We here are not in a position to supply a complete picture of what has
happened during the past months because we are unable to obtain an accurate
account of what has happened from the Soviet and Polish authorities and we
have not been able to send observers into the area for first-hand inquiry.
However, scattered reports do come to us through OSS44 and other
sources, and individual members of the staff in Berlin have opportunity to
see a cross section of the refugees who arrive in Berlin, notwithstanding
the stringent restrictions against the entry of additional German civilians
into the Berlin area.
I pass this on to you for whatever it may be worth, simply because I am
uncomfortable in the thought that somehow in the future we may be severely
blamed for consenting to be party to an operation which we cannot ourselves
control and which has caused and is causing such large scale human
suffering. There is, of course, the risk that even mentioning the matter
exposes one to the charge of “softness” to the Germans. In this, as in
respect to one or two other phases of the situation, I am not so much
concerned regarding what is happening to the German population as I am
regarding our own standard of conduct, because I feel that if we are willing
to compromise on certain principles in respect of the Germans or any other
people, progressively it may become too easy for us to sacrifice those same
principles in regard to our own people. There are some features of the
American way of life which I know we would not want to see jettisoned.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the United States Political Adviser for
Germany (Murphy)
I shall set down for the Department my view of a situation concerning
which I know our authorities are generally aware, but which I feel can
only be fully understood in terms of the personal impression it has made
on many Americans who are daily witnesses to the commonplace
spectacle.
The constant flow of thousands of dispossessed German refugees from the
Eastern areas continues. Trudging along the highways, carrying their
odds and ends of small personal belongings on their backs or on small
carts and perambulators, the vast bulk of them women, children, old
people, in all states of fatigue, exhaustion, and disease—most of them
the poor and small farmer elements—they present a pitiful sight. Most of
them have been driven off the land and out of the towns of Germany east
of the Oder-Neisse line. In the Lehrter Railroad station in Berlin alone
our medical authorities state an average of ten have been dying daily
from exhaustion, malnutrition and illness. In viewing the distress and
despair of these wretches, in smelling the odor of their filthy
condition, the mind reverts instantly to Dachau and Buchenwald. Here is
retribution on a large scale, but practiced not on the Parteibonzen45 but on women and children, the poor, the infirm. The
vast majority are women and children. Few able bodied German males in
the age category from twenty to fifty years. This as the Department
knows has been continuing for weeks and, while lessening, the end does
not seem to be yet.
Alongside these unfortunates are the hundreds of thousands of invalided
German prisoners of war recently released by the Soviet Union.
(According to the official Soviet statement, 412,000 were released.)
Tattered, mutilated, filthy wrecks of men, they straggle along the
country highways and the streets of Berlin in an endless procession of
misery, dregs of the Herrenvolk, hoping somewhere to find refuge with
their families. If they survive the trek—for many die en route—they are
often grievously disappointed in the end as the bombings and the battle
have eliminated what was home for many of them.
But these are men, or the vestiges of men, and many of us have become
callous to the suffering of soldiers in this war. Our psychology adjusts
itself somehow to the idea that suffering is part of the soldiers
contract—especially when he is an enemy whom we have tried our best to
kill in quantity over many months. That psychology loses some
[Page 1291]
of its elasticity, however,
in viewing the stupid tragedy now befalling thousands of innocent
children, and women and old people. Knowledge that they are the victims
of a harsh political decision carried out with the utmost ruthlessness
and disregard for the humanities does not cushion the effect. The mind
reverts to other recent mass deportations which horrified the world and
brought upon the Nazis the odium which they so deserved. Those mass
deportations engineered by the Nazis provided part of the moral basis on
which we waged the war and which gave strength to our cause.
Now the situation is reversed. We find ourselves in the invidious
position of being partners in this German enterprise and as partners
inevitably sharing the responsibility. The United States does not
control directly the Eastern Zone of Germany through which these
helpless and bereft people march after eviction from their homes. The
direct responsibility lies with the Provisional Polish Government and to
a lesser extent with the Czech Government. Recent Polish and Czech
suffering at the hands of the Germans undoubtedly renders them callous
to German suffering. While the Soviet Union apparently has concurred in
and supported the mass movement, as far as we know, the actual process
of driving by physical means or economic pressures the people from their
homes and firesides lies with the Poles and the Czechs. With this point
of view I know Ambassador Lane does not agree. He has informed me of his
opinion that this policy of deportation is Soviet dictated and
controlled. That deportations have not gone further in the Sudetenland
has been in part due to the presence of our forces whose Commanders, in
friendly but firm fashion, have told the local Czechs that certain acts
simply cannot be tolerated in the name of humanity, but even so,
ruthless evictions have occurred on a sufficiently large scale to
antagonize many of our troops against the liberated Czech people.
At Potsdam the three Governments agreed that the transfer of populations
should be conducted in an orderly and humane manner, and that Poland and
Czechoslovakia should be requested to suspend temporarily evictions of
Germans. Despite official assurances, evidence seems to show that little
regard has been paid to either point, especially to Poland. Ambassador
Lane feels that Soviet Russia would be in a position to put an end to
such evictions if it so desired, because he states the Soviets are in
physical control of Poland. It should be said in behalf of Soviet troops
that many instances of assistance to individual refugees, such as
transportation on Army wagons, etc. are daily to be seen.
As helpless as the United States may be to arrest a cruel and inhuman
process which is continuing, it would seem that our Government could and
should make its attitude as expressed at Potsdam unmistakably clear. It
would be most unfortunate were the record to indicate
[Page 1292]
that we are particeps to methods we have often condemned in other
instances.
