Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945

Executive Secretariat Files

Briefing Book Paper

secret

January 12, 1945.

The Treatment of Germany

Summary

I. Policy for the Period Immediately Following the Cessation of Organized Resistance

It is recommended that the draft “Agreement on Control Machinery in Germany”¹ submitted by the European Advisory Commission be accepted without reservation, and that the authority of the projected Control Council be made paramount throughout Germany.

It is recommended that immediate security measures include (1) expeditious disbandment and future prohibition of all German military and para-military forces, (2) seizure and destruction of all existing German arms, ammunition and implements of war, including airplanes, and the prohibition of further manufacture, (3) and the destruction of industrial plants and machinery incapable of conversion to peaceful uses.

It is recommended that the National Socialist system be destroyed through the dissolution of Party organizations, abrogation of Nazi laws and Nazi public institutions, and the elimination of active Nazis from public office and from positions of importance in private enterprise.

It is recommended that direct inter-allied military government supplant the central government of the Reich but that, in the interest of simplifying the tasks of the military, use be made of the German administrative machinery.

It is recommended that the Control Council assume authority over all German informational services and cultural activities and that schools be reopened as soon as objectionable text-books and teaching personnel can be replaced.

II. Long-Range Objectives and Measures

The attached paper also discusses our long-range objectives in Germany.

III. Frontier Settlements

It is recommended that this Government adopt, as its basic principles in the settlement of territorial disputes, (1) the most reasonable prospect of general acceptance and stability, and (2) the maximum contribution to the orderly development of general international order.

It is recommended that: (1) the Danish-German frontier remain unchanged, (2) that the water-boundary between the Netherlands and Germany be moved to the main channel of the Ems Estuary and that further consideration be given to any Netherlands claims on German territory as compensation for war damage, (3) that the 1920–1940 boundary between Belgium and Germany be restored, (4) that Alsace-Lorraine be returned to France, (5) that the pre-1938 Austro-German frontier, with a slight rectification, be restored, (6) that the pre-Munich frontiers between Czechoslovakia and Germany be in principle restored, subject to any minor rectifications which the Czechoslovak Government might wish to propose, and (7) that Poland acquire East Prussia (except for the Koenigsberg area), the Free City of Danzig, German Upper Silesia, and Pomerania.

It is recommended that although this Government should not oppose a general transfer of the German minorities from neighboring states, it should, wherever possible, favor a selective transfer. Such action, if carried out gradually, in an orderly manner, and under international supervision, would contribute to better relations between the states concerned.

The Treatment of Germany

I. Policy for the Period Immediately Following the Cessation of Organized Resistance

A. Control Machinery

1. The Department of State recommends that the draft “Agreement on Control Machinery in Germany” should be accepted without reservation.

This proposal provides for the exercise of supreme authority over Germany by the American, British and Soviet generals, each in his own zone of occupation and also jointly, in matters affecting Germany as a whole, in their capacity as members of a supreme organ of control designated as the Control Council. The functions of this Council would be (a) to ensure uniformity of action in the several zones of occupation, (b) to initiate plans and make agreements, within the powers granted by the respective Governments, for dealing with questions involving the whole of Germany, (c) to control and direct the central German administration, and (d) to direct the administration of the joint zone of Greater Berlin. Appropriate sub-agencies would be organized on a tripartite basis to carry out the administrative and supervisory functions of the Control Council.

2. The Department of State recommends that the directives given to the commanding generals should so define their duties that the Control Council’s authority would be paramount throughout Germany and that the zones of occupation would become, in so far as feasible, areas for the enforcement of the Council’s decisions rather than regions in which the commanders would possess a wide latitude of autonomous power.

This recommendation rests on two convictions: (1) that it is highly desirable, even at the expense of curtailing to some degree the freedom of action of the commander of the United States zone, to prevent any of the occupying powers from dealing as it pleases with its zone of occupation, and (2) that it is essential, in the interest of effective military government to maintain such parts of the normal administrative unity of Germany as will have survived the defeat. The problem, for example, of providing sufficient food for the German people to prevent epidemics and disorders would be seriously complicated if the Control Council could not direct the transportation and distribution of the total food supply within Germany. Should the surplus supplies of the eastern zone be denied to the southern and northwestern zones, the United States and British Governments would be faced with the choice between delivering large quantities of foodstuffs from their own stores or allowing wholesale starvation.

