The US military governor who answered the blockade of West Berlin with a 324-day airlift
On 25 June 1948, the day after the blockade began, Clay ordered the airlift on his own authority before Truman formally approved it, and the Berliners he saved came to call him their 'city father' and carved on his grave: 'Wir danken dem Bewahrer unserer Freiheit.'
An engineer who rose through the Army's Corps of Engineers to direct wartime supply, Clay became military governor of the American zone in occupied Germany in 1947. When the Soviets blockaded West Berlin in 1948, he chose an airlift over the armed convoys he privately favored, ordered it on his own authority, and held out for all 324 days, arguing that Berlin's defense was a question of American honor and Western Europe's fate. After retiring in 1949 he became a businessman and presidential adviser, and in 1961 returned to Berlin as Kennedy's envoy, sending American tanks to face Soviet armor at Checkpoint Charlie.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1897Born in Marietta, Georgia, son of Senator Alexander Stephens Clay
- 1918Graduated West Point; commissioned in the Corps of Engineers
- 1942Became the youngest brigadier general; director of materiel under Eisenhower
- 1945–1946Deputy to Eisenhower, then deputy military governor of Germany
- 1947–1949Military governor of the US Zone and C-in-C, US Forces Europe
- 1948.06.25Ordered the Berlin Airlift
- 1949–1962Retired; chairman of Continental Can Company
- 1961–1962Kennedy's envoy to Berlin; US and Soviet tanks faced off at Checkpoint Charlie
Related historical events
Denazification and the punishment of Nazi war criminals under the military government
As military governor Clay held the authority to enforce denazification in German society and to confirm the sentences of Nazi war criminals. In 1946 he publicly told western German officials of his disappointment with the results of the denazification tribunals: "I do not see how you can demonstrate your ability for self-government nor your will for democracy if you are going to evade or shirk the first unpleasant and difficult task that falls upon you," and he ordered improvements within 60 days. Commutations and executions alike proved contentious. The death sentences of Erwin Metz and his superior Ludwig Merz, notorious figures of the Berga camp where 350 U.S. POWs were beaten, starved and worked to death, were commuted, in part because the military had botched the case. In cases such as Ilse Koch of Buchenwald, the sentence was reduced and she was eventually released on the ground that the evidence was questionable; Clay said he had acted because none of the documents about Koch contained evidence of murder. One scholar judges that, despite this mixed record, he was one of only two prominent American and British officials with a genuine commitment to denazification, while his influence was also crucial in having American authorities prosecute major Nazi war criminals themselves in the Subsequent Nuremberg trials. Late in the occupation he admitted his hopes for denazification had failed. After false torture allegations spread in the United States, notably from Senator Joseph McCarthy, a blanket stay of execution covered most death-row war criminals in the American zone; when the stay was lifted in October 1948, Clay, fearing growing pressure to commute, carried out a wave of last-minute executions, and over 100 Nazi war criminals convicted by U.S. military tribunals were hanged at Landsberg Prison between October 1948 and March 1949.