Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, European Advisory Commission, Austria, Germany, Volume III

740.00/119 E. W./5–445

The Chairman of the Council of Peoples’ Commissars of the Soviet Union (Stalin) to President Truman ⁹⁸

May 2, 1945.

I have received your message, in which you express your agreement with the message of Prime-Minister W. Churchill on the question of the occupation procedure of Germany and Austria, on April 28th.⁹⁹

I have to say that the Soviet Supreme Command has given instructions that upon meeting of Soviet troops with the Allied troops the Soviet Command immediately establish contact with the Command of the American or British troops and that they agree on:

1. Determination of a temporary tactical demarcation line, and

2. Undertaking of measures for suppression within the limits of their temporary demarcation line of any resistance of German troops.

98. Marshal Stalin sent substantially the same message to Prime Minister Churchill; for text, see Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, p. 518.
99. Message under reference is President Truman’s No. 225 to Marshal Stalin, quoted in Kennan’s note of April 28 to Vyshinsky, p. 246.