B. Functions of Military Government

1. Security Measures

The Department of State recommends the adoption of the following policies with respect to immediate security measures:

a. Demobilization and disbandment of the German armed forces, including para-military organizations.

This recommendation would not exclude the detention of individuals and units of the Waffen SS and other Nazi military formations for security reasons or for employment in special services or for trial as war criminals.

b. Dissolution and prohibition of all military and para-military agencies including the General Staff, party military and quasi-military organizations, reserve corps, military academies and military training, civilian administrative units performing purely military functions, together with all clubs and associations which serve to keep alive the military tradition in Germany.

c. Seizure and destruction of all German arms, ammunition and implements of war.

The recommendation for the destruction of these categories of war material, which are in general not convertible to peace-time purposes, is based on belief that the rearming of the European nations with surrendered German equipment would complicate the problem of restoring political stability, render future general disarmament more difficult, tend to make the countries acquiring the equipment look to Germany and to German technicians for spare parts and replacements, and might inaugurate an armaments race detrimental to the hopes for international peace and security.

d. Confiscation of military archives and military research facilities and vesting authority over them in the Control Council.

e. Immediate prohibition on the manufacture of arms, ammunition and implements of war.

f. Destruction of industrial plants and machinery incapable of conversion to peaceful uses.

g. Dismantlement of aircraft industry and prohibition on manufacture of aircraft.

2. Political Actions

a. Destruction of the National Socialist System.

The Department of State recommends the following measures designed to destroy the Nazi tyranny in Germany:

(1) Dissolution of the National Socialist Party and its affiliated and supervised organs with the transfer to public agencies of such social services now performed by the Nazi groups as it may be found desirable to continue.

(2) Abrogation of the Nazi laws which provided the legal basis of the régime and which established discriminations on the basis of race, creed and political opinion.

(3) Abolition of Nazi public institutions, such as the People’s Courts and the Labor Front, which were set up as instruments of Party domination.

(4) The elimination of active Nazis from public and quasi-public office and from positions of importance in private enterprise.

The Department of State believes it desirable to distinguish between the total membership of the Nazi Party, numbering probably more than 6 million, and those Germans, numbering about 2 million, who have been Party leaders at all levels of its organization. This latter group can be easily identified in a preliminary way by office-holding in the various Party organizations. So many Germans have joined the Party for so many different reasons that nominal membership is no serious index of political conviction. Selective expulsion of the proposed sort would effectively destroy the structure and influence of National Socialism and would immeasurably lighten the administrative burden of military government.

(5) The selection of personnel for labor reparation, in case certain of our Allies insist on that form of reparation, from the ranks of active Nazis and of Nazi organizations such as the SS rather than by an indiscriminate draft.

This recommended procedure would place the burden where it most justly belongs and would remove from Germany some of the most dangerous political influences during the period when an effort must be made to establish an acceptable government.

(6) The arrest and punishment of the principal political malefactors and of war criminals.

b. The Government of Germany

The Department of State recommends that, after the destruction of the Nazi régime, no central German government be recognized and that tripartite military government, as envisaged in the surrender instrument,² exercise supreme power over Germany. The Department further recommends the use of German administrative machinery in so far as it can serve the purposes of the occupation authorities and does not perpetuate Nazi abuses and the use of German civil servants, not identified as active Nazis, in so far as they are efficient and obedient to the occupation authorities.

Direct military government will be desirable as a means of reinforcing the reality of defeat on the German mind. It will probably be necessary in any case because of internal confusion. Since there is little prospect that the Nazi and militaristic groups who should bear the onus of defeat will survive, it is politically undesirable to allow anti-Nazi groups immediately to take over political authority and thenceforth be identified as tools of the conqueror’s military government.

The establishment of comprehensive military government would prevent the equally undesirable development of the importation into Germany of a substantially ready-made provisional government perhaps recognized by and functioning under special foreign auspices.

c. Future Change to Civilian Control. The Department of State recommends that, as soon as military considerations cease to be paramount, the control machinery in Germany should be transferred to inter-allied civilian hands.

d. German Political Activity and Association.—The Department of State recommends that, when security conditions permit, political parties opposing Nazi and other kinds of ultra-nationalistic ideologies be permitted to organize and to engage in public discussion.

This recommendation is based on the conviction that the German people will need information, public debate and political organization before they are prepared to decide their future form of government, and that there is advantage in the Germans beginning these activities while National Socialism is perhaps in greatest discredit under the immediate impact of defeat.

