time.

At 10:45 p.m. I suggested we end the meeting around 11 p.m., it had been 13 hours and we were all exhausted. Yelisarov refused, and now brought up his absolute favorite subject. For the umpteenth time he wanted to talk again about Kotikov's fourteen-point plan to improve the working conditions of workers in Berlin ('Kotikow-Essen'), on which we had not reached an agreement because the Russians had consistently rejected the point program to discuss for point. We only had the choice of agreeing to all or none, which we would never have done. In addition, the Kommandantura was unable to determine several points because the Allied Control Council had the power to decide on labor issues . At 11:15 pm [...] I asked General Ganeval's permission to leave the session and Colonel Babcock to represent me. [...] There were rumors later that I slammed the door when I left, but I did didn't do. The door stuck and I opened it with a jerk. After I left, Maximov began an excited whisper to Yelisarov, whereupon he suddenly got up and slammed his papers on the table. He yelled that it was impossible to continue the session and that he found Howley's behavior to be 'hooligan action' and that the session should be stopped. Ganeval therefore proposed to end the session, which Yelisarov refused. He announced that he would not be staying if Howley did not apologize personally. After about eight minutes, Yelizarov went to the door and Ganeval reminded him that Howley had been properly excused, but Yelizarov went on anyway. "

What happened next is confusing. There was a great commotion and the translation system collapsed. Ganeval managed to determine that the Russians were behaving inappropriately and that it was Yelizarov, not Howley, who was behaving rude. He tried to get a date for a new meeting from the Russians, but this time Yelisarov was only ten feet from the door that Maximov forcibly pushed him through. His answer was 'Njet'.

After the Russians had left the room, Ganeval ended the session and noted for the record that the session was not ended because Colonel Howley had left, especially since he was replaced by his deputy, which had also been the case several times before, but by the departure of the Russian delegation. Thus ended on June 16, 1948, the last joint meeting of the Allied headquarters.

After Howley left the headquarters, he drove to the American press camp to brief the correspondents. Shortly before the start, Howley received a call from his deputy Babcock, who told him what had happened after he left yesterday. Howley then informed the correspondents that the departure of the Russians meant the end of the commandantura, as they had planned for a long time, and warned against further unilateral steps that served to end the Four Power Administration and oust the Americans from Berlin. but what won't happen.

Then he immediately called General Clay, who was just preparing for the currency reform . He got mad when he heard of the Russian commandant office excerpt and wanted to see Howley directly. The British blamed Howley for the move, as did Sokolowski, who complained about him to Clay, while the French were one hundred percent behind him. Other subordinate four-power bodies continued to function for two weeks, although the Soviet members no longer attended any meetings. On July 1, 1948, one week after the start of the blockade , the Soviet head of delegation announced that his delegation would no longer take part in any four-power meeting of any level. An office worker remained in the building until August 1 to clear out his files and tools. Then the red flag was lowered and the commandantura ceased to exist.

Under Howley's efforts, the Free University of Berlin was founded in July 1948 , and he gave a speech at its founding ceremony.

As City Commander of the American Sector, Howley was finally promoted to Brigadier General in March 1949 . He received the award personally from his superior Lucius D. Clay, military governor of the American zone of occupation . His term of office in Berlin ended on August 30, 1949.

Later career

Howley was Vice Chancellor of New York University from 1950 to 1969 . In 1955 he appeared before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary to testify on the strategy and tactics of world communism . Under oath he reported on his experience with the Soviets during World War II and on his time in Berlin. He wrote numerous books, including The Frank L. Howley Papers, 1944–1950 (1950), Berlin Command (1950), Your War for Peace (1953), and Peoples and Policies: A World Travelogue (1959). The Frank L. Howley Papers, 1944–1950 is an official US Army collection of documents from his time as military governor in Europe including France and Berlin. Berlin Command is Howley's personal portrayal of his four years in Berlin. The book is based on the diaries he kept during this time and is kept in the Allied Museum in Berlin. The book details the efforts to re-establish public life in Berlin after the war, and the Soviets and the Berlin blockade . The book has been cited in many papers on the blockade and the airlift. Your War for Peace was the general's attempt to describe various political and military trouble spots after the war and during the 1950s.

honors and awards

Lucius D. Clay personally infected Howley with the star for his new rank as Brigadier General.

