Office of the Historian

740.00119 (Potsdam)/7–3045

No. 886
Proposal by the Soviet Delegation1
[Translation]
[Babelsberg,] July 30, 1945.

Political Principles for Germany

Soviet Proposal

The Soviet Delegation propose that the following addition be made to the Article 8 paragraph IV of the “Political principles for Germany”:2

“Assistance, however, will be rendered to the establishment of a central German Administration composed of secretaries for respective branches of government, in the first instance—of central administrative institutions for foreign trade, industry, finance, transport and communications.

The Central German Administration shall act under the direction of the Control Council [and it will be their task to coordinate the activities of the Provincial Governments in order to ensure the fulfillment of the decisions of the Control Council and the exercise of functions connected with the solving of problems of an All German character.”]3

  1. Attachment 9 to the summary of the Tenth Meeting of the Foreign Ministers, July 30. See ante, pp. 493, 498.↩
  2. document No. 856.↩
  3. The brackets were inserted in pencil on the original Russian text of this document, and the following comment was written in the margin opposite the bracketed passage: “Secretary Byrnes] suggests out”. See ante, p. 493.↩