Category: Germany under Control exhibition

2nd July 2007

The official exhibition ‘Germany under Control’, sponsored by the British Ministry of Information, was formally opened in London on June 7th 1946, three months after Humphrey Jennings’ film, ‘A Defeated People’ (see earlier postings) received its first showing.

I wrote about this exhibition on 1st October and 11th October last year (2006). Since then I’ve found out some more about it from a number of files in the National Archives.

The exhibition was held in London on a large site on Oxford Street, which had been used the previous year for another Ministry of Information exhibition: ‘Victory over Japan‘. This ran for four months from August to December 1945 and had attracted huge crowds – over one and a half million in total, more than 10,000 people per day on average. Perhaps they were attracted by the heat, as the temperature inside was kept at 120 degrees (Fahrenheit), to simulate conditions in the jungle. To quote The Times report on August 21st, visitors could also experience "giant cobwebs [brushing] against the face as one passes, and spiders, the size of a man’s hand, are seen curled up in the web. One hears the sound of running water, the noise of insects and the wails of jackals and hyenas."

‘Germany under Control’ was altogether more serious. Although it never achieved the huge numbers attending the Japan exhibition, a total of 220,000 people visited it in the two months it was open between June and August 1946. On Whit Monday bank holiday on June 10th it was attended by over 9,000 people and at one point the queue of people waiting to get in built up to over 500.

The idea for the exhibition came originally from the British Military Government and Control Commission in Germany, in a letter dated 27th December 1945 signed by General Templer, on behalf of Brian Robertson, the deputy Military Governor, in which the aim of the exhibition is stated as: "the enlightening of the British public in regard to the problems and tasks of the Control Commission for Germany" and so meeting the demand in Britain, from both members of Parliament and the general public, for more information about what was going on in Germany under British occupation, at the end of the war.

Originally the proposed date for the opening was March 28th, as this would coincide with financial provision for the Control Commission for the new financial year, starting in April. This shows that the cost of the occupation was already a sensitive issue, well before Hugh Dalton, Chancellor of the Exchequer, revealed in the Budget debate on 9th April 1946 that the estimated cost for the coming year would be £80 million, and went on to say that this meant that Britain was in effect paying reparations to Germany, instead of the other way round.

Subsequent discussions within the Control Office for Germany and Austria, (known as COGA) the UK based arm of the Control Commission, which had taken on responsibility for organising the exhibition, show officials expressing concerns as to how the story should be presented to the British public, in particular why should the British taxpayer pay to put Germany on its feet again. For example, in a memo to Sir Arthur Street, the Permanent Secretary, regarding the name to be given to the exhibition, Group Captain Houghton, Director of Information Services, wrote that: "The show will largely illustrate the steps which are being taken to reconstruct and govern. But we must not use slogans like ‘Germany Today’ or ‘The New Germany’, since the public … may form wrong opinions." The answer, he believed was that: "The British public must be told they will directly profit from what we are doing in Germany."

These tensions between grand and worthy objectives, and practical concerns at the public’s reaction were never resolved.

Logistical issues meant that the opening was delayed until 7th June 1946, the day before a Victory Parade in London celebrating one year since Victory in Europe. In his speech opening the exhibition, in front of an audience of 3,000 people at the Dominion Theatre, including Mayors and Mayoresses of London Borough in their full regalia and other distinguished guests, J B Hynd, the minister responsible for Germany, highlighted the scale and importance of the task: "…an enterprise of great magnitude and difficulty for which there is indeed no precedent in human history … It is therefore, in the beginning a costly job, but investment for peace is better, and infinitely cheaper than investment for war, and the work we are doing is no less than a great, perhaps final, effort to establish conditions in which the world may be freed from the menace of war forever."

An earlier article in the Evening Standard on 25th April, promoting the exhibition, was less high minded. This stated simply that the exhibition "aims at showing to the British taxpayer that his money in Germany is being well spent" and mentioned a number of specific exhibits including; a comparison of British and German food rations, pots and pans made Wehrmacht helmets to illustrate the theme of ‘swords into ploughshares’ and a small box containing locks of hair from figures in German history  including Henry the Lion and his English wife Mathilda. These had been disinterred in secret in by the Nazis in 1935, and were subsequently found by the British to have been originally black, but died blond by the Nazis.

The British official responsible for the exhibition wrote wryly to a colleague, in an internal memo enclosing the cutting: "To get the maximum of linage, you will understand that we will have to approach the affair from different angles. In the process, a certain amount of dignity, I am afraid, must be sacrificed, but I think we should get the required result."

Official British policy was now shifting, almost exactly one year after Victory in Europe (VE) Day, looking towards ending the occupation sooner rather than later. The draft text of a leaflet given to all attendees at the exhibition was changed to reflect this. The concluding paragraph of the original draft text expressed similar sentiments to Hynd’s speech at the opening: "We are going to ensure that Germany does not again make war on us. We are going to convert the British Zone from a liability into an asset. We are going to maintain a Control Commission in Germany until we have attained these aims." In the printed version, the final paragraphs read very differently, looking forward to the time when the British would leave: "The Germans know best how to solve Germany’s difficult problems. It must be our constant aim to make the Germans run their own affairs. If we fail to do this, we shall leave chaos behind us when we go. For we are not going to remain in Germany indefinitely. We must therefore train the Germans to govern themselves on the lines which we believe to be right, gradually and cautiously transferring more and more responsibility to them."

