The Great Berlin Power Struggle

Col. Frank Howley was determined to prevent the Soviets from wresting control of the western-run districts of Berlin, but he knew it would be an uphill struggle. He was increasingly strident in his criticism of official American policy, which he described as “appeasement of the Russians at any price in an attempt to win them over.” He was also irritated by reminders from Washington that his role was to “allay their suspicions and to gain their friendship and cooperation.” He had privately vowed to take a more combative approach, even if it meant crossing swords with the White House and State Department.

“There is only one way to deal with gangsters, Russian-uniformed or otherwise,” he said with a scowl, “and that is to treat them like gangsters.”

“There is only one way to deal with gangsters, Russian-uniformed or otherwise,” he said with a scowl, “and that is to treat them like gangsters.” He would later describe lying awake at night “trying to think up ways to keep the Russians from stealing the city from under us.”

The opening shots of the ensuing power struggle were fired in the Allied Kommandatura, the four-power body established to run Berlin. It had been officially convened in the first week of July 1945, but it had proven near impossible to find a building in which it could meet. The Americans eventually suggested the half-ruined headquarters of the Nazi Labour Front, in their sector of the city. Within days it was reglazed, replastered, and repainted by 250 American workmen.

The main meeting room was sober and functional, furnished with a long banqueting table, twenty blue upholstered armchairs, and several rows of smaller seats for the advisors, stenographers, and interpreters. This wood-paneled chamber was to be the stage set for events that were, in the words of Frank Howley, “as portentous in world implications as the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.”

The key players in the Kommandatura included Colonel Howley (for America) and Brigadier Hinde (for Britain). They represented their respective areas of western Berlin and it was they who were to fight tooth and nail with the Soviets over the city’s destiny.

If his clothing and boots sent an unambiguous message that he was on the warpath, his blunt tongue would do even more to turn the Kommandatura into a bear pit.

Colonel Howley sat next to his Soviet counterpart, with Hinde opposite him and his soon-to-arrive French comrade in the adjacent chair, all of them surrounded by advisors. Howley regarded himself as the first among equals of this four-square phalanx, a do-or-die warrior who attended meetings in full combat dress. If his clothing and boots sent...

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