Operation
On 30 August 1945 the Control Council constituted itself and issued its first proclamation, which informed the German people of the Council's existence and asserted that the commands and directives issued by the Commanders-in-Chief in their respective zones were not affected by the establishment of the Council. The initial members of the Control Council were as follows: Marshal Georgy Zhukov for the Soviet Union, General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower for the United States, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery for the United Kingdom, and General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny for France.
In the following time, the Control Council issued a substantial number of laws, directives, orders, and proclamations. They dealt with the abolition of Nazi laws and organisations, demilitarisation, denazification, but also with such comparatively pedestrian matters as telephone tariffs and the combat of venereal diseases. On many issues the council was unable to impose its resolutions, as real power lay in the hands of the separate Allied governments and their military governors, and the council issued recommendations that did not have the force of law. On September 20, 1945, the council issued Directive no. 10, which divided the various official acts of the Control Council into five categories (texts in quotation marks are direct quotations from the said above directive):
- Proclamations - "to announce matters or acts of special importance to the occupying power or to the German people, or to both".
- Laws - "on matters of general application, unless they expressly provide otherwise".
- Orders - "when the Control Council has requirement to impose on Germany and when laws are not used".
- Directives - "to communicate policy or administrative decisions of the Control Council".
- Instructions - "when the Control Council wishes to impose requirements direct upon a particular authority".
Directive no. 11 of the same day made the work of the council more orderly by establishing English, French, Russian and German as the official languages of the council, and by establishing an official gazette to publish the council's official acts.
Law no. 1 of the Control Council (also enacted on September 20, 1945) repealed some of the most strictly Nazi laws enacted under the Third Reich. This established the legal basis for the council's work.
Directive no. 51 (April 29, 1947), repealing Directive no. 10, simplified the council's legislative work by reducing the categories of legislative acts to Proclamations, Laws and Orders.
Read more about this topic: Allied Control Council
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