Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, European Advisory Commission, Austria, Germany, Volume III

740.00119 EAC/2–545: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

London, February 5, 1945—11 p.m.
[Received February 6—2:30 a.m.]

1278. For Assistant Secretary Dunn. I was glad to receive the clarifications of the economic directive (Department’s instruction 4980 of January 13) contained in Department’s 849, February 3, 11 p.m. These explanations will undoubtedly be of assistance in presenting the directive in the European Advisory Commission. Department’s 849 is the first interpretation of the revised 1067 received through Department channels.

Receipt of the revised 1067 and of Department’s 849 will, I believe, help correct a serious misapprehension which has developed in recent months among military authorities engaged in planning United States participation in control of Germany. Some top people in the United States nucleus control group⁸⁹ have interpreted 1067 as meaning that, whether or not any overall policies are arrived at in matters affecting Germany as a whole, the United States military policy is to run the United States zone as a separate entity.

The United States side of SHAEF has apparently regarded the future Control Council as an advisory rather than a policy determining body. Responsible United States officers of SHAEF, in consultations with my advisers, have repeatedly emphasized their view that United States membership on the Control Council gives the United States Commander-in-Chief power to veto the adoption by the Council of a uniform policy in any field, and, as a result of such a veto, military government in each zone will proceed along its own lines. United States SHAEF officers also maintain that even in those cases in which an agreed policy is laid down in the Control Council and with the participation of the United States Commander-in-Chief, the zonal authorities will use their own judgment as to whether to carry out that joint policy in the United States zone or to ignore the decisions, or, as they put it, the recommendations, of the Control Council. In expressing these views they seem to ignore the basic fact that the United States Commander-in-Chief is at the same time a member of the Control Council for Germany as a whole and the supreme authority in the United States zone, and concentrate entirely on his allegedly exclusive responsibility as the supreme authority in his zone.

I feel the Department should know of this divergence of interpretation of 1067. It would be most unfortunate if negotiations on the revised 1067 should proceed in the EAC on the assumption, as stated by the Department, that “the greatest obtainable measure of uniformity in policy among the several zones” should be sought, while United States military authorities charged with giving effect to United States policy in Germany operate on a directly opposite interpretation of the same directive. Since the directives issued to the United States nucleus group in London and to the United States side of SHAEF emanate from the War Department in Washington, clarification of this basic confusion should be sought there.

Department’s 849 points out that the revised 1067 “does not attempt to define in advance the precise division of responsibility between the Control Council and the zones”. However, if great confusion and working at cross purposes are to be avoided, it will be essential to define as early as possible the general scope of the Council’s responsibility for working out agreed policies in the various fields, even though direct responsibility for execution of all policies will rest with the zonal authorities. One of the main purposes of the United States draft directives, 15 of which are already before the Commission, is to delimit in broad terms the spheres of responsibility as between the Control Council and the zonal authorities. It will be confusing to the Commission if the proposed overall directive and its appendices ignore even the need for a broad delimitation of the responsibility for policy making as between the Control Council and the zonal authorities.

I note from Department’s 603, January 26, 1 p.m., that the Department intends to supplement the revised 1067 “by other statements of policy on subjects not covered” by it. This intention had not been made clear by Department’s instruction 4980, which referred only to the future transmission of a financial directive.

Before I can persuade the EAC to accept the existing economic directive as a basis for quadripartite agreement, I must be in a position to set forth a list of the additional economic subjects which the Department proposes to cover in these additional policy statements, as well as the extent to which our Government will seek agreement in the EAC on specific questions not treated in the economic directive (Department’s 849).

Some of these supplementary economic subjects are covered in draft directives prepared by my joint advisers. Of those draft directives which have been cleared in Washington and circulated in the EAC, two relate to economic matters: Control of merchant shipping and control of inland transport.⁹⁰ The following draft directives,⁹¹ which are awaiting consideration in Washington, would provide a useful basis for giving content to an agreement among the occupying powers to act jointly in controlling Germany’s economic life: Property control, control of food and agriculture, control of labor, control of coal industry, control of oil industry, control of foreign trade, control of internal trade, control of finance, control of aviation.

