740.00119 Control (Austria)/7–1246
The United States Military Commissioner in Austria (Clark) to the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Central Group Troops (Kurasov)28
My Dear General: My attention has been called to an order of the Supreme Commander of the Soviet Occupation Troops in Austria as published under a Tass dispatch dated 27 June 1946 concerning the immediate transfer of German property in Eastern Austria to the ownership of the USSR. In this order, which claims to be justified on the basis of an agreement made by my Government, notice is given that all German-owned property in Eastern Austria has passed into the possession of the USSR as reparations, and all Austrian authorities and officials and all private business officials concerned are directed to take necessary steps to effectuate and record the possession of such property by the USSR.
I note that in your order no definition of German property is given. I feel this is unfortunate, since it leaves unsettled the important question of whether Austrian property seized by Germany in Eastern Austria after the Anschluss is to revert to Austrian control. You will recall that this has been the subject of much discussion in the Allied Commission since September 1945, with no results to date due solely to the reluctance of the Soviet element to consider the question.
I assure you that my Government adheres fully to the decisions of the Potsdam conference providing that no reparations should be exacted from Austria; that Allied claims to German reparations should be satisfied in part from appropriate German external assets; [Page 355] and that the various signatories renounced all claims to German property located in specified areas of Austria. Accordingly, my Government has never questioned the right of the USSR to take over possession and ownership of bona fide German assets located in Eastern Austria. However, cases have arisen in which the Soviet authorities have cited the Potsdam Agreement as authority for the seizure of property which had been taken from former Austrian owners by the German Government or German Nationals by forced transfer during the period of German control of Austria. In the view of my Government, no assets in Austria may be claimed as German external assets on the authority of the Potsdam Agreement if those assets were acquired by the Government or Nationals of Germany through looting or forced transfer in the sense of the London Declaration of January 1943.
I trust that the views of my Government will be respected by the Soviet Element in executing your recent order referred to above.
Sincerely,
- Copy transmitted to the Department in despatch 1457, July 12, 1946, from Vienna; received July 25.↩