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that contrasted with an otherwise humane, but tightly controlled approach. We freed forced laborers and sent those who wished to camps where they could begin repatriation.
There was no organized resistance to American rule. During the entire eight months we administered this region we had fewer than half a dozen incidents. A teenager who had been a member of the Nazi Youth took it upon himself to cut telephone lines. A German patrol crept through our lines and assassinated one of our mayors. Nazi broadcasts declared him a traitor, but no other incidents followed.
Military Government’s prime mission was to support military operations by keeping refugees out of the way, keeping the civilian population under control and assisting combat troops by providing > labor, rounding up stray form ' animals, repairing roads, clearing rubble, restoring destroyed bridges, ensuring electricity, water and quarters for troops.
ECAD directives also required that American occupation entailed humane treatment of the conquered population, prevention of starvation and disease, and gave people the opportunity to begin reconstructing their lives. We encouraged people to help themselves by beginning to rebuild “civil society” (though the term was unknown then).
There was no time to preach democracy, but we made dear that we had come to restore freedom and lay the basis for a new order. The great majority of Germans under our control quickly came to understand that. The example of what Military Government did in the Monschau area was followed as American armies finally breached the Westwall and pushed on to the Rhine and beyond in 1945.
When I hear of conditions in Iraq after “liberation,” I think back on the contrasting situation I encountered in Germany in 1944.
After the first few days of occupation, soldiers walked freely on the streets, played with children and visited shops and factories with no fear. We went unescorted to see officials in their offices and inspect factories. I drove my jeep in town and countryside with no thought of hostile action. I got to know hundreds of local citizens and large numbers of people who had been evacuated to the area to escape air raids on the large cities of the Rhineland.
American occupation gave all these people security. They knew it. The test of what we had accomplished came just before Christmas 1944 when Hitler sent his armies through American lines deep into Belgium in the surprise opera
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