3. Control over Information and Cultural Activities.

a. Public Information.—The Department of State recommends that, under the direction and supervision of the Control Council, there be established throughout Germany a system of control over all media for the dissemination of public information.

This proposal is designed to insure against the further dissemination of Nazi propaganda, to facilitate the Control Council’s presentation of instructions and information to the German people, and, as security permits, to allow responsible Germans to carry on an orderly discussion of political reform.

The Department of State wishes to emphasize the importance of placing this control function under the authority of the Control Council rather than leaving it to the discretion of the zonal commanders.

b. Educational Policy.—The Department of State recommends a system of control over German education designed to eradicate Nazi doctrines and to inculcate democratic values. To this end it is recommended, as the first step, that the German schools, beginning at the elementary level, be reopened as soon as military considerations permit and when objectionable text-books and teaching personnel can be satisfactorily replaced. The Department believes that it should be the policy of military government to work as unobtrusively as possible through existing German educational machinery after Nazi influences have been removed, and likewise to leave the initiative of positive educational reform to the Germans themselves, subject to review by the Control Council. It would, therefore, oppose Allied imposition of new curricula and the introduction of foreign teachers.

The desirability of keeping changes in German education to a common procedure throughout the Reich points to the necessity of maintaining, at least temporarily, the national machinery of educational supervision. Maintenance of this machinery would simplify the problem of holding to a uniform policy as well as the task of systematic control. It is deemed injudicious to return education to a decentralized basis until more rational units of federal government can be worked out than have existed heretofore and until the need for close supervision is less insistent.

The Department believes it urgent to reopen the schools as promptly as possible in order that the younger children can be looked after and the youth can be kept from the streets and subject to discipline which may be otherwise lacking because of the break-up of families and the dissolution of the Nazi youth organizations.

In the Department’s opinion the Control Council’s role must be largely in terms of prohibiting certain things and in consenting to changes proposed by the Germans. A new direction of German education and a new positive content will necessarily be the work of German educators and the victors can do little more than encourage the adoption of a set of beliefs and objectives to take the place of the perverted concepts now being inculcated. The problem for the victors, consequently, is (1) to determine what kind of teaching in Germany would be most conducive to our long-range aims of world security, and (2) to consider what means could be employed to foster that teaching.

The Department is well aware of the difficulties but sees no constructive alternative, as an ultimate objective, to a German school system promoting the psychological disarmament of the German people and reflecting a democratic outlook in which a humanitarian and international outlook will supersede the current ultra-nationalism.

This program is recommended as a contribution toward that end. The Department foresees, however, that no fundamental change in the German mentality can be effected by the schools alone. The hope for a transformation of educational values will depend less on what is done in the school room than on the whole experience of the German people in the occupation and post-war periods.

c. Religious Activity.—The Department of State recommends that the Nazi legislation and organizations for maintaining the Party’s tyranny over German religion should be terminated and that full religious freedom, including the rights of teaching, publishing and conducting social service, should be established as quickly as security needs will permit.

II. Long-Range Objectives and Measures

The Department of State recommends that the measures applied during the period of military government should from the beginning be worked out and applied in the light of long-range objectives with respect to Germany and Germany’s ultimate place in the projected world order.

The enduring interest of the United States is peace, and so far as Germany is concerned the basic objective of this Government must be to see to it that that country does not disturb the peace.

Security against a renewal of German aggression must be guaranteed during the foreseeable future by a rigorously enforced prohibition of a German military establishment and by a vigilant control of German war potential.

An indefinitely continued coercion of so many millions of technically resourceful people, however, would be at best an expensive undertaking. There is, moreover, no certainty that the victor powers will be willing and able indefinitely to apply coercion. In the long run, therefore, the best guaranty of security, and the least expensive, would be the assimilation of the German people into the world society of peace-loving nations.

These considerations urge the search for a continuing policy which will prevent a renewal of German aggression and, at the same time, pave the way for the German people in the course of time to join willingly in the common enterprises of peace.

A. Security Controls

The Department of State believes that it would be premature at present to attempt to specify the nature of the long-term security controls to be established over Germany beyond the general principles of complete disarmament and control of war potential.

In determining the exact manner in which Germany’s ability to make war is to be destroyed, the Department of State believes that the various proposals should be judged by their prospective effectiveness and the possibility of their continued enforceability. There are several ways in which Germany could be effectively made militarily impotent. The most obvious method would be the prohibition of a military machine through forbidding military training and the possession or acquisition of arms. Manifestly a Germany without soldiers and without weapons would be no menace to the peace of the world. Various kinds of intervention in German industry and commerce would likewise add further effective restraints.

