Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Volume III

740.00119 BW/1325½

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)

[Washington,] March 16, 1943.

[Participants:]

Mr. Eden, Lord Halifax, Mr. Welles

I said to Mr. Eden that I realized that he had been having a good many general conversations since his arrival in Washington and that I wondered if in the course of his conversations with me it might not be preferable for us to undertake them with precision in order to get down to some detail. Mr. Eden said that he was entirely in accord and suggested that this morning we might discuss the European problems.

Mr. Eden stated that in his judgment there were two main issues: the future disposition of Germany, and the general question of our relations with the Soviet Union and the future policy of the Soviet Union.

He asked me if we had had any occasion to learn the views of the Soviet Government with regard to the desires of the Soviet Union in post-war adjustments, and when I replied that we had had absolutely none, he told me that just before he had left London for Washington the Soviet Ambassador, Mr. Maisky, had called upon him and had given him in complete detail the position of the Soviet Union. Mr. Eden said that he had made it clear that he was not coming to Washington as “Russian Ambassador” but he nevertheless believed that the views expressed to him by Mr. Maisky would be of value to us at this time.

With regard to the problem of the disposition of Germany, Mr. Eden said that the views of the British Government and his own views in particular were tending towards the dismemberment of Germany. He said he wished to make it clear that he was not in a position as yet to speak for the British Government and that the views which he would express to me were consequently tentative and contingent.

I replied that I felt it of course necessary to make it equally clear that whatever I might say in the course of these conversations with Mr. Eden was primarily purely an expression of my individual views in as much as none of these questions had been finally determined by the President, and that while of course the views which I might express reflected the opinions of those with whom I had been studying these problems during the past year and a half, they could only safely be considered as individual opinions.

I stated that it would seem from what Mr. Eden had said that my own opinion with regard to the future disposition of Germany was entirely in line with the views which he had indicated to me.

Mr. Eden then said that in his own judgment the best solution would be for the dismemberment of Germany to take place as the result of spontaneous movements for such partition coming from within Germany herself and that in his belief some result of this character might have taken place after the year 1919 had it not been for the fact that France at that time had blocked the separatist movements in Germany perhaps because of the fact that the French Government feared that some of these separated portions of Germany might receive too kindly treatment from Great Britain.

I remarked that so far as I could recollect, some of these separatist movements in Germany in 1919 had been anything but spontaneous and had in fact been artificially promoted by the French authorities. Mr. Eden said that he thought this was the case in certain instances but not in others.

Mr. Eden further said that the views of the Soviet Government as to the desirability of a partitioned Germany were entirely in accord with the views of the British Government as he had explained them to me. He said, however, that Stalin had remarked that he doubted whether any movement for partition would ever arise within Germany and that he, Stalin, believed that the dismemberment of Germany must be undertaken by force.

Lord Halifax expressed the opinion that the dismemberment of Germany by force would tend to create again among the German people the existence of a major grievance which would stimulate immediately a movement for the reunion of the dismembered portions and might result in the phenomenon of another Hitler within a short period. He went on to say that if the United Nations undertook the necessary military control of Germany and the prevention of the utilization by Germans of any portion of German industry for the production of war matériel, that would offer very material safeguards and that these might advantageously be accompanied by the replacement of objectionable officials and of any particular professors in universities and schools so that the German youth would not be subject to dangerous influences of the kind which would again play up the militaristic philosophy and the revenge philosophy which had been so prevalent in the two decades subsequent to the Versailles Treaty.²⁵

I said that one of the things that concerned me most was the effect which German propaganda had upon the Anglo-Saxon peoples and particularly upon the people of the United States. I said that what I feared particularly was the probability that after a short period, were Lord Halifax’s ideas followed by the United Nations, German propagandists would be most efficiently persuading the people of both of our countries that the German people were not responsible for what had occurred in the present war, that they were being treated outrageously, and that if they were only treated on a basis of equality from every standpoint with all of the other peoples of Europe they could be trusted as decent members of the family of nations. I said it seemed to me that we had learned by experience that the urge of militaristic Pan-Germanism was so potent a force as to make any united Germany a very dangerous factor in the world whether it was ostensibly governed by a communist regime, or by a socialist or by a liberal democratic regime.

