Office of the Historian

Hiss Collection

Soviet Proposal on the Establishment of an Allied Reparation Commission1
February 7, 1945, noon

Regarding the Organization of an Allied Reparation Committee

The Allied Reparation Committee shall be set up on the following basis:

1. The Committee shall consist of three representatives one from U. S. S. R., the United Kingdom and U. S. A. Each representative shall be entitled to call in to assist in the work of the Committee any number of experts.

2. The function of the Committee shall be to work out a detailed plan for exaction of reparations from Germany according to the principles adopted at the Crimean Conference of the Three Powers.

3. The Governments of USSR, USA and the United Kingdom shall2 determine the moment when the representatives of other Allied Powers will be invited to participate in the Allied Committee as well as define the forms of participation of these Powers in the Committee.

4. The activities of the Committee shall proceed in strict secrecy.

5. The Allied Reparation Committee shall be established in Moscow.

  1. Original, undated, but endorsed to the effect that it was submitted by Molotov at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting on February 7. See ante, p. 704. A copy in the Bohlen Collection is of the same wording as here printed.↩
  2. At this point the typewritten words “may on recommendation of the Allied Committee or on their own initiative” are stricken out in pencil and the word “shall” is inserted.↩