740.00114 European War 1939/1776: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)
5210. Following is Department’s 420, November 7, 10 p.m., to Legation Stockholm:
“Department has today addressed the following instruction to the American Embassy at Kuibyshev:
[Here is quoted the Department’s telegram No. 1199, November 7, 10 p.m., printed supra.]
Please convey substance of the foregoing to the appropriate Swedish authorities, and express the hope of this Government that Sweden, which has undertaken the representation of Soviet interests in Germany and which would, therefore, appear to be in a strong position to make similar representations to the Soviet Government, will do everything within its power to obtain the Soviet Government’s agreement reciprocally to apply to prisoners of war the terms of the Geneva Convention or similar treatment based on some reciprocal agreement. The Swedish Government, for example, could point out to the Soviet Government from observation by Swedish representatives in Germany the nature of the protection the Department’s representatives have [Page 1011] been enabled by the Geneva Convention to afford the British and Belgian prisoners of war in Germany, a protection which the Swedish representatives will scarcely be able to extend to Soviet prisoners in the absence of an agreement between the Soviet and German Governments reciprocally to apply the Convention or provisions similar thereto.”
Please inform British Foreign Office of the general sense of the foregoing as the British Government may itself wish to communicate with the Soviet Government in this matter in view of the possibility of deterioration of the treatment of British prisoners in German hands should the treatment of German prisoners in Soviet hands and of Soviet prisoners in German hands continue to be less favorable than that accorded under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Department understands from Tracy Strong, General Secretary of the International YMCA, that he discussed with Lord Halifax53 the possibility of a general deterioration of the treatment of prisoners of war arising from non-observance by the Soviet Government of the Geneva Convention and that Lord Halifax stated he would place the matter before his Government.
- Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, Viscount Halifax, British Ambassador in the United States.↩