Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume II

860c.01/8–945

No. 1149
Memorandum by the Polish Deputy Prime Minister (Mikołajczyk)¹

[Translation]

secret

[Babelsberg,] July 24, 1945.

Poland, in order to safeguard her existence, development, and independence, must—after the loss of territories in the East, (to which loss the population cannot psychically reconcile itself) acquire in the west, the frontier of the Neisse, Stettin and the Delta.

This frontier should be determined immediately for the following main reasons:

(a) The population east of the Curzon Line,² if it is not to perish for ever, must be boldly encouraged to return and transfer to Western Poland.

(b) The population of the west must be repatriated with utmost speed, and the Western Territories must absorb it; the date of the elections is contingent on their swift return.

(c) If these questions had to be dependent on a tardier fixing of the frontiers, then there would be no possibility either of transfer of population from the east or the west, or of holding elections there. Soviet Armies would stand as hosts in those territories and Poland would lose the chance of directing her own national economy within the area of the entire state. The partial holding of elections, after the losses east of the Curzon Line and without the delimitation of the western frontiers would only cover a small portion of the country’s territory.

(d) This state of affairs would not only overthrow the State system of economy, but it would render impossible any normalisation of conditions in the country, which might prejudice the question of the State’s independence or of its system.

(e) The lack of opportunities for transfer to the west of population from the overcrowded central districts of Poland, leads to the parcellation of peasant farm holdings and estates inside Poland, however healthy the agricultural structure of the country, and it will not be possible to effect a recovery.

(f) If Poland does not take over these territories soon, then there will be no point in a later occupation of these derelict areas.

1. Handed to Harriman at a meeting attended also by Dunn and Matthews. See ante, p. 395.
2. See the map facing p. 748 in vol. i. For the origin and a description of the Curzon Line, see Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. xiii, pp. 793–794.