Mr. Eden said that the whole trouble after the last war had been the fact that the solution then arrived at had been in the nature of a compromise. The French had wanted something akin to the type of a partitioned Germany which we were now discussing, and the British had favored the solution of a Weimar Republic, but in the final analysis neither policy had been carried out and the result had been a compromise which possessed the advantages of neither solution.

I went on to say that with regard to the other issues which Lord Halifax had mentioned, I myself could not go along with the idea of placing teachers in schools to teach the German youth the kind of doctrine which we considered sound and that I felt that a more practical solution would be the agreement that any nation which became a member of the international organization which I hoped would be created must automatically in order to achieve membership provide in its constitution for the granting to its individual nationals the right of free speech, of free press, of free information, and of freedom of worship, et cetera, and that in this manner I believed the kind of education which we believed would make the Germans safer members of the family of nations would be attained.

Mr. Eden expressed his concurrence in this suggestion.

I then said that the way our minds here had been running was towards four major steps to be undertaken in Germany:

1. The removal of East Prussia from German sovereignty.

2. The creation of a southwestern German unit composed in general terms of the Rhineland, Württemberg, and Bavaria which would be a predominantly Catholic unit and which I trusted could have its economy directed towards the West rather than towards the East.

3. The setting up of a reduced Prussian or northeastern German unit.

4. The creation of a northwestern German unit running from the Danish frontier south to the Ruhr. I added that from a general survey of this possibility it would seem as if the three German units so suggested were all of them economically capable of self-reliance and would make possible one general premise which seemed to us essential, namely, that each German national would be assured of the opportunity of economic comfort and security and would be treated on a par in so far as economic opportunity was concerned with the nationals of all other European states.

Lord Halifax inquired as to what my opinion might be with regard to the treatment of the Ruhr and I said that it seemed to me that this region should be under international control, not so far as the sovereignty of the region was concerned, but in so far as the control of the industrial organization of the region was involved.

Mr. Eden said that the Soviet Government had made it clear that they did not favor the payment of reparations in money by Germany after the war, but the payment of reparations in kind and particularly payment of reparations in the form of industrial production for the rehabilitation of Soviet industry.

I said that this seemed to me entirely admissible provided the distribution of German industrial production was undertaken on a fair basis so as to include other regions which had been devastated by Germany during the past four years.

Mr. Eden then suggested that we pass to the consideration of Russia. He said that in talking yesterday with the President on this subject the President had asked him if he thought there was anything in the Bullitt²⁶ thesis that the Soviet Government was determined to dominate all of Europe by force of arms or by force of communist propaganda. Mr. Eden stated that he had answered that that was not his own belief but that in any event a wise and expedient thing to do was to cultivate to the utmost extent possible the friendship and confidence of the Soviet Government so as to pave the way for international cooperation with Russia and to avoid in every way possible the determined hostility and antagonism of Russia. He said that of course on many matters they were exceedingly difficult to deal with and that their suspicions at the moment both as to the policy of the United States and as to the policy of Great Britain was accentuated. He reminded me of the difficulties which the British Government had recently had with regard to the stationing of British Air squadrons in northern Russia in order to protect the northern convoys. He emphasized the fact that one of the reasons for the present suspicions was the quarrel between Poland and the Soviet Union²⁷ which he trusted could be allayed and he wondered in fact if some agreement as to Polish-Soviet relations in which the United States and Great Britain would take part could not actually be achieved before the end of the war.

Mr. Eden then indicated to me the Soviet post-war desires as partly outlined to him by Stalin when he last visited Moscow²⁸ and as complemented by the statements made to him last week by Mr. Maisky in London. The Soviet aspirations were as follows:

1. The incorporation within the Soviet Union of the three Baltic states, and on this Mr. Eden remarked the Soviet Government was adamant and would not agree to any discussion thereof.

2. In the case of Poland the Soviet Government desired the institution of a Polish-Soviet frontier which would be approximately equal to the Curzon line. Stalin had stated that the Soviet Government did not wish the future Poland to include minorities although the Soviet Government desired to see the reconstitution of a “strong Poland”. Stalin desired Poland to incorporate within its frontiers East Prussia and was likewise disposed to see a rectification of the Silesian frontier in favor of Poland. Stalin did not insist upon a communist Poland but he did desire the creation of a Polish Government which would represent the will of the Polish people. He was not disposed to see Poland governed by the present group of émigrés constituting the Polish Government in exile, although he had specifically excluded General Sikorski and the present Foreign Minister, Count Raczynski, from this ban of excommunication. The Soviet Union could not maintain any friendly or cordial relations with a future Poland which was not governed by a government responsive to and freely elected by the Polish people.

