During World War II, the Allies not only defeated Germany; they destroyed the German army and warmaking capability. Five years after the surrender, Theodor Blank received the responsibility for planning the rearmament of West Germany starting from nothing. Although Konrad Adenauer was the driving force behind rearmament, Theodor Blank was the instrument who pushed it through Allied negotiations and parliamentary acceptance. Heretofore, Blank's role has been told only in part; new materials and the ability now to see events in a clearer perspective warrant a new study of Blank's role in the German rearmament process. Sources for this dissertation include: Documents on Foreign Relations of the United States; memoirs, among them those of Konrad Adenauer, Georges Bidault, Lucius Clay, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Anthony Eden, Ivone Kirkpatrick, Harold MacMillan, Kirill Meretskov, Jules Moch, Sergei Shternenko, Hans Speidel, Harry S. Truman, Alexander Vasilevsky, and Georgiy Zhukov; contemporary reports from newspapers, among them the Times (London), New York Times, Le Monde, Pravda, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, Suddeutsche Zeitung, and Das Parlement; Parliamentary Debates; official records; and interviews. Rearmament involved the interrelationship of vast, diverse interests: the conflict between East and West, national and international fears, domestic problems, and the interplay of leading personalities. When the Amt Blank, the planning organization, became functional on 1 December 1950, it consisted of nineteen people; in 1955, when it became the Defense Ministry with Theodor Blank the Defense Minister, it had a staff of one thousand. Cast in the milieu of the Allied negotiations on West German rearmament, this dissertation chronologically focuses on the role that Blank and the Amt Blank personnel played in the planning, negotiations, and domestic issues related to rearmament. Blank's diplomatic skills and managerial ability were key factors in transforming West Germany from a conquered area to a sovereign state, a member of NATO with approval for its own armed force, within a five-year period.

Du réarmement de l’Allemagne fédérale en 1955 jusqu’aux nouvelles missions actuelles à l’étranger mandatées par une organisation internationale et au nom de la défense des droits de l’homme, la Bundeswehr a accompli une évolution singulière, différente des armées des autres nations. Créée de toutes pièces, après la défaite de la 2e guerre mondiale, selon une conception tout opposée à la Wehrmacht et sous la contrainte qu’imposait la Guerre froide, elle s’est ensuite adaptée au gré des menaces et des détentes, mais sans jamais avoir d’autres missions que celle pour laquelle elle a été conçue : défendre l’Europe au sein de l’Alliance atlantique contre l’expansionnisme communiste. La RFA a cherché à se positionner parmi les nations non-nucléaires de l’OTAN et tout en tentant de participer la décision en matière nucléaire. Elle a cherché à faire valoir ses intérêts à travers l’influence que les gouvernements et les chanceliers de tous bords se succédant ont pu exercer sur les deux puissances à l’Est et à l’Ouest, mais aussi à travers l’engagement résolu pour la construction européenne, en concert avec la France. Elle a fait de même par les positions que ses ministres de la Défense et ses représentants civils et militaires ont occupées au sein de l’OTAN. Cette remarquable continuité a abouti à la chute du mur de Berlin et à la fin du monde bipolaire. La Bundeswehr a dû en conséquence à l’instar de son organisme de tutelle, l’Alliance atlantique, se redéfinir et prendre des responsabilités plus importantes dans les conflits européens et mondiaux, sans pour autant abandonner sa doctrine initiale liée à la « Loi fondamentale ». / From the rearmament of Western Germany in 1955 to the today « new missions » under UN mandate and on behalf of the protection of human rights, the “Bundeswehr”, i.e. the German Armed Forces, has been evolving in quite a different way from the other nations. As a matter of fact, the Bundeswehr was set up from scratch after the World War 2 defeat as an armed force based on a conception opposite of the previous Wehrmacht and under the constraints of the Cold War. It then tried to adapt to the various threats and policies of détente but without diverging from its fundamental mission: the defence of the European territory against communist expansion. At that time, Western Germany tried to find its place among the NATO non nuclear States while participating in the nuclear decision making process. It also pushed forward its national interests through the particular influence of its governments and prime ministers on both western and eastern nations and helped promote the EU construction in cooperation with France. It conducted the same policy within NATO. This remarkable political continuity led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the bipolar world. From that moment on, the Bundeswehr had, just as NATO, to redefine and accept wider responsibilities in European and world conflicts while maintaining its original political doctrine enshrined in its Fundamental Law.