3.  Occupied countries

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.