3. With regard to Czechoslovakia the Soviet Government desired to see the reconstitution of Czechoslovakia as it had existed before 1938 with possibly some slight boundary rectifications.

4. Mr. Eden said that he had encountered upon his last visit to Moscow great antagonism towards Hungary. I asked Mr. Eden if he could tell me specifically what Stalin might have stated with regard to Hungary and Mr. Eden replied that he thought all that was said was that Stalin demanded that “Hungary be punished”. Lord Halifax suggested that this might mean that Hungary would be obliged to make territorial concessions to the future Rumania. Mr. Eden said that he thought it was likely.

5. The Soviet Government demanded the restoration of Bessarabia²⁹ to the Soviet Union.

6. Mr. Eden stated that no reference had been made by the Soviet Government to the Bucovina.

7. Mr. Eden stated that the Soviet Government had advanced no pretensions towards the Straits.

8. The Soviet Government demanded the restoration of the 1941 frontiers between the Soviet Union and Finland and, he believed, the cession to the Soviet Union of Hango.

9. The Soviet Government demanded the consummation of “mutual assistance pacts” between the Soviet Union and Finland and between the Soviet Union and Rumania with the further provision that these pacts cede to the Soviet Union air bases within the territories of those two nations. Mr. Eden said that when he had asked for an explanation of precisely what the Soviet Government implied by the cession of these air bases and as to whether it meant military occupation by the Soviet Union of those two countries, he had merely been told that the air bases were intended to afford the needed military security to the Soviet Government which it desired and that probably military forces would be needed to guard such bases as might be established.

With regard to the proposed creation of an eastern European federation it was clear that the Soviet Government did not favor the creation of such federations probably because of its belief that such federations would be directed against the Soviet Union. Mr. Eden said that he had attempted to explain that in the view of the British Government such federations were in fact desirable and useful from the standpoint of the Soviet Union. He had gained the impression that the Soviet Government would not oppose the creation of a Balkan federation but it made it clear that it would not agree to the incorporation of Rumania within such a federation. He had further gathered the impression that the Soviet Government was opposed to any federation between Poland and Czechoslovakia for fear of the effect which such federation might have upon the present sentiments of the Czechoslovak people towards the Soviet Union.

Mr. Eden said that the British Government strongly supported the idea of the creation of eastern European federations but thought that the major federation favored by General Sikorski would be less desirable than the creation of two federations, one composed of the Balkan states and the other composed in whole or in part of the remaining states of eastern Europe.

I said that in this particular regard my own belief was exactly the same, namely, that the most practical solution would be the creation of a Balkan federation and the creation of an additional federation composed of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, with Hungary forming a part of the Balkan federation.

Mr. Eden emphasized the fact that in the view of the British Government the reconstitution of the former Yugoslavia was desirable. I said that this coincided with my own individual judgment although I thought I should make it clear that I felt that the President favored the determination by the Croatians and the Slovenes of their own future destiny through the holding of appropriate plebiscites. I said that personally I felt that the most salutary objective in eastern Europe would be amalgamation rather than partition and that the President’s objectives might be satisfied if both the Croats and the Slovenes were to obtain complete autonomy under the Yugoslav federative system.

I stated that it seemed to me with regard to the Soviet aspirations that some vitally important questions were raised. It looked to me as if these aspirations were tantamount to the desire of the Soviet Government to hold Finland and Rumania as protectorates. With regard to Poland, that issue seemed to me perhaps less difficult in view of the willingness of the Soviet to give the future Poland sovereignty over East Prussia and in a sense thus compensate for the eastern portion of Poland which the Soviet Government desired to incorporate in the future Soviet Union.

25. Signed June 28, 1919; for annotated text, see Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. xiii .
26. William C. Bullitt, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, and former Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
27. See pp. 314 ff.
28. For correspondence on Mr. Eden’s visit to Moscow, December 16–22, 1941, see Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 192–205, passim.
29. For correspondence regarding the activities of the Soviet Union in the Balkans, the seizure of Bessarabia and parts of Bukovina in 1940 (lost in the following year after the German attack upon the Soviet Union), see Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. i, pp. 444 ff.