Casablanca Conference/ Unconditional Surrender
At the end of the British American conference in Casablanca, January 14—23, 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Winston Churchill at his side, explained that the elimination of Axis war power meant their unconditional surrender.
This proclamation was the one war aim pertaining to Nazi Germany that the Allies publicly announced during the war. It was immediately criticized by the American media as a wholly negative one that would only stiffen the German resolve to fight and thus prolong the war and increase American casualties. Indeed, “unconditional surrender” proved an encumbrance to psychological warfare. In subsequent explanations British and American leaders stated that this policy did not mean the enslavement of the German people. Roosevelt clarified that “unconditional surrender” did not mean the destruction of the enemy population, but he emphasized that it did aim at the destruction of Nazism, fascism, and militarism. There was, however, little disagreement among political and military officials over the validity and purpose of the formula.Roosevelt, who had been a member of the Wilson administration during World War I, had regarded the armistice with Germany ending that war to be a mistake that had given rise to the “stab-in-the back legend” of a German army undefeated in the field. In U.S. wartime planning the term “unconditional surrender” had been discussed approvingly from the time the United States entered World War II. Soon thereafter, Roosevelt announced that no compromise could end the current conflict, thus also ruling out any substantive contacts and negotiations with the German resistance to Adolf Hitler. Domestically the president intended his announcement to quell a public outcry, especially among the liberal media and intellectuals, over a negotiated deal his administration had struck in November 1942 with the French Fascist admiral Jean-Francois Darlan to prevent resistance against the Allied troops after their landing in North Africa (TORCH). Similarly, the Soviet ally had to be reassured that Britain and the United States were determined not to enter into separate deals with parts of the German leadership.
In addition to public apprehension over the demand for unconditional surrender, sections of the U.S. government, such as the emigrant-staffed Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, pointed to the troublesome effects of the unconditional surrender policy from a psychological warfare point of view, especially when compared with the Soviets’ alternative strategy of holding out a prospect of democratic self-rule, as embodied in the Free Germany Committee.
Casablanca Conference at Casablanca, French Morocco, Africa. The “unconditional surrender”announcement.
President Roosevelt, with Prime Minister Winston Churchill at his side, reads to the assembled war correspondents, January 1943. (Library of Congress)
Michaela Hoenicke Moore
See also Tehran Conference; U.S. Plans for Postwar Germany; World War II
References and Further Reading
Casey, Steven. Cautious Crusade: Franklin D.
Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the Wtr against Nazi Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Klemperer, Klemens von. German Resistance against Hitler. The Search for Allies Abroad, 1938—1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
O’Connor, Raymond G. Diplomacy for Victory: FDR and Unconditional Surrender. New York: W W Norton, 1971.