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Zonal Boundaries and Access to Berlin*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

William M. Franklin
William M. Franklin
Affiliation:
Director of the Historical Office of the Department of State
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Extract

EVER since the Berlin blockade of 1948–1949, the author has been asked on a number of occasions to explain how the zonal boundaries in Germany came to be drawn and why Berlin was left as an island in the Communist sea. A brief and simple answer was found to be impossible for several reasons: First, the Department of State does not have all the pertinent records, since the Department was not included in all of the negotiations on this subject. Second, some parts of the story do not seem to be documented adequately in any official records, with the result that certain aspects of the subject are open to controversial interpretations. Third, not only is the story of these negotiations complicated in itself, being woven from several separate strands, but it can only be explained in the larger framework of the overall planning for the occupation of Germany. Despite these many limitations and difficulties, the author has felt that he should attempt to set down as complete and objective an answer as he could to the persistent queries which this subject has evoked. The result is the present article.

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Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , October 1963, pp. 1 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1963

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References

1 Hull, Cordell, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York 1948), 11, 1109Google Scholar.

2 See Notter, Harley A., Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation (Washington 1950)Google Scholar.

3 Sherwood, Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York 1948), 714–15Google Scholar.

4 Hull, 11, 1284–85.

5 See Sherwood, 711.

6 See Morgenthau, Henry Jr., Germany Is Our Problem (New York 1945), 1 and map facing 160Google Scholar; Welles, Sumner, The Time for Decision (New York 1944), chap. 9Google Scholar.

7 See the Department of State policy papers of August and September 1943 on this subject in Notter, 554–60.

8 See Hull, 11, 1233.

9 For a summary of this paper, see ibid., 1285–87.

10 See SirWoodward, Llewellyn, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (London 1962), 441–42Google Scholar.

11 See Strang, Lord, Home and Abroad (London 1956), 202Google Scholar.

12 This portion of the story is based largely on SirMorgan, Frederick, Overture to Overlord (Garden City, N.Y., 1950)Google Scholar.

13 The exact designation was “Rankin C.” “Rankin A” and “B” were variations based on a weakening, but not a collapse, of Nazi power. Since these variations received little further consideration, “Rankin” came to mean “Rankin C.”

14 See Matloff, Maurice, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943–1944 (Washington 1959), 226Google Scholar.

15 See Woodward, 443–45. For the elaborate but effective committee system through which the British coordinated the thinking of their civilian and military authorities, see also Gen. SirHollis, Leslie, One Marine's Tale (London 1956), 69Google Scholar.

16 See Strang, 203; Churchill, Winston S., Triumph and Tragedy (Boston 1953), 507–8Google Scholar.

17 See Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943 (Washington 1961), 253Google Scholar.

18 Roosevelt never settled on an exact number. At Tehran he proposed five German states plus two internationally controlled regions; at Yalta he argued for “five or seven states.” See ibid., 600–2; and Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 7945 (Washington 1955), 614Google Scholar.

19 Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 254.

20 Ibid., 255–56.

21 The map is reproduced in Matloff, facing 341.

22 The paper, as revised, is printed in Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 786.

23 Ibid., 674.

24 Ibid., 688,787.

25 Morgan, 248–50.

26 Strang, 213–14.

27 Winant had attended the Cairo Conference, but he had not been invited to sit in on the CCS discussions on zones of occupation; see Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 63–64,301,352,688.

28 The three Foreign Ministers at Moscow had announced on November 1, 1943, that Austria was to be liberated from German domination and re-established as an independent state; for texts of the Anglo-Soviet-American communiqué and the Declaration on Austria, see Department of State Bulletin, IX (November 6, 1943), 307, 310Google Scholar. At Tehran the Big Three had tentatively agreed that most of East Prussia should go to Poland; see Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 594, 603, 604.

29 Gusev either misunderstood or tried to take advantage of an ambiguity in the British map by claiming that the island of Fehmarn was in the Soviet zone, but he gave up on this point when Strang insisted that it was part of Schleswig-Holstein. See Strange, 207; also Strang's article, “New Harsh Language in Diplomacy,” New York Times Magazine, April 15, 1962.

30 Excerpts from the memorandum are quoted in Hull, 11, 1612, and Madoff, 491.

31 See Mosely, Philip E., The Kremlin and World Politics (New York 1960), chap. 6Google Scholar. This is a collection, with additional commentary, of a number of Mosely's articles. Chapter 6 is the article entitled “The Occupation of Germany: New Light on How the Zones Were Drawn,” first published in Foreign Affairs, XXVIII (July 1950), 580–604Google Scholar.

