740.00119 Control (Germany)/7–2446
The French Ambassador (Bonnet) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary of State: In your letter dated July 24, you were good enough to call my attention to certain aspects of the economic policy followed by the French Government in its zone of occupation [Page 597] in Germany, which had aroused the concern of the United States Government. Recalling that, faithful to the arrangement adopted in the beginning for the quadripartite control of Germany, the Government of the United States had advocated the conclusion of agreements on the industrial power to be left to Germany, the sequestration of German property abroad, the distribution of reparations, the restitution of stolen property, the exportation of coal, the liquidation of German cartels, you stressed the fact that, in all these fields, the United States had endeavored to have a common policy applied to Germany considered as a whole, and to have the unity of the four zones maintained. You were good enough to call my attention, on that occasion, to some points on which it seemed to you that the French, economic policy was not conformable to the objectives that the Allies had set themselves concerning Germany.
I did not fail to transmit your remarks to my Government immediately, and am today in a position to send you the following communication on this subject.
The agreements fixing the level of German industry and the Paris Reparations Agreement, the primary aims of which are the guarantee of security and the delivery of materials as reparations, present such importance for France that they have always constituted the very basis of her German policy. As General Koenig recently explained again to the Control Council in Berlin, France has, moreover, never opposed the principle of the economic unity of Germany.
As regards the various points raised by your letter, I am happy to be able to send you the following information.
1) During the period of military operations and during the first months of the occupation, France transferred to her own territory a certain amount of industrial equipment from her zone of occupation in Germany. Those transfers were undertaken by the armies in operations both on the score of war booty and for the reconstitution of the equipment of French armament factories, for the purpose of contributing to the war effort.
However, it appears that a part of the total of the transfers effected in order to meet certain particularly urgent needs in the first effort to reconstruct French economy does not fall in either of those categories, and that it is susceptible of being charged to German reparations to France. And so an accounting of these different operations is in process. The French Delegate stated to the Control Council in Berlin that he was prepared to furnish any accounting data in this connection, to the extent to which the Allied Governments would present similar information concerning the materials requisitioned in their own zones.
I add that the requisitioning concerned only scattered machines, to the exclusion of complete installations, and concerned those of factories [Page 598] which had to the greatest extent increased their war potential; they have remained always within the framework of the decisions of the Control Council on the standard of living and are not of a nature to affect noticeably Germany’s productive capacity.
2) As for the exportation of raw materials, it has occasioned accounting and payment in foreign exchange since August 1 at the rate of 80%, in conformity with the rules laid down by the Control Council on September 20, 1945.59
3) As regards food supplies, the French Government has requisitioned, to feed its troops, meat, butter, cheese, wine, alcohol and potatoes.
On January 31, it informed the American authorities of the amounts requisitioned, which were as follows:
Period from September 1 to December 31, 1945
| Meat | 8,252 | tons |
| Butter | 2,153 | “ |
| Cheese | 1,663 | “ |
| Wine | 90,000 | hectoliters |
| Potatoes | 20,000 | tons |
| Alcohol | 3,300 | hectoliters |
Period from January 1 to July 1, 1946
| Meat | 11,769 | tons |
| Butter | 2,147 | “ |
| Cheese | 1,768 | “ |
| Wine | 202,000 | hectoliters |
| Potatoes | 50,000 | tons |
Thus it appears that the amounts of meat and fats requisitioned in the six months of the second period scarcely exceed those of the four months of the first period. The supplies at the Commissary represented only 5% of the food products placed at the disposal of the German population. Moreover, certain limited quantities of milk and fruit, eminently perishable foodstuffs, were delivered to Alsace and Lorraine as frontier exchanges.
4) No German chemical product has been put on the foreign markets by French producers. The only exception concerns an order of urea placed by the National Industrial Nitrogen Office on behalf of the American Cyanamid Co., and the Embassy of the United States at Paris had given its consent to that transaction.
