From Crusade to Hazard: The Denazification of Bremen Germany by Bianka J. Adams & Bianka J. Adams

Author:Bianka J. Adams & Bianka J. Adams [Adams, Bianka J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 2009-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Changes in Military Government and First Elections

The military government in Bremen also underwent organizational changes. On 20 September 1946, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Browning succeeded Welker, who had stayed on in civilian capacity after his retirement from active service. When Browning, a former governor of Tennessee, returned to the United States in December, Thomas F. Dunn became his successor. Dunn transferred from the War Shipping Administration on 11 December 1946, to assume his position as director of the military government in Bremen. In January 1947, Captain Charles R. Jeffs, U.S. Navy, filled the theretofore vacant position of deputy director.81

Along with the changes in leadership in fall 1946, the Special Branch absorbed the personnel and functions of the Investigation Section, the Public Safety Branch, and the review board in an effort to save manpower and to avoid duplication of effort. In the process, the Special Branch established a new German Denazification Section in charge of supervising the German Denazification Panel, committees, and review boards. Henry J. Oberlander, the former chief of the review board, became its first chief in Bremen. Walter V. Burrows, formerly the administrative assistant to the review board, transferred to lead Wesermünde’s German Denazification Section. Captain Jesse S. Morse remained chief of the Special Branch, Bremen enclave.82

Bremen’s municipal government changed as well. On 13 October, the city held its first free election since 1933. It proceeded according to the British modified individual candidate system that gave every eligible citizen—former Nazi Party members excluded—two votes. The first vote elected candidates in sixteen electoral districts directly for sixty of the council’s eighty seats. The second determined the political parties’ proportional share of the remaining twenty seats. The parties usually chose their candidates from reserve lists that their leadership had assembled earlier. The result was a landslide victory for the SPD with a fifty-one-seat majority. The following month, the Bürgerschaft decided on the distribution of functional committees or departments. Ten would be permanent, and three others, among them a Committee on Denazification, were designated as special. At the end of November, the council formally elected members of the senate to head the various committees. Kaisen remained head of the administration as president of the Senate and became Senator for Police and Interior Administration.83

In his acceptance speech, Kaisen elaborated on the program for his administration. His foremost concern was the recovery of the economy that, according to him, was dependent on massive infusions of materiel and investments from foreign countries. He also pointed out that Bremen had delivered more than its share of reparations and urged the Allies to stop the dismantling of factories “if every hope of finding a way out of our misery is not to be killed.”84 As an essential part of rebuilding Bremen into a democratic society, Kaisen mentioned denazification. Commenting on the noticeable difference in interest that the victors and vanquished had in the program, he quipped that, according to the military government, denazification could be finished in Bremen inside of six months while “German branches speak of six years.

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