Office of the Historian

740.00119 EW/11–1245: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State

Paris, November 12, 1945—11 p.m.
[Received November 13—11 a.m.]

6558. From Angell 47. Waley submitted following informal note on UK views regarding reparation labor.

Reparation Labor.

(a)
Any Allied country holding German prisoners of war should be entitled to use them for any of the types of work laid down in the Geneva Convention.
(b)
If an Allied country has not enough prisoners of war in their hands to meet their demands, it can request another Ally to transfer some of its prisoners. But in that case the transferring country would be entitled to lay down conditions on the kind of work that war prisoners might do.
(c)
If an Allied country still finds it impossible to meet its demands for reparation labor from any source, the possibility of enrolling German civilian labor and the conditions under which such enrollment should take place should be discussed with the Allied Control Council for Germany.
(d)
The question of international supervision of the conditions of work of reparation labor will not arise until civilian labor is enrolled.

Memorandum which I am submitting to Waley and Rueff as follows:

(a).
Action will be necessary at the Paris Conference with respect to the following matters.
1.
Labor services, whether of PW’s or of civilians should count as part of the reparations received by any country using such services. Accounting for such services should start from the end of hostilities.
2.
The value to be assigned to labor services for reparation accounting purposes, the period over which such accounting should take place, and the agency to be responsible for making the necessary determinations of wage rates and costs of maintenance, should be the subject of discussion and agreed recommendations.
3.
Reparations labor should be limited to the following sources: German prisoners of war, compulsory labor by judicially convicted war criminals, and voluntary civilian labor provided use of this category proves necessary and practicable.
4.
The Paris Conference should recognize that the categories of persons eligible for service, the numbers to be made available, and terms of their employment will be subject of later decision and announcement by France, UK and US.
5.
The three powers should take the occasion of any agreement with respect to reparations labor to announce that such labor will be utilized only for purposes which will aid directly in the rehabilitation of war-torn countries and only for limited periods under humane conditions.
(b).
In addition to the matters requiring action at the Paris Conference the US makes the following proposals:
1.
Questions concerning the availability, type of work, term and conditions of employment and methods of enrollment of civilian labor from the Western Zones should be settled jointly by the UK, France and US. If agreement is reached the concurrence of the USSR should be sought. With respect to these questions the US holds the following views:
(a).
Compulsory labor service should be required only from those judicially convicted as war criminals, including individuals determined by appropriate process to be members of European Axis organizations, official or unofficial, which themselves have been adjudicated to be criminal in purpose or activities. Except for persons tried for specific crimes, and convicted and sentenced to lifetime punishment, the period of compulsory labor service should be limited to a definite span of years.
(b)
Insofar as compulsory labor is used for reparation purposes, arrangements should be made for international survey of the living and working conditions of such workers and of the uses made of their services.
(c)
Both compulsory and voluntary labor services furnished as reparation should be used outside of Germany only for reconstruction and repair of war damage and not for current production operations except for fuel and food.
(d)
The number of persons to be made available as reparations in each category of labor should be subject to the approval of the zone commander. Similar questions concerning use of PW’s should be settled by each Allied country for such German PW’s as that country itself holds. If a country transfers prisoners to another country for reparation labor, the transferring country should be entitled to define conditions of employment and maintenance. The three powers, France, UK and US should, however, seek to establish a uniform policy with respect to use of German prisoners.

[Angell]
[Caffery]