Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, European Security and the German Question, Volume III, Part 2

740.5/1–1851: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Bruce) to the Secretary of State ¹

secret

Paris, January 18, 1951—8 p. m.

4167. Substance Deptel 3687, January 12 (3378 to London, repeated Frankfort 4857)² conveyed to FonOff and has been most useful in bringing tentative French position into sharper focus. Sauvagnargues has furnished us informal memorandum of comments which is going forward by pouch and whose principal points, supplemented by oral observations, are as follows:

FonOff gratified that Department perceives necessity of preserving “supreme authority or right of intervention” in Germany to permit control of security arrangements and to maintain basis for future negotiations with Russians. They find implicit in this view our recognition that the right of intervention cannot itself be based on contractual arrangement. As far as Brussels decisions are concerned, for instance, if we did not retain supreme authority, Sauvagnargues said, we would be “just where we were in 1919”. French consider this point of crucial importance, which if agreed now would reduce all other questions concerning removal of controls to questions of detail. Once the “upper limit” of what we can concede to the Germans is agreed upon, the French will not find it difficult going along with us in conferring de facto equality upon FedRep.

FonOff emphatically disagrees however with view expressed in reftel that it is not clear whether Germans will push us to surrender supreme authority. They consider that Adenauer has recognized this as crux of forthcoming negotiations with Allies and that he believes that if FedRep can obtain de jure equality with Allies, all other German claims will automatically take care of themselves. Sauvagnargues said first two sessions in Bonn with Blank and the Generals brought this fact out clearly, and incidentally also showed that German military contribution will depend less upon political concessions than upon buildup of Allied strength in Germany.³ French think that when Adenauer speaks of contractual arrangements, he has in mind not de facto equality but full sovereignty for Germany and nullification of its unconditional surrender. They are afraid that we may not attach sufficient importance to distinction between these concepts.

Key paragraph of Sauvagnargues’ memorandum on this point reads:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Additional FonOff arguments against conferring sovereignty upon FedRep include the following:

(1) We would in FonOff view be unable to discuss Germany with Soviets without presence of FedRep representatives, which would be unacceptable to Russians:

(2) Re Berlin, while it is true that Soviets claimed in 1948 that we had forfeited right to remain there, the modus Vivendi worked out in Paris 1949 constitutes new recognition of our right.⁴ Moreover whatever our own rights to presence or access to Berlin may be a sovereign FedRep would certainly have none in Soviet eyes.

(3) Our military presence in Germany, if based on contractual agreement would be “precarious” and would become more so as German military strength increased;

(4) Since relinquishment of supreme authority would be tantamount to nullification of Germany’s unconditional surrender, which was accepted quadripartitely, such relinquishment would in effect close door on future quadripartite consideration of German problem.

(5) The Saar question would become troublesome;⁵

(6) Placing presence of Western troops in Germany on contractual basis would mean termination of occupation costs which French unable to contemplate;

(7) Sovereign Germany would be more irredentist and nationalistic, hence less amenable to moves toward Western European federation.⁶

Bruce

1. Repeated to London and Frankfurt.
2. Ante, p. 1447.
3. For reports on the first two meetings at Bonn between the Deputy High Commissioners and representatives of the Federal Republic concerning a German contribution to the defense of Europe, see telegrams 449, January 10 and 463, January 17, pp. 990 and 992.
4. For documentation on the sixth session of the Council of Foreign Ministers held at Paris May 23–June 20, 1949, including the modus vivendi for Berlin, see Foreign Relations, 1949, vol. iii, pp. 856 ff.
5. For documentation on the question of the Saar, see pp. 1970 ff.
6. Copies of the informal French memorandum and an English translation were transmitted as enclosures to despatch 1955, January 18, from Paris, not printed (762A.5/1–1851); another account of the conversation with Sauvagnargues, substantially the same as that transmitted in telegram 4167, was sent as an enclosure to a letter from Herz to Laukhuff, dated January 16, not printed (740.5/1–1651).