High Commissioner (Germany)

After the Occupation Statute came into force on September 21, 1949, High Commissioner was the official title of the highest representative of the western allied victorious powers of the Second World War in the Federal Republic of Germany .

The League of Nations (1920–1946) had already designated its representatives as High Commissioners . In occupied post-war Austria, the corresponding function was called High Commissioner .

function

The High Commissioners were members of the Allied High Commission (AHK), which resided on the Petersberg until 1952 and from 1952 in the Bad Godesberger Deichmannsaue . The individual national commissioners and commissioners' offices were based in different locations, but were concentrated in the Bonn area at the latest until 1952 . The Allied High Commission exercised the Allied control rights and replaced the previously ruling military governors . The High Commissioners continued to be representatives in the Allied Control Council for (Germany as a whole) .

Abolition of the occupation regime

With the end of the occupation statute on May 5, 1955 and the proclamation of the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany, the remaining Allied reservation rights in West Germany were exercised by the respective ambassadors .

The Soviet Union did the same with the GDR on March 25, 1954 , but this did not prevent the Western Allies from continuing to regard the USSR as the ruler in the “Soviet Zone”. With the decision of the Soviet government of August 7, 1954, all orders and orders issued by the SMAD and the Soviet Control Commission between 1945 and 1953 were repealed .

Four sector city of Berlin

For Greater Berlin , on behalf of the factually no longer, but nominally still existing Allied Control Council, the Allied Command exercised supreme power until the Two-Plus-Four Treaty came into force on March 15, 1991; This concerned in particular the aviation security zone above the four-sector city and the three air corridors from the three western occupation zones and from 1949 the Federal Republic as well as the Allied access routes by rail and road to Berlin as well as the guarding of the Allied war crimes prison in Berlin-Spandau .

List of the Allied High Commissioners in Germany

The high commissioners were:

France :

September 21, 1949 to May 5, 1955: André François-Poncet

Great Britain :

September 21, 1949 to June 24, 1950: Brian Hubert Robertson
June 24, 1950 to September 29, 1953: Ivone Kirkpatrick
September 29, 1953 to May 5, 1955: Frederick Hoyer Millar

USA :

September 2, 1949 to August 1, 1952: John J. McCloy

August 1 to December 11, 1952: Walter J. Donnelly

December 11, 1952 to February 10, 1953 Samuel Reber on an interim basis

February 10, 1953 to May 5, 1955: James Bryant Conant , who then became US Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany

Individual evidence

↑ See declaration by the Allied High Commission of April 8, 1954 on the assessment of the Soviet declaration
^ Declaration by the government of the Soviet Union on the granting of sovereignty to the GDR, from: Ingo von Münch , Documents des divided Germany , p. 329 ff.
↑ Russ. Text in: Otnosenija SSSR s GDR 1949–1955gg. , 1974, p. 424.

[1] See declaration by the Allied High Commission of April 8, 1954 on the assessment of the Soviet declaration

[2] Declaration by the government of the Soviet Union on the granting of sovereignty to the GDR, from: Ingo von Münch , Documents des divided Germany , p. 329 ff.

[3] Russ. Text in: Otnosenija SSSR s GDR 1949–1955gg. , 1974, p. 424.