James F. Byrnes, Lucius Clay, and American Policy in Germany, 1945-1947

This study traces the collaboration of Secretary of State James F. Byrnes of South Carolina and General Lucius D. Clay of Georgia, Military Governor of the US Occupation Zone, in turning American policy in Germany after WWII away from a ‘peace of vengeance’ toward a more positive, reconstructionist direction. It also describes the success of German efforts to influence American policy through Clay. It concludes by examining Byrnes’s 1946 Stuttgart speech, much of which derived from a Clay cable to Washington. This vital speech is interpreted as a statement primarily directed to the Germans in the context of General Clay’s push for the establishment of a prototype German government and Byrnes’s concern over the lack of Soviet and French cooperation toward this end. This work will appeal to scholars interested in the Cold War, US diplomatic history, recent German history, and Southern history.