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The Foreign Office, the French and the post-war division of Germany 1945–46

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

John W. Young
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Extract

When, in May 1945, the Allies finally defeated Nazi Germany and began their military occupation, no-one expected that within five years the country would be divided into two political halves, one tied to the West and the other to the Soviet Union. Germany, despite its defeat in 1918, had remained the most powerful state in central Europe and had been an undoubted great power since 1870. If anything, the fear was that Germany would revive quickly and become a menace to the peace again. That it did become divided between East and West was of course due to the start of the ‘Cold War’ after 1945, with the Americans and British on the one side and the Russians on the other seeing, not Germany, but each other as the post-war ‘enemy’. In 1946 Winston Churchill was already able to speak of an ‘iron curtain’ stretching from Trieste, on the Adriatic, to Stettin, on the Baltic. By 1949 each side had established control of its own bloc—the Russians predominating in the Eastern European ‘People's Republics’, the Americans drawing the West Europeans together with the Marshall Aid Programme and the North Atlantic Treaty.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , July 1986 , pp. 223 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1986

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References

1. Intense criticism of the French role in dividing Germany began with Gimbel's, J.The American Occupation of Germany, (Stanford, 1968), p. 17–33Google Scholar, and was developed in his The Origins of the Marshall Plan, (Stanford, 1976).Google Scholar See also Feis, H., From Trust to Terror, (London, 1970), pp. 58–60Google Scholar, and Backer, J. H., The Decision to Divide Germany, (Durham, NC, 1978), pp. 133–139.Google Scholar

2. Documents on British Policy Overseas (D.B.P.O.), Series 1, Vol. 1 (London, 1984), pp. 1267–1268.Google Scholar

3. Gaulle, C. de, War Memoirs, Vol. II, (London, 1960), pp. 49–51Google Scholar; Chauvel, J., Comentaire: d'Algera Berne, (Paris, 1972), pp. 108–110Google Scholar; Documents Francois relatifs a I'Allemagne, 1945–7, (Paris, 1947), pp. 8–9Google Scholar; and for background see Willis, F. R., France, Germany and the New Europe, 1945–67, (Stanford, 1968), p. 15–19.Google Scholar

4. De Gaulle, Ibid., pp. 208–9; Byrnes, J. F., Speaking Frankly, (London, 1947), pp. 169–170.Google Scholar

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6. Clay to War Department (24 09), Smith, J. E. (ed), The Papers of General Lucius D. Clay, Vol. 7, (Indiana, 1974) pp. 84–85;Google ScholarF.R.U.S., 1945, Vol. III, pp. 871–878.Google Scholar (The Foreign Office felt that American desires to establish central agencies were mainly caused by a desire to end their responsibilities in Germany.) F.O. 371/46988/302, 6418, 6496 and 6582.

7. On the breakdown of the conference see especially: Public Record Office, Kew, CAB. 128/1, CM. (45) 35, minute 1 (25 Sept.) and CAB. 129/3, C.P. (45) 202; Williams, F., A Prime Minister Remembers, (London, 1961), pp. 151–153;Google ScholarTruman, H. S., Year of Decisions, (London, 1955), pp. 453–456;Google Scholar and Byrnes, op. cit., (note 4) pp. 102–5. Molotov also wished to exclude China from certain discussions. For full documentation on London see D.B.P.O., Vol. 2.

