The Disarmament of Germany after the Second World War In
striking contrast to the situation after the First World War,
Germany offered virtually no resistance to its forced
disarmament by the allies in 1945. Effective opposition would
have been much more difficult than in the 1920s because the
allies occupied every part of the country, the German armed
forced were utterly crushed, and the power available to the
allies was far greater than it had been twenty-five years
earlier. There was no central German government or clandestine
general staff to plan resistance. Unlike Japan, Germany was
allowed no government of its own in 1945 and was divided into
four occupation zones. From 1945 to 1947, the allies tried to
reduce German power in three ways: destruction of German
military equipment, demobilization of armed forces, and
undermining of the country's industrial capacity to make war.
This chapter looks at the forced disarmament of Germany after
the Second World War. Oxford Scholarship Online requires a
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