5) By its note No. 523 of August 20,60 the Embassy of France had the honor to inform the Department of State that the French Government was disposed to participate in an American, British and [Page 599] French tripartite organization which would have for its mission to assure effective control of German Rhine shipping. The French Government has advocated the holding in Paris of a tripartite conference to examine the conditions for the pooling of German barges requisitioned in the French zone.
The management of the German fleet by the Rhine Exploitation Corporation is only a provisional measure used up to the present time to meet, in the most practical manner, the exploitation needs imposed on France, a riparian power as well as an occupying power. Instructions have recently been sent to the authorities of the French zone with a view to bringing this situation to an end and putting the German fleet into operation by a German company. Such a measure should facilitate the pooling contemplated.
6) The German railroads in the French occupation zone have not been integrated at all with the French railroads. They are merely controlled by a special organization under the jurisdiction of the Military Government of the zone, the “Railroad Occupation Detachment”, the personnel of which is furnished by the S.N.C.F. As regards the German railway cars the numbers of which have been changed, it is probable that it is a question of the 75,000 German cars which were in French territory at the time of the armistice. This equipment falls under Article 6 of the Paris Reparations Agreement. Moreover, the French authorities have restored the designations of the S.N.C.F. to the unquestionably French cars which the Germans had camouflaged and which were found again on French territory.
As for the rails, it is true that certain plans for requisitioning have begun to be applied. These removals of equipment are intended for the restoration of the French railway system which suffered severe losses through German seizures and the destruction carried out on behalf of the common war effort. Thus the Fribourg-Offenbourg line has been made single-track over about 60 kms; on July 5, at the International Conference at Speyer, the Swiss authorities admitted that the change to single-track of that section of the line would not interfere with international relations. Other changes to single-track lines between Singen and the Swiss frontier and between Fribourg and Basel are not contemplated.
7) Some Alsatian syndical organizations had been authorized, provisionally, to export to foreign countries limited quantities of wines from the French occupation zone. It was the purpose of these organizations to apply the profits from such transactions to repair of the losses suffered by Alsatian viticulture as a consequence of German occupation.
Although these transactions were the subject of an accounting in dollars, in conformity with the rules established by the Control Council, the French Government has decided to prohibit them in the future.
[Page 600]8) France has not entered lumber on the list of products concerning the exportation of which the Emergency Economic Committee for Europe was called upon to formulate recommendations. The exploitation of the forests in the zone is, in fact, greatly limited by the shortage of existing means. Such exploitation suffers especially from the absence of horses, which are being held in the American and British zones and have not yet been returned. But, considering the state of the German forests, the Military Government of the French zone has never refused permission to any Allied, or even neutral, country to fell timber in the French zone, if it furnished the necessary means for its exploitation.
Your letter added that, from the various facts set forth, the American Government was led to conclude that the French Government had adopted a policy of unilateral exploitation of the economic resources of Germany, and that it considered that this exploitation was being effected at the expense of the other Occupying Powers, who were forced, in order to maintain German economy at the necessary minimum level, to increase their outlay, which was already considerable.
These fears do not appear justified. In fact:
- a)
- The requisitioning of equipment is far from reducing the level of industry below that stipulated by the Berlin Agreements. The total amount thereof is very small. Moreover, as this requisitioning is in process of accounting, in order to charge the amount to reparations, it is not susceptible of injuring the other takers.
- b)
- As regards other goods, all exports have been the object of accounting and payment in exchange, in conformity with the quadripartite decisions of Berlin. The policy of the French Government has been simply to try to obtain equilibrium of the balance of trade in its occupation zone by closely controlling its economy, by limiting consumption, and by assuring the indispensable foreign outlets.
Please accept [etc.]
- See telegram 569, September 20, 1945, from Berlin, Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. iii, p. 569.↩
- Not printed, but for the Department’s reply, October 3, see p. 271.↩