Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Council of Foreign Ministers; Germany and Austria, Volume II

862.014/1–1347

The Ambassador in Poland (Lane) to the Secretary of State ¹

personal and secret

Warsaw, January 13, 1947.

My Dear General Marshall: Please accept my heartiest congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State.² I recall the pleasure of having met you on the occasion of my appointment as Ambassador to Colombia in 1942. I wish to assure you of how happy I am to serve under you.

As you may know, we are making studies here in conjunction with Ambassador Murphy’s Mission in Berlin regarding the former German territories now under Polish administration. We expect to submit our comprehensive report on this subject by despatch the end of this month or at the latest by the middle of February, so that you and Ambassador Murphy may be fully advised regarding conditions in those territories today as compared with the situation under German administration, before you go to the Moscow meeting.

During my recent trip to the United States I spoke to Mr. Byrnes and his principal advisers in New York,³ expressing the hope that we would make no recommendations regarding the Polish-German frontier until subsequent to the Polish elections, which are scheduled to take place on January 19.⁴ Mr. Byrnes’ Stuttgart speech of September 6, 1946⁵ was very badly received here because of the Polish Government press having distorted it. Both the Government in its conversations with me and the government-controlled press indicated that Mr. Byrnes had recommended that the new territory under Polish administration should be returned to Germany, although Mr. Byrnes merely said that we should adhere to the terms of the Potsdam decision, which provided that a final disposition of the territory should be left to the Peace Conference for settlement.

I understand the speech was made for the purpose of smoking out Molotov’s attitude prior to the holding of the elections in Germany and for that reason was entirely understandable and logical. It was of course unavoidable but unfortunate, insofar as Poland was concerned, that the speech was made shortly before the meeting of the National Council of the Homeland. Occasion was taken during this meeting of attacking the United States as well as Vice Premier Mikolajczyk, leader of the Polish Peasant Party, on the ground that the latter agreed with Mr. Byrnes and was accordingly a traitor to his country. Mr. Mikolajczyk told me that although he fully appreciated the long-range policy of Mr. Byrnes, in view of the Soviet intention to return the western territories to Germany, he personally was for the time being injured politically by the distortion of Mr. Byrnes’ remarks.

I personally feel very strongly that we should not recommend at the Peace Conference that the western Polish territories should be returned to Germany. I may add that the British Ambassador⁶ agrees with me and has so recommended to his Government (see my telegram no. 20 of January 7⁷). Briefly, my reasons for so recommending are the following:

1. The decision of the three major powers at the Potsdam Conference to permit the Polish Government to deport the German population from former German territory now under Polish administration indicated to the Polish Government that the territory in question would not be returned to Germany. The Polish people in general interpreted the movement of the German population in this sense, and I may add that I, as well as the majority of my diplomatic colleagues here, had the same impression. Our Government even went so far as to request that consular offices should be established at Wroclaw (Breslau) and Szczecin (Stettin). Any recommendation to the contrary would be interpreted by the Polish people as reversal of our former point of view. I am not concerned with the attitude of the Polish Government, which has assumed a hostile position, insofar as the United States is concerned, for the past year and a half, but I do feel that it is most important for us to bear in mind the effect on the Polish people.

2. The Yalta decision provided that Poland should be compensated for the loss of the territory east of the Curzon Line⁸ by the cession of German territory to the north and to the west. My personal opinion is that the Polish people would prefer to have retained the territory east of the Curzon Line, not only because of the oil fields in the Lwow region and for the timberlands which were always a great source of prosperity to Poland, but also because of the sentimental desire to have Lwow and Wilno within Polish territory.

3. I do not believe the Polish people would ever be able to understand why Germany, which ravaged Poland and deliberately destroyed Warsaw house by house, should be the gainer of territory at Poland’s expense. I believe that by making such a recommendation we would alienate the Polish people and would force them further under Communist influence. As I believe that the Soviet Government will now recommend that the western territory should remain under Polish sovereignty, the Polish people might at long last reluctantly believe that the Soviet Government is the only government of the three major powers which is friendly to Poland.

4. To my mind, the most forcible argument is a very practical one. Supposing the British and ourselves decided to recommend that the western territories should return to Germany—how could such a recommendation be effected, if the Soviet Government should take the opposite stand? Certainly we are not going to war over these territories and without the use of force there is nothing which could induce the Soviet Government and the Polish Government to relinquish that territory once they have made the decision in the matter. I recall after the first war the Council of Ambassadors in Paris told the Poles to leave Eastern Galicia. They refused to do so and did not do so until the joint German-Soviet occupation of Poland in 1939. I therefore feel that any recommendation we should make would be an empty one and would merely serve to kindle hatred on the part of the Polish people and to turn them more than ever to the east. As I feel that this would be a departure from our basic policy in Eastern Europe, I earnestly trust that you will give my views your most serious consideration.

Because of the seriousness of this problem, I trust that it will be possible for me to consult with you prior to your going to the Moscow Conference. As I have just been to Washington on consultation, I think it would be inadvisable for me to make another trip home at this time, unless you so desire. But if convenient to you, I should like to be instructed to meet you at some place in Europe or, if you think it advisable, to be called to Moscow at the time of the Conference.

With the expression of my deep respect, believe me

Very sincerely yours,

Arthur Bliss Lane

1. This letter was received on January 24, 1947. In a memorandum of January 25 to Secretary of State Marshall, not printed, Under Secretary of State Acheson commented upon Ambassador Lane’s letter in part as follows:

   “Ambassador Lane states strongly that former German territories now under Polish administration should not be returned to Germany. I do not think that anyone has made this proposal. The proposal under consideration is that some of these territories to the south might be returned to Germany because otherwise Germany will not have enough agricultural production to exist and because from an economic point of view these agricultural lands are not essential to Poland. As I understand it that is a matter which is now under consideration.

   “Ambassador Lane’s chief argument is that to return any of these lands to Germany would alienate the Polish people and drive them into the arms of Russia. A similar argument has been made on almost every conceivable subject and in regard to almost every country of Europe, the Near East, the Far East and South America. The effect of any proposal on the people of a particular country is a factor to be weighed with others but I think that the matter is somewhat more complicated than Ambassador Lane’s letter suggests.” (862.014/1–2547)

2. James F. Byrnes submitted his resignation as Secretary of State on January 7, 1947. On January 8 the President nominated George C. Marshall to become Secretary of State, and the Senate confirmed the nomination the same day. Marshall took the oath of office of Secretary on January 21, 1947.
3. Ambassador Lane’s conversations with American officials during his trip to the United States in November 1946 are described in Arthur Bliss Lane, I Saw Poland Betrayed: An American Ambassador Reports to the American People (New York, Indianapolis, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1948), pp. 271–275.
4. For documentation on the interest of the United States in the Polish national elections of January 19, 1947, see volume iv .
5. The reference here is to the address by Secretary of State James Byrnes on United States policy towards Germany, made at Stuttgart, Germany, September 6, 1946; for the text, see Department of State Bulletin, September 15, 1946, p. 496, and Germany 1947–1949: The Story in Documents, Department of State Publication 3556 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1950), p. 3.
6. Victor Cavendish-Bentinck.
7. Not printed.
8. For the origin and a description of the Curzon Line, see Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. xiii, pp. 793–794. See also Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. iii, p. 1220, footnote 15.