Joseph Wilkerson

The Disarmament School:: Us Policy for the Disarmament and Demobilization of the Germany Army, November-december 1944 Joseph Wilkerson

World War II was waged on an unprecedented scale, and the peace which followed was equally unprecedented. The Allies made their goal the complete destruction of the German Wehrmacht and the German Military Tradition. In November and December of 1944, the US Army hosted the Disarmament School, a series of lectures by experts in the field of demilitarization planning. Based in London, these lectures familiarized US staff officers with the history of planning for the disarmament, demobilization, and final disposal of the Wehrmacht, as well as the current state of those plans. By accessing the transcripts of these lectures as well as original documents and of US post-hostilities planning staffs, I demonstrate that these groups at the SHAEF and USGCC levels were caught between the need for post-war security and the call for unconditional surrender as they planned for the control and disposal of the doomed German military machine. Though much would change between the time of the Disarmament School and the final defeat of Nazi Germany, the lectures nonetheless provide a valuable insight into the assumptions upon which Allied planning rested during a crucial stage of the war in Europe.