740.00119 Control (Rumania)/1–745: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the American Representative in Rumania (Berry)
15. Reurtels 12, January 4 and 19 January 7.15 The Department has seen General Schuyler’s15a telegram no. M–235 January 6 to War Department reporting his conversation with Vinogradov on the deportation of German inhabitants from Rumania to the Soviet Union.
The Department does not see any justification under the armistice terms for the proposed Soviet action, except perhaps in the case of those Germans who, because of their service in the German armed forces, may be prisoners of war. Others, because of their participation in Nazi organizations, may have been deprived of their Rumanian citizenship, but under the armistice they would be subject to internment as German citizens, not to deportation.
The Department recognizes that the Soviet High Command must be the judge of the danger to Allied military operations represented by actual or threatened sabotage and espionage on the part of these racial Germans. The Soviet High Command of course must provide for the security of its lines of supply, and can require the Rumanian Government to take necessary measures to that end. However, since there is no provision in the armistice agreement to justify the deportation to Russia of inhabitants of Rumania, the Department does not see how the proposed orders to the Rumanian Government could properly be issued in the name of the Allied Control Commission.
You are requested to suggest to General Schuyler that he inform Vinogradov that the United States Government had no prior knowledge whatever of this project, to which consequently the agreement of this Government could not have been given; that this Government is unwilling to consider this decision as in any way involving this Government, either in its responsibilities and rights under the armistice [Page 1241] with Rumania, or in regard to the general question of transfers of population; and that if the orders are issued in the name of the ACC this Government would be obliged to make its position clear to the Soviet and British Governments, and also to the Rumanian Government.
This matter has been discussed with the War Department, which agrees that General Schuyler should consider the foregoing instructions as authorized under paragraph 4 of his letter of instructions.
The general questions of broader policy which are involved will be discussed in a subsequent telegram.
Sent to Bucharest, repeated to Moscow.16
[For the statements of policy regarding the question of the transfer of the German population from Czechoslovakia, see the following documents printed in volume IV, pages 420, 421, and 422: Memorandum by the Division of Central European Affairs, January 11, 1945, entitled “Summary, Czechoslovakia”; the annexed memorandum by the Division of Central European Affairs, January 11, 1945, entitled “Review of United States Policy Since 1933 Toward Czechoslovakia”; and the annexed memorandum by the Committee on Post-War Programs, numbered PWC–201a and dated July 18, 1944, entitled “Summary of Recommendations, Policy Toward Liberated States: Czechoslovakia”.]
- Latter not printed; it reported that a Rumanian delegation headed by Prime Minister Radescu had called upon Vinogradov on January 6 to present the Rumanian case against the deportation of Germans of Rumanian nationality; Vinogradov denied that there would be a mass transfer of population but rather a labor draft of able-bodied persons for work in Russia to increase the war effort (740.00119 Control (Rumania)/1–745).↩
- Brig. Gen. Cortland T. Van R. Schuyler, Chief, United States Military Representation, Allied Control Commission for Rumania.↩
- As telegram 59.↩