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

USPolAd Berlin Files: 800C/801.1

Memorandum by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Central European Affairs (Harris)⁷³ to the United States Political Adviser for Germany (Murphy)

[Berlin,] December 1, 1945.

Subject: The Electoral Codes and the Question of Joint Party Lists.

In comment on Mr. Morris’ attached memorandum of November 23:⁷⁴

The local government codes as stamped with the Deputy Military Governor’s approval on November 17⁷⁵ contain no stipulations governing questions such as that raised by Mr. Morris.

The interdivisional committee⁷⁶ had discussed the problem of what might be done by way of preventing combined lists and other methods of prejudicing the integrity of the individual political parties. After considerable thought we came to the conclusion that it was not feasible to write into the codes a proscription against joint lists. It would be too easy to circumvent it by the organization of one new party, that is, a party sufficiently identifiable as such to meet the legitimate standards set by Military Government or by arranging that each party would present the same list of candidates.

If the state of preparedness for the elections were more advanced, if the number and structure of political parties were more crystallized than they now are, it would probably be possible to lay down a restriction on party unions, but by all accounts party organization is not sufficiently mature to close the door to new groups or to a consolidation of established groups—even if such a procedure were defensible on democratic grounds.

The interdivisional committee felt very strongly that any group of reputable citizens ought to be able to enter the field and hence it wrote this paragraph which went into General Clay’s final directive:

“It is expected that nominations will normally be made by political parties already approved by Military Government. But any group of citizens may organize and nominate a list of candidates, provided the group meets the requirements set up for the regular political parties.”

The Committee, however, did write in a prohibition of the old practice of Listenverbindung—a method whereby one party could assign its superfluous votes to another—but General Clay rejected this portion of our recommendation. (A fuller explanation of this point I have made in a draft despatch to the Department, no. 1444, December 1, 1945.⁷⁷)

These considerations of the difficulties inherent in tackling the problem of joint lists seem to me personally to be formidable and we may burn our fingers if we are not circumspect. I shall, however, undertake to go further into the question and give you a report as soon as possible.

David Harris

73. Mr. Harris was at this time serving on the staff of Mr. Murphy in Germany.
74. In this memorandum, not printed, concern was expressed over the possibility of the growth of numerous splinter party groups to the right of the Communist and Social Democratic parties throughout the U.S. zone. Mr. Morris advised against a policy of excessive leniency in permitting the establishment of political parties, feeling that too many might “weaken considerably the non-Communist and non-Socialist political forces.” (USPolAd Berlin Files: 800C Political Parties)
75. See footnote 60, p. 1003.
76. See footnote 57, p. 1002.
77. Not printed; it stated: “General Clay believed … that it was beyond the proper sphere for military government to pronounce a judgment on proportional representation and all reference therefore to this subject was, upon his order, stricken from the final document.” (740.00119 Control (Germany)/12–145)