Civilian crime during the British and American occupation of Western Germany, 1945–1946: Analyses of military government court records

Abstract

The post-World War II occupation of western Germany remains salient to developing theories of post-war crime, insurgency, and policing during post-conflict reconstruction. Yet there are no quantitative assessments of civilian crime for its first year (1945–6). Different from the Soviet-controlled East, where there is a relatively robust consensus that social and governmental disorder led to prolonged violent criminality, the picture for the western US and British zones is less clear and the literature is disjointed. We address this gap and in so doing help resolve the account of post-war criminality in the west with new data derived from the records of the US and British military government courts. Comparative analyses of crimes against the person, against property, and against civil restrictions were conducted. We employed a historical criminological approach to interpreting these data and to extrapolating their findings to current theories of counterinsurgency, post-conflict policing, and reconstruction. They indicate high rates of petty property crimes, minor civil violations, and limited violent disorder, commensurate with earlier studies of 1947 onwards. We could also better assess contested accounts of social conditions, revealing a more nuanced picture than prior historical analyses. Drawing on criminological, psychological, and counterinsurgency theories, we suggest that economic and social strain forced extensive minor law-breaking that, when combined with intense anxieties, manifested as fear of violent crime. But, importantly, Germans remained confident in the US and British military governments’ ability to ensure security, aiding the west’s recovery.

Bias in the Treatment of Non-Germans in the British and American Military Government Courts in Occupied Germany, 1945–46

“…It has been somewhat harder to explain the early emergence of similar feelings amongst the western Allies. Explanations include MGOs’ annoyance at DPs’ transience and the strain new arrivals placed on local supplies (Kehoe 2015: 160; Seipp 2013: 104–5); Allied soldiers’ disgust at the condition and behavior of concentration camp inmates (Abzug 1985: 142–47; Carruthers 2016: 163–64; Feinstein 2010: 20–21; Shils 1946: 5); and existing prejudices against Slavs, Poles, Roma and Sinti, and, of course, Jews (Dinnerstein 1995; Dundes 1971: 186–203; Feinstein 2010: 24–28; Holmes 2015 [1979]). All were likely operative to some degree and together account for the rapid emergence of a US and British fixation on the threat posed by non-Germans criminals, the blaming of non-Germans for most crime, and even the blaming of them for much of Germany’s postwar economic distress (Canoy 2007: 107; Feinstein 2010: 24–28).…”

“…It may be, for instance, that certain groups, such as Jews from Eastern Europe and the Roma and Sinti, were treated significantly worse than other non-Germans DPs, as suggested by past studies (Feinstein 2010: 28). Similarly, Allied and German fixation on Polish DPs as criminals—even to the point of provoking complaint from the pro-Polish lobby in the United States—may have led to their receiving harsher sentences (Kehoe 2015: 64, 184).…”

“…It was made worse by a dramatic change in the character of the occupation forces. Not only were most veteran US and British soldiers demobilized and returned home over the same period, but they were replaced by green soldiers who were more disorderly, had not directly witnessed the horrors of Nazism, and were more prone to see Germans as obedient collaborators and DPs as an irritation (Feinstein 2010: 25; Kehoe 2015: 186–91; Ziemke 1975: 421–22). In the US Zone in particular, soldiers’ views of non-Germans were likely exacerbated by a process of “civilianization,” which was initiated in October 1945 by US Deputy Military Governor Lucius Clay.…”

“…By the summer of 1945, MG detachments across the west routinely tracked DP criminality as a broader measure of social order, despite DPs rarely being more than a small part of the population. German police did likewise (Kehoe 2015: 187–88). Together, German and MGOs’ claims about non-Germans criminals have long sustained a literature ascribing to foreigners disproportionate responsibility for pervasive criminality in the western zones.…”

“…When a defendant could not speak German, communication became almost impossible (Wyman 1989: 49). MGOs recorded their frustrations in their diaries, official reports, and letters home, and there is evidence to suggest that MGOs’ frustrations carried over into policing priorities (Kehoe 2015: 160–66). Whether or not such feelings affected trial outcomes is less clear, though DPs living in postwar Germany did at times note that the rapidity of trials in the summary courts essentially precluded them from understanding the charges or mounting an adequate defense.…”