October 10, 1945

Allied Control Council Law No. 2

Allied Control Council approves Law No. 2 abolishing Nazi organizations

The law did not merely ban a party name: it seized the party network's land, money, accounts and records.

10 October 1945: the eighth Berlin meeting

At its eighth Berlin meeting, on 10 October 1945, the four-power Allied Control Council gave final approval to Control Council Law No. 2, "Providing for the Termination and Liquidation of the Nazi Organizations."

It was signed at Berlin by Pierre Koenig, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Vassily Sokolovsky and Brian Robertson, for the French, American, Soviet and British occupation authorities.

Koenig presided over the meeting.

What it outlawed

The law abolished and declared illegal the Nazi Party, its formations, affiliated associations, supervised agencies, paramilitary bodies and other Nazi institutions created as instruments of party domination. It prohibited recreating any of them under either the same or a different name.

It confiscated their real estate, equipment, money, accounts, records and other property for control by the occupation military commands, and exposed violators to criminal prosecution.

Not the beginning of denazification

The Nazi Party had already collapsed in practice, and individual occupation zones had imposed their own dissolution measures. Law No. 2 made the policy quadripartite and Germany-wide, implementing the Potsdam commitment to destroy Nazi political structures.

The measure was publicly announced on 12 October and printed in the Control Council's Official Gazette dated 29 October; neither publication date should be substituted for the 10 October enactment.

After approving the law, Eisenhower argued that the Council should keep meeting frequently, offering to make Berlin his permanent headquarters if necessary.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 7 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

October 10 is securely documented as the date of final Control Council approval and the date written on the law.
Contemporary U.S. reporting said the measure would be announced on October 12, while the Official Gazette carrying it was dated October 29. These publication dates should not be substituted for the October 10 enactment date.