With such latitude in the choice of measures afforded by the test of effectiveness, the crucial test is that of enforceability over a period of years or even decades.

There is involved in this second criterion the problem of devising controls which would be relatively inexpensive and simple in operation, particularly with respect to detecting German attempts at evasion There is involved also the more dangerous problem of choosing a series of measures which the victor powers will be willing to maintain after war passions have cooled. Experience during the period between the two great wars suggests that the crucial issue is not so much the exact nature of the controls as the determination of the Allies to maintain them. Experience likewise indicates that once the process of giving up controls has begun, it is difficult to halt the disintegrating process short of war.

Since it believes that the more complex and the more numerous the controls the greater the danger of their being abandoned, the Department of State recommends that the controls over Germany should be as simple and as few in number as would be compatible with safety.

B. Political Reconstruction of Germany

1. The Ultimate Objective.—Germany’s repudiation of militaristic and ultra-nationalistic ideologies will in the long-run depend on the psychological disarmament of the German people, tolerable economic conditions, and the development of stable political conditions.

The most plausible hope for lasting political reconstruction and orderly development lies in the establishment of democratic government despite the fact that serious difficulties will beset such an attempt. The Department of State therefore recommends that it be made the aim of United States policy to prepare the German people for self-government as soon as self-government is possible in terms of internal conditions and security considerations.

The successful establishment of a democratic régime will depend in considerable measure not only on a tolerable standard of living but also on a moderation of the ultra-nationalistic mentality now dominant. A democratic experiment will labor under a heavy burden because of its necessary submission to the will of the victors and it must, if it is to survive, be able to offer some claim to the loyalty and to the patriotism of the German people. In order to encourage a constructive fresh start in political life, the Department of State recommends that there be offered to the Germans the assurance that a democratic Germany which demonstrates its intention and ability to live at peace can earn an honorable place in the society of nations. In order to avoid raising an issue similar to that which, after 1919, was exploited by the nationalists to discredit democracy and international cooperation, the Department of State opposes writing into the peace settlement a war-guilt clause directed against the German people as a whole.

2. Partition.—The Department of State recommends that this Government oppose the forcible partition of Germany.

An imposed dismemberment of Germany would not obviate the necessity for enforcing the same security controls that should be set up if Germany is left intact. Because of the high degree of economic, political and cultural integration in Germany, it must be anticipated that partition would not only have to be imposed but also maintained by force. The victor powers, by imposing partition, would take on themselves a burdensome and never-ending task of preventing surreptitious collaboration between the partite states and of restraining the nationalistic determination to reunite which would, in all probability, be the response of the German people. The economic aspects of partition, finally, would create a serious dilemma. A political dismemberment which left the German economy substantially unified would have little significance as a security measure; the disruption of German economy, on the other hand, would carry with it an unnecessary decline of the European, as well as the German, standard of living.

3. Decentralization—The Department of State recommends that encouragement be given to a return to federal decentralization, including the division of Prussia into several medium-sized states, but it would oppose the imposition of a decentralization more sweeping than that acceptable to moderate groups.

Such an action, like an imposed partition, would provide a readymade program for nationalistic agitators. A decentralization extensive enough to make the central government of the Reich harmless would, in all probability, render it unable to cope adequately with the social and economic problems which must be resolved in the interest of internal stability.

A return to wide provincial autonomy might again offer to undesirable elements an advantageous means of capturing the various state governments, as happened prior to 1933, when the National Socialists gained control of several of the smaller states and carried on their terroristic agitation in complete immunity from Reich interference.

Decentralization, even if successfully imposed, is not necessary as a security measure and would not of itself be an insurmountable barrier to unified national action if at some future time the German people wanted to organize their forces for new aggression. The military effectiveness of Germany under the cumbersome Bismarckian constitution might illustrate this observation. It remains to be remarked that the traditional democratic groups in Germany have generally favored a greater unification of the Reich.

4. Steps in Political Reconstruction—While the character of developments in Germany cannot be foreseen, the Department of State believes it desirable to formulate a tentative and general policy toward the political reconstruction of Germany. It therefore recommends that the process be begun, when military necessities permit, by the establishment of democratic self-government in local communities rather than by the reconstitution of a national federal government. Decision as to when local governments could be joined into provincial units and when the provincial units could form a Reich government would, under this plan, depend on the success with which the Germans took the several steps in building sound institutions and developing reliable political leaders.

