History of Clay Headquarters -Source: U.S. Army booklet, edited by Reinhard v. Bronewski-
The Clay Headquarters compound for the United States Army, Berlin, was located at the corner of Clayallee and Saargemuender Strasse in Dahlem, a sub-district of Zehlendorf.
This district, built up mainly between the turn of the century and the late 1930's, was the location of many villas built by wealthy industrialists and financiers.
The Clay Headquarters compound was built for the German Air Force in the years 1936-38. Originally, it was one of seven Luftwaffe district headquarters, Luftgaukommando III, which coordinated air defense for region stretching from Berlin to Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in the east, and Dresden in the south. In 1943, when the seven air defense of the whole Germany. Contrary to some representations, it was not overall Luftwaffe headquarters under Goering.
During World War II, as Allied bombing became increasingly intense, most of the units stationed in the complex were moved. By April 1945, only signal units occupied the central compound. When Russian troops arrived in the first days of May, they found the complex abandoned and shrouded in camouflage netting.
In early July, American advance units entered Berlin, and on 4 July 1945, the United States took formal control of the American sector. On 7 July, the building was occupied by the United States Army. Since damage was slight, speedy repairs by the Army Engineers enabled the Office of Military Government for Germany to establish headquarters in the buildings by the end of 1945. It was here that General Lucius D. Clay exercisted his responsibilities for the American sector (6 from 12 districts of West Berlin) and for Germany as a whole. The building was also headquarters for the United States Commandant of Berlin. As such, it was one of the nerve centers of American policy during the Berlin Blockade and Airlift (1948-49)
The military occupation government both of West Germany and of West Berlin ended in 1949. After then, the Clayallee compound headquartered the three elements of the United States Command: -the Office of the United States Commander, Berlin; the U.S. Mission, Berlin (State Department); and the Berlin Brigade.-
Immediately after the Airlift, the Berlin Senat honored General Clay with the renaming of Kronprinzenallee to Clayallee. General Clay died on 16 April 1978. Less than one month later, on the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the Berlin Blockade, 12 May 1979, the compound was named in General Clay's memory.
If you entered the main entrance hall, you could see the "Doughboy" statue. It was cast in 1946 as a symbolic tribute to the infantrymen of Word War II, in the right hand holding the famous M1 Garand rifle. The real life model for that statue was the 19-year-old staff sergeant, Thomas Love, then stationed in Berlin.
Generals Eisenhower (IKE) & Clay visited OMGUS info & photo serie by Ray Hansen
Here in this section you have some pictures I took back in 1947 of Generals Clay and Eisenhower at
OMGUS. I would like to give all of you a foot-note to those pictures.
General Eisenhower had stopped in Berlin on his way to a Four Powers Foreign Ministers Conference in
Moscow in March of 1947. The main item on the agenda was to discuss peace treaties with Germany and
Austria. However, the only thing that came out of the meeting was the dissolution of the land of
Prussia between Poland and Russia. The feeling of the Western Allies was that Russia was quite happy
with the sad conditions in Germany hoping that it would tend to influence the German people to drift
toward the East. When Russia was asked to take part in the Marshall Plan to aid Germany, they declined,
so the US went it alone. None of this came as a surprise to the West, because, prior to this meeting,
it had become more and more apparent during previous Four Power Conferences in 1945 and 1946 that the
Russians were showing less cooperation in plans to rebuild Europe. In fact, during a later meeting in
December of 1947, Russia did even more to display its true colors and ambitions for domination of
European countries unless checked by the West.
In my Honor Page # 20, I wrote about an incident when I was setting up the teletype line
communications between Berlin and Moscow for the conference. I asked the question, " When did the Cold
War start?" It is interesting that Bernard Baruch, an advisor to President Roosevelt, made a speech
in the following month, April 1947, when he said, "We are in a Cold War with Russia."
There is one other name I want to mention. This man had a tremendous effect of events in Germany.
He committed suicide in November of 1947. John Gilbert Winant was a man who worked his way up through
the political system by over-stating his experience with lies and exaggeration. Sir Walter Crocker who
worked with him in the International Labor Office in Geneva gave an oral history to the Roosevelt
Library in which he had a scathing summary of Winant's inadequacies... a man who never measured up
to people's expectations of him. The reason I mention Winant is that he is the man who had an important
part in how Germany was going to be split up after the war. He is the man who had a chance to have
the Russians put in writing that the Allied partners would have unobstructed travel access to Berlin
by road, rail and canal. But as historians who were familiar with the facts reported, he was said
to have said, " That is not something we will have to worry about." As a result, Russia never put
anything in writing about access to Berlin. Would you say he is the man who caused the need for
the Berlin Airlift? Lets keep the memories alive!