The British public was turning inwards. No longer as interested in the big issues of how to prevent another war, or prepared to take on the responsibilities and burdens of reconstructing, re-educating and democratising Germany, their main concerns were more practical and down to earth. The most popular exhibit at the exhibition was a comparison of British and German ration scales, with models of each in glass cases, complete with calorific values. In a review after the first two weeks, the exhibition organisers expressed concern at the reactions of the visitors, some of whom thought the Germans were getting too much, and the British not enough, because they did not read the captions correctly and thought the larger British ration was actually the smaller German ration, and vice versa. This has remained a persistent myth. (See my earlier postings on Bread Rationing in Britain). No longer prepared to take on and solve the problems of the world, the British now complained about austerity at home and how much worse off they thought they were than their neighbours.

1st October 2006

On 7th June 1946, John Hynd, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the British Minister responsible for Germany, formally opened an exhibition in London called "Germany under Control."

The opening ceremony was held at the Dominion Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, in front of an invited audience of 3,000 people, including the mayors of the Boroughs of Greater London, sitting in the front row of the dress circle, wearing their full regalia, and wives, relations and friends of personnel serving in Germany.

Hynd’s speech at the event provides an interesting overview of what the British hoped to achieve, one year after the end of the war in Europe; their aims, achievements, and challenges still to come; in summary how they hoped to win the peace, after winning the war.

This is what he said:

"It is not inappropriate, I think, that this exhibition "Germany under Control" should be opened to the pubic today. For six long dismal and dangerous years we have fought desperately and stolidly against – what? Against a menace, the menace that threatened to overwhelm us as it has already overwhelmed the whole of Western Europe, but a menace which was only dimly understood by many of our people.

In that struggle we prevailed. The thing that once threatened to destroy us now lies shattered at our feet, and tomorrow the whole country will be celebrating our victory and our liberation.

But this is the second time in thirty years that our peace has been shattered and our security threatened, and in the midst of next week’s celebrations how many will be asking themselves if wars must always be?

We hope this exhibition will help in some little way to offer a glimpse of the reality of what our trials and struggles and sacrifices of the past six years have been for, and at the same time, show the work that is still being done and that still requires to be done if peace, security and prosperity are to be assured for our children.

For there is much still to be done. This time we must be sure. This time we must stay until we have finished the job.

The exhibition will no doubt give some indication of just how big that job is. It will show if only in miniature, but nevertheless graphically and effectively, the growth of the Nazi ideology. It will reproduce for you Germany under the rule of the Beast; her economic institutions destroyed; the voice of reason and humanity brutally suppressed wheresoever it sought to speak in that unhappy land; her children brutalised, as the sinister influences that had laid hold of her prepared to submerge, not only Germany, but the whole world, in dark misery.

You will see, too, the terrible price the people of Germany have paid for the mad ambitions of their rulers; the tangled mass of debris and destruction, and dazed, bewildered humanity that was once the Germany from which the boastings of Hitler and Goebbels used to din our ears and the vaunted Luftwaffe soared to bomb our towns and villages, now reduced to a scene of squalor and devastation unequalled in world history.

The plight of Germany is not, however, a matter we can ignore. It is a situation that involves not only the German People. but threatens Europe and the world unless it is controlled, with new tragedy, a tragedy of economic dislocation, with consequent disease and famine, and civil strife that might lead us again into another still more disastrous war; a situation that only wise, determined and courageous measures can now avert.

That, and no less, is the task we and our Allies have set ourselves. It is an enterprise of great magnitude and difficulty for which there is indeed no precedent in human history, but I think the exhibition will satisfy most people that it is a task which, despite its magnitude, is being carried our with no less credit by our men and women in Germany than was the military victory itself.

For the British Zone, with which the exhibition deals, represents a territory as large as England itself, with no Government, no local authorities, no established institutions – all these were Nazi and have fled or been destroyed; her industries wrecked, her transport in chaos, her food supplies exhausted. In this context our Military Government and the Control Commission have worked miracles, but miracles have still to be achieved before order is restored and the objective of the Potsdam Agreement, which is to create a democratic Germany that can take her place in the community of free peoples in a free and peaceful world, has been realised.

It is a costly business. Of that we are only too aware. But we are aware too, that peace is indivisible and that poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere.

Europe needs German coal; that means transport must be restored and the factories must commence producing the mining equipment, locomotives and trucks; that means agriculture must be re-organised to produce food to feed the miners and the railwaymen, and the factory workers; that means, in turn the production of fertilisers and farm machinery and implements. But Man cannot live by bread alone, and the workers needs shelter and clothing and cooking utensils if they are to continue working. The organisation and administration of these activities requires public administration to replace the discredited Nazi institutions, and therefore the encouragement of democratic activities, political parties and trade unions must be part of our task. All that has to be achieved in circumstances of unimaginable difficulty, and our men are doing it.

We have to destroy the Nazi war industry and war potential. That means steel, and many of the products upon which Germany once depended for the exports with which to pay for her imported food. But if her steel production is to be reduced for security reasons, we must help to create a new import/export basis for her economy, for until we do there is no payment for the food that must be supplied to prevent mass starvation and the consequent destruction of all our hopes of security and peace.

It is therefore, in the beginning a costly job, but investment for peace is better, and infinitely cheaper than investment for war, and the work we are doing is no less than a great, perhaps final, effort to establish conditions in which the world may be freed from the menace of war forever.

In the light of this, I hope and believe that our exhibition will not only provide a fund of interest and instruction to our people, who have fought, suffered and triumphed in the big struggle through which we have passed since 1939, but will enable them to appreciate why and how we are now proceeding to finish the job.

(Hynd’s speech is in the National Archives, FO 945/533)