840.4016/11–3045: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Poland (Lane)
310. Please convey to Provisional Polish Govt following views of US Govt with regard to population transfers.
US Govt has been seriously perturbed by reports of continued mass movements of German refugees who appear to have entered Germany from areas east of Oder–Neisse line. These persons presumably have been expelled summarily from their homes and dispossesed of all property except that which they can carry. Reports indicate that these refugees—mostly women, children, and old people—have been arriving in shocking state of exhaustion, many of them ill with, communicable diseases and in many instances robbed of their last few personal possessions. Such mass distress and maltreatment of Weak and helpless are not in accord with Potsdam Agreement (Paragraph 13 of which stipulates that population transfers shall be conducted in orderly and humane manner) nor in consonance with international standards of treatment of refugees.
US Govt is informed that Control Council in Berlin has adopted program for orderly and humane transfers of German population from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Uncontrolled movements will hamper satisfactory fulfillment of this plan and threats of epidemics may force suspension of its operation indefinitely. US Govt hopes Provisional Polish Govt will wholeheartedly cooperate in carrying out this program in the spirit of paragraph 13, Potsdam Agreement.
[Page 1318]Sent to Warsaw as 310; repeated to Moscow as 2427; London as 10415; Paris as 5610; Praha as 429; AusPolAd as 319; and USRep Budapest as 753.