Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Council of Foreign Ministers; Germany and Austria, Volume III

CFM Files: Lot M–88: Box 141: CFM/P/49 Documents

Proposal of the United States, United Kingdom, and French Delegations to the Council of Foreign Ministers ¹

secret

Paris , 28th May, 1949.

CFM/P/49/3

German Unity Including Economic Principles, Political Principles and Allied Controls

To accomplish the purpose of restoring the political and economic unity of Germany, it is proposed that the following steps be taken to establish a Federal Government for the whole of Germany:

1. Since the Basic Law of Bonn has been promulgated after receiving the support of the overwhelming majority of the elected representatives of three Zones of Occupation, the unification of Germany should be effected in accordance with that Law by the making of appropriate arrangements to enable the states of the Eastern Zone to accede to it.

2. The following principles in particular would accordingly apply to such accession of the states of the Eastern Zone:

(i) Freedom of the person, including freedom of movement, freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, freedom of association and assembly, freedom of speech, press and radio.

(ii) Freedom for all democratic political parties and freedom of elections.

(iii) Independence of the judiciary.

The four governments would take all necessary measures to assure the application of these principles, including the prohibition of all police formations exercising political activity.

3. In conjunction with the accession of the states of the Eastern Zone, an Occupation Statute on a quadripartite basis would be enacted.

By this Statute the termination of military government would be completed and there would be entrusted to the Federal Government and the governments of the states throughout Germany all the powers of government except as limited by the powers which the Allies reserved to themselves under this Statute, notably in the matter of security and the obligations of Germany. The powers reserved would not be exercised in such a way as to prevent the German Government from being granted steadily increasing freedom to associate peacefully in the economic and political but not military fields with European and other nations.²

4. In the economic field Allied reservations would in particular include agreed provisions for the limitation or prohibition of certain industries, and the delivery of capital equipment³ as reparations. No delivery of reparations from current production or stocks would be required. Occupation costs would be determined on a quadripartite basis. Any industrial enterprise in Germany whose ownership or control was acquired after May 8th, 1945, by or on behalf of any foreign power, would be⁴ surrendered and disposed of in accordance with appropriate German legislation unless such acquisition has quadripartite approval and the interest so approved is subjected to German law.

5. ⁵ Quadripartite control would be exercised by a High Commission which would normally take its decisions by majority vote, save in exceptional circumstances to be mutually agreed.⁶

1. This proposal was discussed by the Council of Foreign Ministers at its 6th through 8th meetings, May 28–31, 1949; for the reports on these meetings, see pp. 928–939 passim. The text of this proposal was worked out in the course of discussions by members of the three Western Delegations on May 27 arid 28, working from a United States draft dated May 27 (CFM Files: Lot M–88: Box 141: Staff Papers—Germany 1949). Two drafts were made apparently from the United States paper: the first after the discussion of May 27 (USDel Working Paper/7, not printed, May 28, CFM Files: Lot M–88: Box 141: Staff Papers—Germany 1949) and the second following the second discussion which is identical with the text of GFM/P/49/3. No record of the first discussion of the three Western Delegations has been found. The record of the meeting on May 28 is in the CFM Files: Lot M–88: Box 142: Memo of Conversations. The text of USDel Working Paper/7 is indicated in the footnotes to CFM/P/49/3.
2. The last sentence of this paragraph was not present in USDel Working Paper/7, but was added during the course of the meeting of the three Western Delegations on May 28.
3. The words “thereby declared surplus” were eliminated from the text of USDel Working Paper/7 at this point during the May 28 discussion.
4. In USDel Working Paper/7 the end of this sentence read: “returned to German ownership, unless such acquisition has quadripartite approval and the interest so approved is subjected to German law.”
5. In USDel Working Paper/7 this paragraph was numbered 6 and numbered paragraph 5 read: “There should be accorded to the German Government steadily increasing freedom to associate peacefully in the economic and political fields with European and other nations.” At the insistence of Schuman the quoted paragraph was deleted, but similar language was added to the text of paragraph 3 as is indicated in footnote 2 above, during the May 28 discussion.
6. The records of the United States Delegation show twelve papers which were prepared in support of the various aspects of CFM/P/49/3 and discussed by the three Western Ministers on May 28. They were not circulated at the Council meetings but apparently were used as position papers by the Western Delegations to defend the various points of CFM/P/49/3 in the sessions of the Council. (CFM Files: Lot M–88: Box 143: US Delegation Working Papers)