Treasury Files
Memorandum by the Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury (White)
Memorandum for the Secretary’s Files
Conference at Sir [Mr.] Anthony Eden’s Office at 4 P.M.
| Present: | Sir Anthony Eden |
| Mr. W. Strange [Strang], British member of the EAC | |
| Secretary Morgenthau | |
| Ambassador Winant | |
| Mr. H. D. White |
The conference had been arranged by Sir Anthony Eden on previous Sunday,1 who had suggested that if the Secretary could come to his office he could show him that portion of the Tehran conference dealing with the decision on partition of Germany.
Eden began reading excerpts from a report on the Tehran conference. He said that the report had been prepared by Archibald Kerr and was sort of a telegraphic report and not a verbatim report. The gist of the excerpts which Eden read was as follows: President Roosevelt said that he would like to discuss the question of the partition of Germany. (At this point Eden explained par[en]thetically that Churchill had been pushing the Polish question and that Stalin was trying to get away from it and he feared likewise President Roosevelt, but that Churchill kept trying to bring the Polish matter back into the discussion. President Roosevelt said that Germany could be divided into three or fifteen parts. Stalin indicated smilingly that Churchill wasn’t listening because he doubted whether Churchill was in favor of dividing Germany. Churchill replied that he hadn’t yet left Lwow (thereby indicating that he still wanted to discuss the Polish question). The President expressed the view that the European Advisory Commission should be instructed to report on the problem of partitioning Germany. Stalin agreed. Since Stalin and Roosevelt felt strongly about the point Churchill said he was willing to agree that the Commission should examine and report on the question of the partition of Germany.
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… I asked Winant if as a member of the EAC representing the United States he had ever [been?] instructed to go forward on a study based on the assumption tentatively decided upon at Tehran [Page 884] that Germany was to be separated into many parts. The Ambassador replied that he had been at Tehran and knew that decision had been made but that he didn’t know how much he was supposed to tell to his own Department back home and that he had never received instructions from his own Department to work on such proposal.
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- See supra.↩