The origins of SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) | 01 JAN 1951

Rare film footage from the NATO Film Collection about the early years of SHAPE and the commands of the first four SACEURs was re-edited into a short film that served as the audiovisual component of the exhibition 'FORGING THE WEAPON': THE ORIGINS OF SHAPE on 7 December 2012.

📺 Quicklinks / Chapters:
▶️ 00:00 - 1 January 1951: President Harry S. Truman and SACEUR General Dwight D. Eisenhower
▶️ 01:20 - 2 January 1951, Hotel Astoria, Paris: General Eisenhower greets the SHAPE Planning Group
▶️ 01:38 - 2 April 1951: Official activation of SHAPE
▶️ 02:30 - 12 March 1951: Construction of SHAPE HQ begins
▶️ 04:00 - 23 July 1951: Opening of SHAPE HQ by General Eisenhower and President of France, Vincent Auriol
▶️ 06:25 - 30 May 1952: General Eisenhower turns over his command of SHAPE to General Matthew Ridgway
▶️ 14:58 An Introduction to Allied Command Europe - SACEUR General Alfred Guenther
▶️ 20:45 An appreciation for the work of SHAPE's female officers by SACEUR General Lauris Norstad
▶️ 21:53 - 3 September 1959: President Eisenhower visits SHAPE


https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/ne...

In February 1951 Lieutenant Colonel Roy Lamson, a university history professor who had
served as a military historian during World War II, was recalled to active duty at the request of SACEUR Dwight D. Eisenhower. When Lamson arrived in Paris to join the small multinational team that was setting up the new Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Eisenhower explained to Lamson why his new post as the first SHAPE Historian was so important:

“If SHAPE succeeds, it will be a model for future cooperation, and even if it fails, we should know the reasons why.”

As we all know, SHAPE did succeed, and Colonel Lamson and his successors produced a series of SHAPE Histories to document the activities and decisions taken each year. These classified histories drew on the wide range of documents that had been collected and preserved by the SHAPE Historical Office and SHAPE Central Records. These documents were subsequently microfilmed for preservation, and the paper copies then destroyed.

The historical records dating back to the beginnings of SHAPE remained classified long past the normal 30-year period for consideration for declassification due to the difficulty of declassifying microfilm reels that contained large numbers of documents from a wide range of sources, not just SHAPE and its subordinate commands but also NATO headquarters and the member nations of NATO. With the support of the North Atlantic Council and the NATO Archives Committee, digital preservation of the microfilm reels has helped overcome these difficulties. At long last, the SHAPE Histories from the 1950s along with the large numbers of related documents can finally be disclosed to the public, offering researchers a key source of information for this important period
of the Cold War.

To mark this milestone, the NATO Archives and the SHAPE Historical Office have collaborated to present this special exhibition focusing on the early formative years of SHAPE. Using a selection of the newly declassified SHAPE records and text taken directly from the SHAPE Histories, we hope that this exhibition provides an enticing sampling for further exploration into this collection, which will be made available online at the NATO Archives website (www.nato.int/archives/SHAPE).

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