Editorial Note
The Ad Hoc Political Committee of the General Assembly considered the question of holding free elections in Germany from its 15th meeting on December 4 to its 26th meeting on December 19. At the 15th meeting the representative from Pakistan proposed that the Committee invite representatives from the Eastern and Western Zones of [Page 1814] Germany and from Berlin to make statements. This proposal was adopted by a vote of 50 to 6 with 1 abstention. Heinrich von Brentano and Ernst Reuter testified on behalf of the Federal Republic, stating that the division of Germany was one of the main causes of tension in Europe and that free elections would be a decisive step toward unification. Since it seemed unlikely that free elections could take place in the Eastern Zone, the Federal Government had demanded the establishment of a United Nations Commission to ascertain if conditions existed for holding genuinely free elections. On December 11 the Committee heard statements on behalf of the “German Democratic Republic” from Lothar Bolz and Friedrich Ebert, who stated that the Federal Republic’s proposals for an investigation commission would violate the principles of the United Nations Charter and constitute an intervention in the domestic affairs of the German people.
Also at the 15th meeting the British introduced a draft resolution, sponsored jointly by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, substantially along the lines of that transmitted in Delga 243, page 1809. In the course of the debate of this resolution the three Western powers accepted amendments submitted jointly by five Latin American states and by five members of NATO, while at the same time responding to statements by the Soviet Union and its satellites that the commission was merely an attempt to prolong the division of Germany and that Article 107 of the Charter precluded United Nations consideration of the question. The revised tripartite resolution was adopted by the Committee on December 19 by a vote of 45 to 6 with 8 abstentions and was referred to the General Assembly.
For a record of the Committee’s consideration of the question, see Ad Hoc Political Committee, pages 75–148; for the text of the resolution as adopted by the Committee, see page 1824; for the text of the alternate resolution proposed by Sweden and related documentation, see pages 1818 ff.