Maria, Pull the Trigger and Kill (a World War II adventure)

Private MacCanna

That Sunday, I finally had enough time, to write my weekly report. Myinjured leg forced me to sit down most of the time and before I did get bored,I just wrote the blasted report. Walking to the office on Monday morning was painful and took me quite some time. As I had to hug the office chair for the time being, I had plenty of time to craft a plan on how to fix the food supply issue of Berlin. Doing so, I realized, that I needed more inputs. I needed to talk to the people out on the streets, otherwise my great plan would lack some crucial details.

Tuersday, I took my notebook and set myself up at the corner of Kronprinzenallee and Saargmünderstraße, just outside of the Luftgaukommando III, our office. Amanda was kind enough, to bring me a chair. Throughout the day, I interviewed citizens passing by asking them questions and hearing them out.

Wednesday, I completed my plan. I had the top down view of the administration and I had the bottoms up view of the citizens. When I was in bed, thinking about my plan again, I got aware, that I needed all four occupying troops to support it. It could potentially be the biggest hurdle. There I had an idea: there was a much larger picture to this. Fixing the infrastructure of Germany, would essentially require all 4 occupational forces to work together. It would require, that they agree on a master plan and then individually or jointly execute that master plan in the four zones/territories. From that perspective a joint high-ranking committee was needed, which gave its blessing for the master plan.

Amanda was always looking at me with love struck eyes. I wanted to be close to her, take her in my arms, but if anyone found out, that we had something going, we would have gotten dishonorably discharged from the army. In order to stay on the safe side, I kept a safe distance. I was not sure, which one was regarded being worse by the army: having spent a night with a communist or with a woman?

Friday 20th of July 1945 I presented the results of my work to General Clay.

"Good work, Gonzales. I like it. Here is how we do it: Gonzales, you will advise the US Army Engineering Corps so that by next week, we have a reception hall, a conference room and cafeteria ready. Next thing, you write up an invitation letter for the first constitutional session of the --- hmm, what should we call it? --- Allied Control Council of Germany --- yeah, that sounds good. This letter will go to General Eisenhower, Marshal Chukov, Marshal Montgomery and General Lattre de Tassigny. On the 30th of July the four Generals will visit the conference in Potsdam. I will make radio calls, that one of the agenda items there is to call the Allied Control Council into being. The constitutional session will be on the same day or the day after. I will let you know. What is very important, Gonzales, actually most important, is that the organization of the whole event is done here at OMGUS. I want you to be in charge of it. And then, going forward all organizational matters of the Allied Control Council will be done here at OMGUS. You will be the head of it. I want the Allied Control Council not even being able to as much as fart without us having organized it beforehand. Understood?"

I did not quite grasp my role in the matter: "Sir, ähm, Sir, ähm what exactly do you want me do to? Ähm Sir."

"Gonzales, if we want to repair Germany's infrastructure, than as you correctly figured, all 4 occupying forces have to agree on a master plan and execute it. Now you need to have people responsible for it, otherwise it will turn into an uncontrollable mess and you pointed that out already. I just called these people the Allied Control Council of Germany. The 4 responsible Generals will be, actually have to be, the responsible heads of that Council. They will nominate representatives of their own, because they won't have the time to do it. Those representatives, will need help to do the nitty gritty stuff for them. So all that said, the Council will need workers, who organize everything, typewriters, bookkeepers, planners, controllers and so on. And these workers will be employed by OMGUS and they need a boss and you will be that boss. In that way, we, the US, controls the organizational body of the Council and in that way, the Council will do nothing, which we have not approved beforehand. So we will organize the whole constitutional session and all of the aftermath, the homework so to speak and the next meeting of the Council and when things go smoothly, everybody is happy, that there already is an efficient organizational body in place, which can be used, and woops we control the Council. Did that make things clear?"