32 See ibid., 166.

33 Eisenhower, Dwight D., Crusade in Europe (Garden City, N.Y., 1948), 218Google Scholar. The General probably used the word “tripartite” at the time, since the addition of France to the occupation was not seriously considered until the fall of 1944.

34 Mosely, 172.

35 Feis, Herbert, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin (Princeton 1957), 362Google Scholar.

36 Churchill, 508.

37 Matloff, 491.

38 Hull, 11, 1611–12.

39 Ibid., 1613. See also Pogue, Forrest C., The Supreme Command (Washington 1954), 349–50Google Scholar.

40 Stimson, Henry L. and Bundy, McGeorge, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York 1947), 568Google Scholar.

41 Pogue, 350.

42 Hull, II, 1613.

43 Stimson and Bundy, 569, 575.

44 Pogue, 350–51. At some stage of the negotiations Eisenhower also suggested that the Allied headquarters for Germany might be set up, not in Berlin, but at a “cantonment capital” to be built at the junction of the American, British, and Soviet zones. The suggestion went unheeded. See Eisenhower, Dwight D., “My Views on Berlin,” Saturday Evening Post (December 9, 1961), 20Google Scholar.

45 See Ehrman, John, Grand Strategy, V (London 1956), 516Google Scholar.

46 Sec Churchill, 510.

47 For a conjecture on this point, see Feis, 364, citing Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 137.

48 For the text, see Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 118–21.

49 Ibid., 121–23.

50 Ibid., 198–201.

51 Stettinius, Edward R., Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference (Garden City, N.Y., 1949), 56Google Scholar.

52 Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 201, 498.

53 Ibid., 499.

54 Ibid., 978.

55 For these negotiations, see Mosely, 182–85, and Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conference of Berlin, 1945 (Washington 1960), 1, 598, 632; 11, 1002–6Google Scholar.

56 See ibid., 1, 743; 11, 208–9, 1509.

57 See, e.g., a change in the boundary of the U.S.-Soviet zones in United States Treaties and Other International Agreements, V, pt. 3, 1954, p. 2177.

58 See Strang, Home and Abroad, 215.

59 See Mosely's article on “Dismemberment of Germany,” op.cit., chap. 5; originally published in Foreign Affairs, XXVIII (April 1950), 487–98Google Scholar.

60 See ibid., 174. See also Warner, Albert L., “Our Secret Deal over Germany,” Saturday Evening Post (August 2, 1952), 68Google Scholar. John J. McCloy, then Assistant Secretary of War, remembers that he discussed the German surrender problem at this time with Winant but does not recall any discussion of access to Berlin (letter from McCloy to the author).

61 See the reference to Winant's attitude as reported in Clay, Lucius D., Decision in Germany (Garden City, N.Y., 1950), 15Google Scholar.

62 These negotiations are briefly but authoritatively recounted in Erickson, Edgar L., “The Zoning of Austria,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 267 (January 1950), 106–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Mosely (p. 186) says that he turned over copies of his drafts on this subject to a SHAEF representative about a week after V-E Day.

64 See the bitter exchanges in Correspondence Between the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USS.R. and the Presidents of the U.S.A. and Prime Ministers of Great Britain During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 (Moscow 1957), 1, 306–20Google Scholar; 11, 194–214.

65 For the relationship between zonal boundaries and troop movements during the final months of the war, including the decision not to launch an Anglo-American drive on Berlin, see Pogue, Forrest C., “The Decision to Halt at the Elbe,” in Greenfield, Kent Roberts, ed., Command Decisions (Washington 1960), chap. 22Google Scholar.

66 Churchill, 603.

67 See Truman, Harry S., Memoirs by Harry S. Truman (Garden City, N.Y., 1955–1956), 1, 298–302Google Scholar.

68 Ibid., 303.

69 Ibid., 306–7.

70 The French Provisional Government had been admitted to the European Advisory Commission in November 1944.

71 Report by Ambassador Robert Murphy (U.S. Political Adviser in Germany), in Conference of Berlin, 1, 136.

72 Later in 1945, additional agreements were reached in the Allied Control Council regarding the number of trains per day and the use of the air corridors, the number of the latter being increased to three. See Department of State Bulletin, XIV (September 18, 1961), 477Google Scholar.

73 The protocol and the covering report may be found in Allied Commission for Austria: A Handbook (Office of the United States High Commissioner for Austria, n.d.). The protocol, signed on July 9, 1945, is No. 1600 in the Treaties and Other International Acts Series (Washington 1947).