762.00114/4–1745: Telegram
The British Prime Minister ( Churchill ) to President Roosevelt
920. My message No. 921.6 I have seen your recent exchange of messages with Marshal Stalin on prisoners of war matters.7 As regards the general question of Allied prisoners in German hands, I entirely agree with you that we ought to arrange matters now, so that we are in a position to do something quickly at the right time.
We have long foreseen danger to these prisoners, arising either in consequence of chaotic conditions resulting from a German collapse or, alternatively, out of a deliberate threat by Hitler and his associates to murder some, or all, of the prisoners. The object of this manoeuvre might be either to avoid unconditional surrender, or to save the lives of the more important Nazi gangsters and war criminals, using this threat as a bargaining counter, or to cause dissension among the Allies in the final stages of the war. With this in mind we put to the United States and Soviet Governments last October, through our diplomatic representatives in Washington and Moscow, a proposal for an Anglo-American-Russian warning to the Germans (for text please see my message No. 921) but have so far received no reply.
[Page 704]On March 2nd last the British Minister in Berne was informed by the head of the Swiss Political Department that he had received reports from. Berlin which he could not confirm, that the Germans intended to liquidate, i.e. massacre such prisoners of war as were held in camps in danger of being overrun by the advancing Allied forces, rather than try to remove the prisoners or allow them to fall into Allied hands. In addition, we have in recent months received various indications that the Nazis might, in the last resort, either murder Allied prisoners in their hands, or hold them as hostages.
Various proposals of a practical nature for bringing immediate military aid and protection to prisoners of war camps in Germany have been under consideration by British and United States military authorities. I believe the issue, at the appropriate moment, of a joint warning on the lines we have proposed would be a powerful aid to such practical measures as it may be possible to take. An S.S. General is now in charge of prisoners of war matters in the German Ministry of Defence and S.S. and Gestapo are believed to be taking over the control of camps. On such people a warning will have only limited effect, though, at the worst it can do no harm. On the other hand, it is by no means certain that S.S. have completely taken over from regular army officers and on the latter the warning might have real effect. We should be sure to miss no opportunity of exploiting any duality of control.
I would therefore earnestly invite you and Marshal Stalin, to whom I am repeating this message, to give this proposal your personal attention and I very much hope you will agree to go forward with us in issuing it at the appropriate moment.8
- Mr. Churchill’s message No. 921, not printed, merely repeated (with minor variations) the warning proposed in the Note of the British Ambassador (Halifax) to the Secretary of State, October 19, 1944, Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. i, p. 1258.↩
- See section entitled “Arrangements relative to the treatment and reciprocal repatriation of American and Soviet prisoners of war and interned civilians liberated by Allied Forces,” vol. v, pp. 1067 ff.↩
- President Roosevelt replied in telegram 725, March 22, 1945, as follows: “Your 920 and 921. If Marshal Stalin agrees, I will go forward with you in our issuing the joint warning contained in your 921.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York)↩