The major tasks of our Military Establishment in Europe following VE-day,
and in the Pacific since the surrender of Japan, have been those of
occupation and military government. In addition we have given much needed
aid to the peoples of the liberated countries.
The end of the war in Europe found Germany in a chaotic condition.
Organized government had ceased to exist, transportation systems had been
wrecked, cities and industrial facilities had been bombed into ruins. In
addition to the tasks of occupation we had to assume all of the functions
of government. Great progress has been made in the repatriation of
displaced persons and of prisoners of war. Of the total of 3,500,000
displaced persons found in the United States zone only 460,000 now remain.
The extensive complications involved by the requirement of dealing with
three other governments engaged in occupation and with the governments of
liberated countries require intensive work and energetic cooperation. The
influx of some 2 million German refugees into our zone of occupation is a
pressing problem, making exacting demands upon an already overstrained
internal economy.
Improvements in the European economy during 1945 have made it possible for
our military authorities to relinquish to the governments of all liberated
areas, or to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration,
the responsibility for the provision of food and other civilian relief
supplies. The Army's responsibilities in Europe extend now only to our
zones of occupation in Germany and Austria and to two small areas in
northern Italy.
By contrast with Germany, in Japan we have occupied a country still
possessing an organized and operating governmental system. Although
severely damaged, the Japanese industrial and transportation systems have
been able to insure at least a survival existence for the population. The
repatriation of Japanese military and civilian personnel from overseas is
proceeding as rapidly as shipping and other means permit.
In order to insure that neither Germany nor Japan will again be in a
position to wage aggressive warfare, the armament making potential of these
countries is being dismantled and fundamental changes in their social and
political structures are being effected. Democratic systems are being
fostered to the end that the voice of the common man may be heard in the
councils of his government.
For the first time in history the legal culpability of war makers is being
determined. The trials now in progress in Nurnberg-and those soon to begin
in Tokyo--bring before the bar of international justice those individuals
who are charged with the responsibility for the sufferings of the past six
years. We have high hope that this public portrayal of the guilt of these
evildoers will bring wholesale and permanent revulsion on the part of the
masses of our former enemies against war, militarism, aggression, and
notions of race superiority.