462.00R/12–1245: Telegram
The United States Political Adviser for Austrian Affairs (Erhardt) to the Secretary of State 50
[Received 3:45 p.m.]
560. Statement of US views on interpretation of Potsdam provisions regarding German assets in Austria (Dept’s 316, Nov 2951) has been transmitted to Renner pursuant to Dept’s instructions.
US representatives here have for several months been pressing for Allied Commission discussion of meaning of Potsdam provisions regarding German assets in Austria but Soviet representatives have from start taken categorical stand against any such discussion. Their position is that question of German external assets in Austria has already been settled by Potsdam Agreement (in a manner giving USSR all “German” assets in eastern Austria) and that any interpretation of Potsdam provisions is a matter for direct discussion between the govts that signed Potsdam Agreement.
Dept will understand that consequently it may be futile to try to open discussion of this subject in Allied Council until the govts have [Page 681] themselves reached agreement and instructed their representatives in Austria.
Practical importance of Potsdam provisions regarding German assets in Austria can hardly be overestimated. Rough unofficial estimates have placed ostensibly German owned assets in Austria as high as seventy or eighty percent of country’s industry largely in “eastern Austria”. Present attitude of Soviet representatives on this question effectively blocks comprehensive reconstruction of Austrian economy on unified basis.
- Repeated to Moscow as telegram 2523, December 14, for Secretary Byrnes, who was en route to Moscow to attend a conference with the Foreign Ministers of Great Britain and the Soviet Union, December 16–26. For documentation regarding this Conference, see vol. ii, pp. 560 ff.↩
- See footnote 32, p. 668.↩