The Department of State believes that, in this process of positive reconstruction, external influence should be limited to the encouragement of popular self-government and should not be exerted to determine the precise form of government to be established. At the same time it is a dictate of security that the victor powers, and after them the international organization, should reserve the right, and be prepared to intervene in Germany to prevent the re-emergence of dangerous nationalistic activities and to hold Germany to the observance of the obligations imposed by the peace settlement and by the post-war security system.

III. Frontier Settlements

The Department of State believes that in establishing the post-war boundaries of Europe it should be the policy of this Government to seek a solution of each dispute based on the merits of the specific problem and on the relation of that problem to the whole settlement. The Department believes the chief criteria to be (1) the most reasonable prospect of general acceptance and stability and (2) the maximum contribution to the orderly development of general international order.

A. Recommendations

In the light of such considerations, the Department of State submits the following recommendations with respect to the frontiers of Germany:

1. That the Danish-German frontier should remain unchanged.

2. That the water-boundary between the Netherlands and Germany should be moved from the western shore of the Ems Estuary to the main channel and that subsequent consideration be given to any Netherlands claims on German territory as compensation for damage to Netherlands soil.

3. That the Belgian-German frontier should be returned to the 1920–1940 line.

4. That Alsace-Lorraine should be returned to France.

5. That the present administrative boundaries be maintained as the frontier between Austria and Germany.

This recommendation would restore the pre-1938 frontier except for a small area in the Sonthofen district which was transferred to Bavaria for administrative convenience and which should remain in Bavaria unless there is convincing evidence that the inhabitants wish to return to Austrian rule.

6. That the pre-Munich frontiers between Czechoslovakia and Germany be in principle restored, subject to any minor rectifications which the Czechoslovak Government might wish to propose.

7. That Poland acquire East Prussia (except for the Koenigsberg area), the former Free City of Danzig, German Upper Silesia, and the eastern portion of Pomerania possessing an area of approximately 6,812 square miles.

The Department of State proposes this solution of an extremely difficult frontier problem as the one representing in the light of present circumstances the most equitable settlement and the one offering the best promise of international tranquillity in eastern Europe. It is realized, however, that there may well be strong pressure for the acquisition by Poland of a still larger portion of German territory. If this is the case it is not believed that it would be feasible for the United States to oppose such a proposal.

The solution just recommended would mean the addition for Poland of an area of about 21,000 square miles containing approximately 4,200,000 inhabitants. The Polish-German frontier north of Upper Silesia would be straightened and shortened by 130 miles. Poland’s sea coast would be lengthened to some 200 miles with adequate port facilities in Gdynia and Danzig. The annexation of Upper Silesia would substantially strengthen Poland’s industrial resources and would make possible a unified and rationalized operation of the greater Upper Silesian district.

Because of the importance of this question, a special study of it, prepared in the Department, is attached.³

B. The Transfer of German Minorities

The cessions to Poland recommended above would bring under Polish sovereignty approximately 3,400,000 Germans in addition to more than 700,000 resident there before the present war. Both the Polish Government-in-exile and the Lublin Committee have expressed the desire to expel this German population. In addition the Government-in-exile of Czechoslovakia wishes to remove more than 1,500,000 Sudeten Germans.

During the final stages of war, and during the early post-war period, it is the belief of the Department of State that an indiscriminate expulsion of so many people would add enormously to the confusion likely to exist in that area, threatening the public health of much of Europe and jeopardizing the peace and good order of the continent. Nevertheless, it is not considered that it would be expedient for the United States to oppose such general transfers if they are insisted upon by the Czechoslovakian and Polish governments having the support of the British and Soviet governments. The Department of State believes, however, that in so far as possible this government should endeavor to obtain agreement on selected transfer of those portions of the German minority from Poland and Czechoslovakia whose transfer would contribute to the improvement of relations between the countries concerned and to a greater stability in that part of Europe. The Department favors a policy whereby these transfers would be held to a minimum, would take place gradually in an orderly manner and under international auspices agreed upon by the Principal Allies on the one hand and Poland and Czechoslovakia on the other.

1. Ante, pp. 124–127.
2. Ante, pp. 113–118.
3. See the Briefing Book paper entitled “Suggested United States Policy Regarding Poland”, post, pp. 230–234.