Office of the Historian

740.00119 Control (Germany)/8–1745: Telegram

The United States Political Adviser for Germany (Murphy) to the Secretary of State

Berlin, August 17, 1945—9 p.m.
[Received August 17—6:30 p.m.]

314. A two-hour session of the Coordinating Committee of the Control Council78 today was chiefly interesting because of the long discussion of the report on “orderly transfers of German populations” which the Council has to prepare in compliance with section XIII of the report of the Tripartite Conference of Berlin.

General Clay79 took the position that the section of the report dealing with discussions with the Governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia and the ACC (Allied Control Commission) of Hungary to arrive at agreement with regard to the expulsion of Germans should be handled by the Political Division of the Council, leaving the study of the reception and settlement of the refugees to the Prisoner of War and Displaced Persons Divisions. General Robertson80 (British) insisted that the Council’s study be limited to a report by the Manpower Division on the number of refugees which have already entered Germany and the additional number which could be accommodated. The committee finally deferred to General Sokolovsky’s81 insistence that the report should be prepared by the Political Division. Both Sokolovsky and General Koeltz82 (French) made the assertion that under the Potsdam Agreement, Germany would be predominantly an agricultural country and that it would be the agricultural sections of Germany which would mainly have to provide new homes for the displaced populations.

General Clay’s inquiry as to the number of Germans already expelled, General Sokolovsky said that while he did not have definite figures, he understood that some four and half million Germans from [Page 1272] East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia and another 700,000 from Czechoslovakia had already entered the Russian zone, and that probably one million additional would be expelled by Holland [Poland?] and that Hungary and Czechoslovakia would each want to send out about half a million more Germans from their territories. General Robertson mentioned the necessity of the Political Division’s report occupying itself with the question of the “orderly and humane transfer” of these populations.

General Clay announced that at the next Coordinating Committee meeting he would present a draft of a military government law for the decartellization and “decombination” of German industry.

Murphy
  1. i.e. the Allied Control Council for Germany. For documentation regarding the participation by the United States in the work of this Council, see vol. iii, pp. 820 ff.↩
  2. Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, United States Deputy Military Governor for Germany and American Representative on the Coordinating Committee↩
  3. Lt. Gen. Sir Brian Robertson, British Deputy Military Governor for Germany and British Representative on the Coordinating Committee.↩
  4. General of the Army Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky, First Deputy of the Supreme Chief of the Soviet Military Administration for Germany, and Soviet Representative on the Coordinating Committee.↩
  5. Lt. Gen. Louig Marie Koeltz, Deputy French Military Governor for Germany and French Representative on the-Coordinating Committee.↩