The draft directives submitted by me have been based on all the policy statements and studies available, particularly those of the Department. They have been prepared in close collaboration with the officers of the control group and with United States civilian experts available here, and have been reviewed with great care by my advisers in cooperation with the control group, with departmental experts, and more recently with United States SHAEF officers. In preparing draft directives my advisers have striven to eliminate all unnecessary detail and to confine them to setting forth a few broad bases on which coordinated policies could be worked out by the Control Council. These remarks apply to all our draft directives—not only to the economic ones.

At my conference of November 6⁹² with Mr. Dunn and Mr. McCloy it was my understanding what policy statements on those subjects which require agreement at the governmental level as a basis for the effective functioning of Allied control in Germany would be cleared and transmitted to me. In this connection, I cannot accept the statement of the November 6 understanding as set forth in JCS 1223/2 of January 11,⁹³ since the latter states that no further consideration will be given to specific draft directives and that United States views will be expressed only in an expanded JCS 1067.

I believe profoundly that, if we intend to make a serious effort to attain and preserve Allied unity in the treatment of Germany, statements of policy beyond those contained in the revised 1067 will, as promised in Department’s 603, be absolutely essential as a basis for arriving at workable agreements on policy. The need for EAC is pressing. But it is no more pressing than the need for such statements by the nucleus United States control group for its use in planning and in collaborating with the other national components of the Control Council, and by the United States side of SHAEF in planning for administration in the United States zone.

I must therefore urge the Department to clarify the discrepancy between the statement in JCS 1223/2 that no further draft directives will be cleared and the statement in Department’s 603 that JCS 1067 will be supplemented by additional statements of policy on subjects not covered by it or by draft directives previously forwarded to me.

In this connection, Colonel Wildman, my Assistant Military Air Adviser, has informed me of his conversation with Mr. McCloy resulting in Colonel Marcus’⁹⁴ memorandum to General Hilldring of January 3 (CAD/DM/71748).⁹⁵ This memorandum urged that additional directives on subjects not covered in 1067 should be studied at once with a view to clearing them for transmission to me for use in the EAC. Colonel Marcus’ recommendation of January 3 accords with my understanding of our arrangement of November 6.

Meanwhile, if Department’s 849 expresses, as I believe it does, the true purport of 1067, it would, I believe, be wiser to state this affirmatively and unequivocally in the draft submitted to the EAC, rather than to risk arousing suspicion of our allegiance to the principle of acting together in all matters relating to Germany as agreed at the Moscow Conference⁹⁶ by presenting 1067 in its present ambiguous form. Any comments which I might make in an effort to relate 1067 to our real position would have to be embodied in written revisions of 1067 if they are to become the basis of an effective agreement among the occupying powers. Such revisions for the purpose of clarifying 1067 might better be made now, in advance of its circulation, so that time and effort in the EAC negotiations may be devoted to forwarding affirmatively the basic principles sought by us, rather than being diluted by defensive acknowledgments by me in the EAC of the need for revising 1067 and for supplementing it by additional policy statements.

The same considerations apply to the instruction in the Department’s 604, January 26, 2 p.m.⁹⁵ to press for the activation of the Control Council. As the Department is aware, I have constantly urged this step since last June and am continuing to urge it. However, before the three or four Control Council groups can cooperate effectively, it is essential to clarify in the minds of our military authorities the relation between zonal and central authority in the military government of Germany. If the Soviet control group were at this time to begin working with the United States control group and were to discover the strong emphasis which the United States group places on independent operation of the United States zone, the effect on continued cooperation in the administration and control of Germany and on other aspects of Allied cooperation might be extremely serious.

Winant

89. A reference to the United States Group, Control Council (Germany). For related information, see footnote 24, p. 171.
90. Neither printed.
91. None printed.
92. See letter of November 15, 1944, from the then Deputy Director of the Office of European Affairs (Matthews) to the Assistant Secretary of War (McCloy), Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. i, p. 407.
93. Not found in Department files.
94. Col. David Marcus, Civil Affairs Division, War Department.
95. Not printed.
96. For documentation regarding the Tripartite Conference in Moscow, October 18–November 1, 1943, see Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. i, pp. 513 ff.
95. Not printed.