This dissertation attempts to determine what Britain expected from participation in the Supreme Economic Council (SEC) of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference and to what extent its expectations were realized. An investigation of available sources reveals that access to European markets and raw materials and a balance of power to prevent French, German, or Russian hegemony in Europe were British foreign policy goals that SEC delegates sought to advance. Primary sources for this study include unpublished British Foreign Office and Cabinet records, published British, United States, and German government documents, unpublished personal papers of people directing SEC efforts, such as David Lloyd George, Austen Chamberlain, Cecil Harmsworth, Harry Osborne Mance, and John Maynard Keynes, and published memoirs and accounts of persons who were directly or indirectly involved with the SEC. Secondary accounts include biographies and histories or studies of the Peace Conference and of countries affected by its work. Primarily concerned with the first half of 1919, this dissertation focuses on British participation in Inter-allied war-time economic efforts, in post-war Rhineland control, in the creation of the SEC, and in the SEC endeavors of revictualling Germany, providing food and medical relief for eastern Europe, and reconstructing European communications. It concludes with Britain's role in the attempt to convert the SEC into an International Economic Council in the last half of 1919 and with the transfer of SEC duties to the Reparations Commission and to the League of Nations. Through participation in the SEC, Britain led in negotiating the Brussels Agreement and in establishing the Rhineland Commission and the German Economic Commission, reversing French attempts to control the Rhenish economy, preventing French hegemony in Europe, and gaining access to German markets for British goods. Although it failed to achieve its goals of strong eastern European states and access to markets and …
During World War II, the Allies not only defeated Germany; they destroyed the German army and warmaking capability. Five years after the surrender, Theodor Blank received the responsibility for planning the rearmament of West Germany starting from nothing. Although Konrad Adenauer was the driving force behind rearmament, Theodor Blank was the instrument who pushed it through Allied negotiations and parliamentary acceptance. Heretofore, Blank's role has been told only in part; new materials and the ability now to see events in a clearer perspective warrant a new study of Blank's role in the German rearmament process. Sources for this dissertation include: Documents on Foreign Relations of the United States; memoirs, among them those of Konrad Adenauer, Georges Bidault, Lucius Clay, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Anthony Eden, Ivone Kirkpatrick, Harold MacMillan, Kirill Meretskov, Jules Moch, Sergei Shternenko, Hans Speidel, Harry S. Truman, Alexander Vasilevsky, and Georgiy Zhukov; contemporary reports from newspapers, among them the Times (London), New York Times, Le Monde, Pravda, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, Suddeutsche Zeitung, and Das Parlement; Parliamentary Debates; official records; and interviews. Rearmament involved the interrelationship of vast, diverse interests: the conflict between East and West, national and international fears, domestic problems, and the interplay of leading personalities. When the Amt Blank, the planning organization, became functional on 1 December 1950, it consisted of nineteen people; in 1955, when it became the Defense Ministry with Theodor Blank the Defense Minister, it had a staff of one thousand. Cast in the milieu of the Allied negotiations on West German rearmament, this dissertation chronologically focuses on the role that Blank and the Amt Blank personnel played in the planning, negotiations, and domestic issues related to rearmament. Blank's diplomatic skills and managerial ability were key factors in transforming West Germany from a conquered area to a sovereign state, a member of NATO …
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