Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944, Europe, Volume IV

862.01/635

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Second Secretary of Embassy in the Soviet Union (Stevens)⁵⁹

[Moscow,] May 20, 1944.

Professor Lange⁶⁰ stated that he was calling at Mr. Hamilton’s suggestion to discuss his contact with the Free Germany Committee. He said that he had visited the headquarters of the Committee which is located in a dacha⁶¹ outside Moscow and had had a four-hour conversation with members of the Executive including Erich Weinert, General Von Seydlitz, General Lattman, Graf Von Einsiedel and others. He said that his impression was that the members of the Committee fell into at least four general groups: 1) Old line Communists such as Weinert who have spent many years in the Soviet Union. 2) Anti-Nazis who carried on underground activities in Germany during Hitler’s regime, such as Ackermann and Kaiser, a, Catholic priest. 3) Regular army officers such as General Von Seydlitz who in the past have taken no part in political activities in. Germany and who are sincerely convinced that the Nazi regime is responsible for Germany’s present situation. 4) Opportunists such as General Lattman who were formerly rabid Nazis, but who realize Hitler’s game is up and are endeavoring to play with the winning side.

Professor Lange said that in his opinion the Free Germany Committee was established primarily for propaganda purposes and that it was still being used to that end. He gained the impression that the Committee’s appeals directed to the front line troops had little effect since they were largely discounted as propaganda. The Committee had evidence, however, that their broadcasts were listened to in Germany by the civilian population and felt that they might have some cumulative effect.⁶² Members of the Committee expressed the opinion that there was now a substantial amount of anti-Nazi feeling among the German population but that Gestapo control was still so strict and efficient that such feeling had little opportunity for expression in action.

The Committee is now apparently devoting a great deal of effort to work among German prisoners in the Soviet Union. Professor Lange had gained the impression that these efforts had not been without results and he stated that when the war is over German prisoners returning to Germany from the Soviet Union will go back as anti-Nazi. While many prisoners are reluctant to affiliate formally with the Committee lest they be considered traitors the overwhelming majority of the lower ranks and at least 50 percent of the officers are sympathetic to the aims of the Committee. Professor Lange stated that German prisoners had been taken on trips to scenes of mass atrocities committed by the Germans in the Soviet Union and that their reaction had been one of indignation and of fear that the entire army would be held responsible. Members of the Committee told Professor Lange that the average German soldier has no direct knowledge of such atrocities and that he would tend to discount rumors concerning them as enemy propaganda. Professor Lange observed at this point that a similar state of mind exists in the United States and Great Britain where little credence is given to Soviet statements regarding German atrocities. This is particularly true in the Middle West. He also criticized the handling of German prisoners in American prison camps, stating that the Nazi elements were in complete control and that anti-Nazi prisoners suffered cruel treatment from their fellows. He said that if the present policy in the United States is continued German prisoners will return from American prison camps as convinced Nazis as ever, whereas those returning from the Soviet Union will be anti-Nazis.

Professor Lange stated that his conversations with the members of the Executive were held in the presence of a Russian officer, this being the only occasion in his talks with various groups here where he has been subjected to such supervision. He said that accordingly he had been reluctant to raise questions which might otherwise have been of interest to discuss. He said that he had not had an opportunity to converse at any length about the aims or objectives of the Committee and that on that point he had been referred to the Committee’s Manifesto.⁶³ He had not gained the impression, however, that the Committee was shaping up as a potential government or administrative organization to be used after occupation of Germany and thought that such a development was most unlikely, both in view of the policy of military occupation of Germany which Stalin had informed him had been agreed upon at Tehran and because of the apparent nature of the Committee’s activities. He said that while it was frankly admitted that some of the leading members of the Committee were Communists, the Executive strongly denied that it aimed to establish a Communistic or Soviet regime in Germany.

Summarizing his impressions Professor Lange said that he felt that at the present time the role of the Committee was as follows: 1) An agency for disabusing German prisoners of their Nazi ideas and for developing in them an anti-Nazi attitude. 2) A propaganda weapon directed toward Germany which may be of increasing significance as evidences appear that German morale and the internal structure of the country are beginning to crumble. 3) A possible political weapon for use by the Soviet Union in the event that the Western powers should attempt to sponsor any German group to establish a bulwark against the spread of Communism or Soviet influence.

59. Transmitted to the Department in despatch 493, May 23, from Moscow; received June 9.
60. Oscar Lange came from Poland in 1937, became a professor at the University of Chicago the following year, and a naturalized citizen October 6, 1943. Information regarding his visit to the Soviet Union between April 23 and May 22, is printed in vol. iii, pp. 1402–1409, passim. For an analysis of the report submitted by him, see the memorandum of June 28 by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs, ibid., p. 1418.
61. A suburban cottage, or villa.
62. Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, the captured commander of the German 6th Army defeated at Stalingrad in 1942, issued an appeal on August 8, 1944, to German war prisoners in the Soviet Union and to the German people urging the renunciation of Adolf Hitler and the establishment of a new government which would end the war and bring about conditions making peace possible. Foreign Commissar Molotov told the British Ambassador, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, on August 14 that this statement “was useful but not particularly significant,” and that the Free Germany Committee was used “entirely for propaganda purposes.”
63. The Manifesto to the German Army and People, broadcast from Moscow on July 19, 1943, by the Free Germany Committee is summarized in Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. iii, p. 552.