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

740.00119 Council/3–2147: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the President and the Acting Secretary of State

urgent
confidential

Moscow, March 21, 1947—11 p.m.

927. Delsec 1330. For the President and Acheson personal from Marshall. Eleventh CFM, 21 March, Bidault presiding, received written progress report from deputies for Austria.⁴² Clark supplemented report on behalf of deputies with a statement covering seventeen important points of issue upon which the deputies have been unable to reach agreement including:⁴³

(A) Whether the Four Powers and Austria are to be the only states designated as signatories or whether the invited states are to be named along with the Four Powers and Austria in the preamble or elsewhere in the treaty as states entitled to sign; and

(B) Whether Austria is to be charged with the responsibility for participation in the war or whether the consequences of such participation are to be noted.

There are six major disagreements on the political clauses of the treaty and five on the military articles. Progress on the economic clauses has not advanced nearly so far as on the other clauses and disagreement exists on the questions of United Nations property in Austria, restitution by Austria, and most important, German assets in Austria.

Marshall pointed out that failure of the deputies to agree on the German assets question is one of the principal obstacles in the way of further progress on the Austrian treaty and he proposed a method to speed up consideration of the question by the deputies.^43a The Council agreed to discuss the United States proposal on Tuesday and instruct the deputies for Austria to present their full report on the draft treaty on Saturday the 29th. Marshall proposed and other members agreed to invite representatives of the Austrian Government to come to Moscow to present their views to the Council and the deputies for Austria.⁴⁴

The Council then turned to consideration of the provisional German Government, the next item on its agenda. Bevin tabled an outline of United Kingdom views on the future German government and said he wanted the Council to agree on a practical scheme for the future German government rather than on a generalized statement of the problem. He stated that he opposed a highly centralized government and did not want to see one party or one authority be given a chance to gain complete control of Germany as did Hitler. He said a solution of the basic German problems plus favorable consideration of the draft Four-Power demilitarization treaty proposed by the United States will allow the Allies to hold Germany until it is a democratic and peaceful state. He said the first stage must be a provisional government under Allied control but that the aim must be a government accepted by the Four Powers, the world and the German people. He said the Potsdam arrangement for central German agencies responsible only to ACC must be considered as temporary and that in the future government, bureaucracy must be responsible to the German people through their elected representatives. He favored placing power in the German people, then in the Laender, and finally, to a limited extent, in a central German government.

Marshall stated that the victorious Allies had been forced to take over the responsibilities of the German state temporarily but that the time has now come to authorize the Germans to establish a provisional government to deal with matters of nationwide concern which the states cannot adequately handle. He said he would submit later detailed proposal for building a German government in three stages:

(1) Establishment of a provisional German government composed of heads of governments of the now existing states and Laender and clothed with necessary powers to create and operate central administrative agencies;

(2) Drafting and acceptance of a constitution consistent with democratic principles and the decentralization of governmental authority, with residual powers retained by the Laender;

(3) Assumption of governmental authority by a central government created by the constitution and by the Laender authorities recognized by the constitution. He concluded by stating that the above process should be gotten under way at once so there will be properly constituted German authorities to carry out the terms of the peace settlement.⁴⁵

Repeated to London as 92, Berlin as 136.

Department please pass to Paris as Moscow’s 75 and Rome as Moscow’s 8 and Vienna as Moscow’s 10.

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Marshall

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42. See footnote 41, p. 267.
43. For the text of Gen. Clark’s oral report, see the United States Delegation Minutes, supra.
44. For the text of the Secretary of State’s statement on German assets in Austria, see Department of State Bulletin, March 30, 1947, p. 571. The American proposals to speed up consideration of the Austrian treaty, which were in the form of an informal memorandum by the United States Delegation, were circulated to the Council as document CFM (47) (M) 76, March 20, not printed.
44. According to the United States Delegation Minutes of this Council meeting, Molotov associated himself with Marshall’s proposal and pointed out that the Soviet Government had already agreed to a request from Austrian Foreign Minister Gruber for visas for an Austrian Delegation to come to Moscow. Regarding the Austrian request to be invited to Moscow, see also telegram P–6905, March 17, from Vienna, p. 504.
45. For the text of the Secretary of Stated statement summarized here, which was circulated to the Council as document CFM(47) (M) 44, March 21, 1947, see Germany 1947–1949, pp. 188–189 or Department of State Bulletin, March 30, 1947, p. 569. For the text of the detailed proposal referred to here by the Secretary and subsequently circulated to the Council as document CFM(47) (M) 49, March 22, 1947, see Germany 1947–1949, pp. 189–190, or Department of State Bulletin, March 30, 1947, pp. 569–570.