Office of the Historian

740.0011 European War 1939/34078a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)

Washington, April 22, 1944—midnight.

3255. The revised text of the proposed statement as already approved by the Soviet and American Governments is as follows:

“Through the fateful policy of their leaders, the people of Hungary are suffering the humiliation of German occupation. Rumania is still bound to the Nazis in a war now bringing devastation to its own people. The Governments of Bulgaria and Finland have placed their countries in the service of Germany, and remain in the war at Germany’s side.

“In order to point out the road to freedom for these unhappy victims of Hitler’s evil devices and again to give them warning at this late hour, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States have agreed that:

  • “1. The Axis satellites, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Finland, despite their realization of the inevitability of a crushing Nazi defeat and their desire to get out of the war, are by their [Page 600] present policies and attitudes contributing materially to the strength of the German war machine.
  • “2. These nations still have it within their power, by withdrawing from the war and ceasing their collaboration with Germany and by resisting the forces of Nazism by every possible means, to shorten the European struggle, diminish their own ultimate sacrifices and contribute to the Allied victory.
  • “3. The prospects of these countries for future existence as independent states, the right freely to choose their own governments, the preservation of their rightful territories, and the avoidance of military devastation cannot be enhanced, but only diminished, by their continued collaboration with Nazi Germany.
  • “4. There is no question but that the longer these nations continue their participation in the war and their collaboration with Germany the more disastrous will be the consequences to them and the more rigorous will be the terms which will be imposed upon them.
  • “5. The responsibility of Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Finland for their participation in the war at the side of Nazi Germany places upon them the necessity of deciding now, while yet there is time for them to contribute to the inevitable Allied victory, whether they wish to persist in their present misguided and calamitous course.”

Repeated to Moscow.51

Hull
  1. As telegram 1002.↩