Lucius Dubignon Clay
General, U.S. Army

Lucius Dubignon Clay was born on 23 April 1897 in Marietta, GA. He was the sixth and last child of Alexander Stephens Clay, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1897 to 1910. Contrary to popular belief, this branch of the Clay family is not closely related to the famous statesman, Henry Clay.

Military Career

Lucius Clay graduated from the U.S. Military Academy with the Class of 1918 and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He held various civil and military engineering posts during the 1920s and 1930s. These included teaching at West Point and directing the construction of dams and civilian airports. During this time, he acquired a reputation for bringing order and operational efficiency out of chaos, and for being an exceptionally hard and disciplined worker, going long hours and refusing to even stop to eat during his workdays. By 1942, Clay had become a Brigadier General.

World War II

Clay was never in actual combat but was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1942, the Distinguished Service Medal in 1944, and received the Bronze Star for his action in stabilizing the French harbor of Cherbourg and critical to the flow of war materiel. In 1945 he served as Deputy to General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The following year, he was made Deputy Governor of Germany during the Allied Military Government.

Regarding the occupation directive guiding his and General Eisenhower's actions, he remarked: "There was no doubt that JCS 1067 contemplated the Carthaginian peace which dominated our operations in Germany during the early months of occupation."

He heavily influenced U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes' September 1946 speech in Stuttgart, Germany. The speech; "Restatement of Policy on Germany" marked the formal transition in American occupation policy away from the Morgenthau Plan of economic dismantlement to one of economic reconstruction. He also pardoned Ilse Koch, "the Beast of Buchenwald," who had been convicted of murder at Nuremberg and was infamous for making gloves and lampshades from prisoners' skin. The pardons were based on the hasty convictions of some Buchenwald personnel following the end of the war. Evidence was sometimes questionable and some witnesses claimed to have been beaten by Allied interrogators. Many of the accused claimed that they had been beaten during interrogation. Clay confirmed several death sentences as valid, commuted several, and had some, including Ilse Koch, released due to questionable evidence.

During 1947-49, he was the Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone in Germany. In that capacity he commissioned Lewis H. Brown to research and write "A Report on Germany," which served as a detailed recommendation for the reconstruction of post-war Germany, and served as a basis for the Marshall Plan. Clay was promoted to Lieutenant General on 17 April 1945 and to General on 17 March 1947. During this time he hired noted American intellectual and former U.S. Army Captain, Melvin J. Lasky. Clay was instrumental in the creation of the influential publication Der Monat.

On 26 June 1948, two days after the Soviets imposed the Berlin Blockade, Clay gave the order for the Berlin Airlift. This was an act of defiance against the Soviets and an incredible feat of logistics (at one point cargo planes landed at Tempelhof every four minutes, twenty four hours a day). It was a defining moment of the Cold War and a demonstration of American support for the citizens of Berlin.

Clay is remembered as a hero for ordering and maintaining the airlift, which ultimately lasted through May 1949; a total of 324 days,. He resigned his post just days after the blockade was lifted.

Retirement

After Clay retired from the military, he went into politics and served several presidents. One of his first duties as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's emissary, and as the National Chairman of the Crusade for Freedom, was to dedicate the city of Berlin's Liberty Bell. In 1954, he was called upon by President Eisenhower to help forge a plan for financing the proposed Interstate highway system. He had previous experience in 1933 with managing and organizing projects under the New Deal, and later became one of Eisenhower's closest advisers.

During the Berlin Wall crisis in 1961, President John F. Kennedy asked him to be an adviser and to go to Berlin and report on the situation. Two years later Clay accompanied Kennedy on his trip to Berlin. During his famous Ich bin ein Berliner-speech Kennedy said: "I am proud (...) to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed."

Criticisms

Clay was responsible for commuting the death sentences, among many others, for convicted Nazi war criminals Erwin Metz and his superior, Hauptmann Ludwig Merz, to only five years imprisonment (time served). Metz and Merz were commanders of the infamous Berga, Thuringia slave labor camp in which 350 U.S. soldiers were beaten, tortured, starved, and forced to work for the German government during World War II. The soldiers were singled out for looking or sounding Jewish. At least 70 U.S. soldiers died in the camp or on a later forced death march. This was due to the previously mentioned problems with questionable evidence in which some sentences were confirmed (upheld) and others commuted by General Clay.

Medals and Awards

Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster
Legion of Merit
Bronze Star Medal
American Defense Service Medal
American Campaign Medal
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal
Army of Occupation Medal
Bundesverdienstkreuz (Grand Cross)

Honors

Clay was given a ticker-tape parade upon his return to the U.S. on 19 May 1949.

He appeared on the cover of Time magazine three times.

Clay received an honorary doctorate of the Freie Universität Berlin and became honorary citizen of Berlin (West) in 1953.

Marietta, GA, named one of its major streets Clay Road, also South Cobb High School's football stadium is named "Clay Stadium." In honor of his work in creating what is now Dobbins Air Force Base there. While now called South Marietta Parkway (State Route 120 Loop), it still carries memorial signs at each end dedicating the highway to him.

In 1978 a new U.S. Army base in Northern Germany near the city of Bremen was named for Clay and until the end of the Cold War housed a forward-stationed brigade of the 2nd Armored Division, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Armored Division, which had been based at Fort Hood, TX with the rest of the 2AD. This unit was redesignated as the 2nd Armored Division (Forward). 2AD(FWD) saw action in the Gulf War of 1991 before being disbanded as part of the post-Cold War drawdown of the U.S. Army. Since 1 October 1993 these barracks are used by the Bundeswehr but are furthermore named after Clay.

The "General-Clay-March" by Heinz Mertins, was written in his honor.

Family

Clay was the father of two sons, both of whom became general officers. Clay's son, U.S. Air Force General Lucius D. Clay, Jr., held the positions of Commander-in-Chief of the North American Air Defense Command; the Continental Air Defense Command; and the U.S. element of NORAD. He was also Commander of the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Defense Command.

Clay's other son, U.S. Army Major General Frank Butner Clay, served in conflicts from World War II through the Vietnam War, and was an adviser to the U.S. delegation at the Paris peace talks which ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

Death and Burial

General Lucius Dubignon Clay died on 16 April 1978. He is buried at the United States Military Academy Post Cemetery in West Point, Orange County, NY, in Section XVIII, Row G, Grave 079.

At his grave site is a stone plate from the citizens of Berlin that says: "Wir danken dem Bewahrer unserer Freiheit" (We thank the Preserver of our Freedom).