The new High Commissioner for Germany, John McCloy, presented Howley with the Army Distinguished Service Medal on September 6, 1949 on behalf of President Harry S. Truman . On 19 June 1954, he was awarded Free University of Berlin , the honorary doctorate . The Frank-L.-Howley-Weg on the site of the former McNair Barracks in Berlin-Lichterfelde has been named after him since September 29, 2000.

Personal

Edith Howley with three sons in Berlin in 1945

Howley was married to Edith Howley, with whom he had three sons, Dennis, Peter, William and a daughter, Francis. After finishing his service in Berlin, he moved to a farm in West Grove, Pennsylvania . He died in Warrenton, Virginia in 1993 at the age of 90.

literature

  • Frank L. Howley: Berlin Command . GP Putnam's Sons, New York 1950.
  • Volker Thomas: Germany between East and West . A consciously different view of the time from the Weimar Republic to the end of the GDR. epubli, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-8442-9353-1 ( here too, your nerves are bare in the Google book search [accessed on January 4, 2015]).
  • Gerhard Keiderling: About Germany's unity . Ferdinand Friedensburg and the Cold War in Berlin 1945-1952. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20323-8 ( The end of the Allied command in the Google book search [accessed on January 4, 2015]).

Web links

Commons : Frank L. Howley  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. Howley incorrectly speaks in his book (p. 26) of Marie-Pierre Kœnig as a participant in the first meeting of the Allied Control Council. In fact, this was General Lattre de Tassigny as representative of the Provisional Government of the French Republic .
  2. On p. 47 of his book Howley reports on the handover ceremony which, as he remembers, took place “in the Adolf Hitler SS barracks, which are now called McNair Barracks”. In fact, it refers to the Andrews Barracks, which the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler used as barracks.
  3. Howley describes in his book the different characters of the Allies, which made it difficult to work together on their own: the Americans were used to starting early and stopping work as early as possible, the Russians got up late after they had slept off their intoxication and worked accordingly long to party late into the night afterwards, the British insisted on their five o'clock tea , and the French especially keen on their status.

Individual evidence

  1. Berlin Command, Brig. General Frank Howley , 1950, p. 19 and back cover
  2. ^ Public Relations, Statistical and Historical Branch, Office of Military Government, Berlin Sector (Ed.): A four Year Report Office of Military Government, US Sector, Berlin . Deutscher Verlag, Berlin 1947, p. 5 ( images.library.wisc.edu [PDF; accessed March 30, 2015]).
  3. Gerhard Keiderling: The principle of unanimity prevailed. The Allied Command 1945–1948 . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 12, 2000, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 67-72 ( luise-berlin.de ).
  4. ^ Berlin Command, Brig. General Frank Howley, 1950, pp. 19-20.
  5. Howley was furious; Howley's move into Berlin in the Google book search
  6. ^ Berlin Command, Brig. General Frank Howley, 1950, p. 30.
  7. Sven Felix Kellerhoff : The first GIs came as campers. In: Berliner Morgenpost. July 1, 2005, accessed January 20, 2015 .
  8. Federal Archives in Berlin-Lichterfelde
  9. ^ Berlin Command, Brig. General Frank Howley, 1950, p. 155.
  10. Berlin Command, Brig. General Frank Howley, 1950, pp. 177 ff.
  11. ^ Public Relations, Statistical and Historical Branch, Office of Military Government, Berlin Sector (Ed.): A four Year Report Office of Military Government, US Sector, Berlin . Deutscher Verlag, Berlin 1947, p. 26 ( images.library.wisc.edu [PDF; accessed March 30, 2015]).
  12. ^ The founding history of the FU Berlin (1945–1948) - Chronicle of the founding of the FU Berlin; Object database from Dt. Histor. Museum: Colonel Frank L. Howley speaks at the founding ceremony of the Free University of Berlin
  13. ^ Full text of Senate Committee hearings, April 28, 1955. archive.org .
  14. ^ Berlin Command, Brig. General Frank Howley, 1950, page 4.
  15. bpk picture agency for art, culture and history
  16. ^ Berlin Command, Brig. General Frank Howley, 1950, cover page.