740.00119 EAC/11–3044
The Secretary of State to the Chargé Near the Czechoslovak Government in Exile (Schoenfeld), at London21
In response to the note of November 23, 1944 from the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ripka) transmitted with your despatch No. 218 of November 30, 1944,22 please deliver, if you agree, a note in reply in substantially the following terms:
“I am instructed by my Government to inform you that it has now received your note of November 23, 1944, regarding the desire of your Government to expel politically undesirable Germans from Czechoslovakia, and that it is giving the memorandum of the Czechoslovak Government, transmitted therewith, the thorough study which it requires. Meanwhile my Government desires to express the following preliminary views:
“The American Government fully appreciates the injuries suffered by Czechoslovakia at the hands of Germany and of the German minority during the past decade or so and is prepared to examine the problem in an effort to seek a satisfactory solution for the future. This solution, of course, will have to take into account the needs of Czechoslovakia referred to in your note, and also the broader aspects of the problem in its relation to general measures for the future peace and security of Europe as a whole, as well as the particular problem which will face the Governments accepting the unconditional surrender of Germany, which thereby become responsible, as occupying powers, for the control and administration of Germany.
“There will also undoubtedly arise related questions with regard to the transfer of Germans from other territories. Since this problem may therefore involve an aggregate of some millions of people, it would be a matter of major concern to the occupying powers in the maintenance of order in Germany during the absorption of such people [Page 1247] from abroad simultaneously with the repatriation or resettlement of millions of displaced persons now within Germany.
“The American Government therefore feels that transfers of the kind contemplated in your Excellency’s note should only be carried out pursuant to appropriate international arrangement, as suggested in your Excellency’s address of October 8, 1944, and under international auspices. It also agrees with the Czechoslovak Government that any process of transfer should be a gradual one, in order to provide facilities for the orderly settlement of transferred persons. Pending such international arrangements, the American Government feels that no unilateral action should be taken to transfer large groups, and understands from the statements cited above that the Czechoslovak Government does not envisage any unilateral action to do so.”
Please inform the Department and Ambassador Winant23 of the final text and date of your note to the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs,24 and of any further developments concerning its subject, including any British or Soviet views which may come to your attention.
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An undated informal memorandum for the Director of the Office of European Affairs, H. Freeman Matthews, apparently prepared by Ware Adams of the Division of Central European Affairs, attached to the file copy of this instruction, reads as follows:
“This is important. Mr. Riddleberger approved the rough draft before his departure and thought that in view of its importance you might wish to have it signed by Mr. Dunn, or possibly by Mr. Stettinius in view of his recent statement on the Polish question which involves a similar problem.
“This particular instruction is occasioned by a note, attached, in which the Czechoslovak Government formally notifies us of its intention to expel to Germany perhaps two million Sudetens in the expectation that we will arrange to have them received there without any change of Czechoslovakia’s frontier. The note from the Czechoslovak Government is so worded that silence on our part will be taken to imply concurrence. Our reply is designed to forestall precipitate action.
“The Czech and Polish plans together contemplate throwing upwards of ten million new inhabitants into Germany during our occupation.” (740.00119–E AC/11–3044)
The references in the memorandum are to Assistant Secretary of State James C. Dunn and the Chief of the Division of Central European Affairs, James W. Riddleberger.
↩ - Despatch not printed; for note of November 23, 1944, see p. 1227.↩
- John G. Winant, Ambassador in the United Kingdom.↩
- The Department’s instructions were transmitted in note No. 155, dated January 31, 1945, from the Chargé Near the Czechoslovak Government in Exile at London to the Czechoslovak Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jan Masaryk. A copy of the note was transmitted to the Department by the Chargé as an enclosure to his despatch No. 236, January 31, 1945 (not printed).↩