Office of the Historian

Pauley Files

No. 955
United States Delegation Working Paper1

[Babelsberg,] July 30, 1945.

Comments on Paragraphs 3, 5, and 6 of USSR “Proposal for Reparations From Germany” Dated July 29, 19452

1.
With respect to Paragraph 3, the Russian proposal to express capital removals in tons is impracticable and is unacceptable for the following reasons:
a.
Because of their great variety and the differences in values of industrial machinery and equipment, a tonnage measurement does not and cannot represent either the value or the industrial or military importance of capital assets. The only sound basis for the determination of capital removals is agreement on the productive capacity which is to be subject for removal from industries constituting war potentials.
b.
To express reparation obligations in terms of tons alone would lead to proposals for indiscriminate removals of machinery and equipment from plants which operate as industrial units. This would lead either to constant disputes or to purposeless destruction of industrial capacity with the consequent danger that Germany would be unable to meet the requirements of her civilian population or annual reparation deliveries.
c.
To express reparations obligations in tons would be completely unsatisfactory to most receiving countries as a basis for fixing their reparations claims.
2.
With respect to Paragraph 5, the determination of recurring reparations is impossible unless there is prior agreement on the amount of capacity to be removed from specified industries.
3.
The proposal in Paragraph 6 of the Soviet memorandum is acceptable as a basis for discussion. However, it may be found impossible to make annual deliveries in certain of the products listed.
  1. Authorship not indicated. Cf. document No. 954.↩
  2. See document No. 953.↩