740.00119 Control (Germany)/4–1945: Telegram
The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Truman 46
No. 7. Your armies soon, and presently ours, may come into contact with Soviet forces. Supreme Commander should be given instructions by Combined Chiefs of Staff as soon as possible how to act.
In my view there are two zones:
- (a)
- Tactical zone in which our troops must stand on the lines they have reached unless there is agreement for a better tactical deployment against continuing resistance of the enemy. This should be arranged by the Supreme Commander through Deane47 and Archer48 in Moscow or if convenient across the line in the field. Combined Chiefs of Staff have already taken up the issue of instructions to cover this phase. (See telegram C.O.S. (W) 768 of April 16th from British Chiefs of Staff and telegrams leading up to it.49)
- (b)
- Occupational zone which I agreed with President Roosevelt on advice of Combined General Staffs. In my view this zone should be occupied within a certain time from V.E.50 day whenever this is [Page 232] declared, and we should retire with dignity from the much greater gains which Allied troops have acquired by their audacity and vigour.
I am quite prepared to adhere to occupational zones. But I do not wish our Allied troops or your American troops to be hustled back at any point by some crude assertion of a local Russian General. This must be provided against by an agreement between the Governments so as to give Eisenhower a fair chance to settle on the spot in his own admirable way.
These occupational zones were outlined rather hastily at Quebec in September 194451 when it was not foreseen that General Eisenhower’s armies would make such a mighty inroad into Germany. The zones cannot be altered except by agreement with the Russians. But the moment V.E. day has occurred, we should try to set up Allied Control Commission in Berlin and should insist upon a fair distribution of food produced in Germany between all parts of Germany. As it stands at present, Russian occupational zone has the smallest proportion of people and grows by far the largest proportion of food. The Americans have a not very satisfactory proportion of food to feed conquered population. And we poor British are to take over all the ruined Euhr and large manufacturing districts, which are like ours, in normal times large importers of food. I suggest that this tiresome question should be settled in Berlin by A.C.C.52 before we move from tactical positions we have at present achieved. The Russian idea of taking these immense food supplies out of food producing areas of Germany to feed themselves is very natural. But I contend that feeding the German population must be treated as a whole and that available supplies must be divided pro rata between the occupational troops.
I should be most grateful if you would let me have your views on these points, which from information I receive from many sources are of highest consequence and urgency.
- This paraphrase of Prime Minister Churchill’s message was transmitted to the Secretary of State by the British Ambassador under cover of a letter dated April 19, 1945, not printed.↩
- Maj. Gen. John R. Deane, Commanding General, United States Military Mission to the Soviet Union.↩
- Adm. E. JR. Archer, Chief of the British Military Mission to the Soviet Union.↩
- For a discussion of the efforts of the military authorities to establish a line of demarcation between Allied and Soviet military forces, see Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command, in the official Army history, The United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1954), pp. 461–469. For documentation with particular relevance to the establishment of the line of demarcation in Czechoslovakia, see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. iv, pp. 441– 451 passim.↩
- Victory in Europe.↩
- See telegram 7670, September 20, 1944, to London, Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. i, p. 340.↩
- Allied Control Commission for Germany.↩