8. On the last point see F.O. 371/46988/6583 (6 Oct.), and D.B.P.O., Vol. 2, pp. 382–8. British fears of Soviet policy in Germany have already been well-covered in Rothwell, V., Britain and the Cold War, 1941–7, (London, 1982), pp. 291–357Google Scholar; on Potsdam see D.B.P.O., Series 1, Vol 1, (London, 1984), pp. 33–4, 46–8, 69–72, 132–8, 214–5, 256–60, 410–12, 729, 920–1 and 1069–71.Google Scholar

9. House of Commons, 392 H.C. DEB.5s., col. 101.

10. These issues are fully discussed in Young, John, Britain, France and the Unity of Europe, (Leicester, 1984).Google Scholar On Bevin's European policy see also Warner, G., ‘The Labour Governments and Western Europe’ in Ovendale, R. (ed.), The Foreign Policy of the Labour Governments, 1945–51, (Leicester, 1984)Google Scholar and Greenwood, S., ‘Ernest Bevin, France and Western Union’, European History Quarterly, 14 (1984), 319–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. On the Ruhr and Germany see Bullock, A., Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary, 1945–51, (London 1983), pp. 265–266;Google ScholarMilward, A., The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945–51, (London, 1984, pp. 127–129;Google Scholar Young, op. cit. (note 10) pp. 27–33; and D.B.P.O. Vol. 2, pp. 136–41, 191–2 and 713–6.Google Scholar

12. Young, op. cit. (note 10) pp. 14–25.

13. D.B.P.O., Vol. 2, pp. 10–11 and 85–7; F.O. 371/46988/6582 (27 09).Google Scholar

14. F.O. 371/46988/302 (28 September) and 6583 (6 October); D.B.P.O., Vol. 2, pp. 484–486.Google Scholar

15. F.O. 371/46988/6651 (5 October).

16. Clay to McCloy (5 October), Smith (ed.) op. cit., (note 6) p. 91–3.

17. F.O. 371/46988/6651 (5 October).

18. Clay to War Dept. (4 10, not sent), Smith, (ed.), op. cit. (note 6) pp. 90–91.Google Scholar

19. F.O. 371/46988/6651 (minutes, especially 11 October, and memorandum). Byrnes was apparently interested in the last idea, a ‘co-ordination’ role for the ACC.

20. F.O. 371/46988/7051 (15 October).

21. F.O. 371/46988/6916 (16 October) and 7165 (16 October).

22. F.O. 371/46988/7194 (19 October).

23. F.O. 371/46988/6916 (17 November) and 7194 (22 and 24 October); F.O. 371/46989/7452 (23 October).

24. F.O. 371/46989/7659 (26 October) and see 7657 (28 October) which shows that Massigli disapproved of Couve's statement. On 29 October Strang—who had returned to London—pressed Massigli on central agencies once more: F.O. 371/46989/8381 (8 November).

25. F.O. 371/46988/6916 (17 November); F.O. 371/46989/7846 (3 November) and 8480 (19 November). Around this time the British discussed whether fear of the Soviet Union was a motive for French policy on central agencies. Field Marshall Montgomery felt that the French did fear Russian domination of a future central government in Germany. (Montgomery even suggested letting France annex all German lands up to the Rhine so as to please France and weaken Germany.) The Foreign Office had only ever heard the French mention their Russian fear on odd occasions however, and did not treat this seriously: F.O. 371/46989/8071 (30 October and 1 November).

26. Clay also talked of forming central agencies merely on an Anglo-American basis: F.O. 371/46988/7035 (16 October); F.R.U.S., 1945, Vol. III, pp. 885–886.Google Scholar

27. Record of State Department meeting (3 11), Smith, , ed., op. cit. (note 6) pp. 111–112Google Scholar; F.O. 371/46988/6916 (17 November).

28. F.O. 371/46989/8565 (19 and 20 November). Clay's suggestion had been made on 13 November. And see note 26 above on the ‘bizone’ idea.

29. Ibid. (20 and 27 November).

30. Clay to Hilldring (29 12), Smith, (ed.), op. cit., (note 6) pp. 140–141.Google Scholar

31. On the British considerations see especially their discussions in March–April, 1946 on the paper ‘Policy towards France’: F.O. 371/59952/2780; F.O. 371/59953/3625 and 3744.

32. CAB. 128/5, CM (46) 36; CAB. 129/8, CP. (46) 139.

33. F.O. 371/55401/4388 (19 April); F.O. 371/55403/5114 (1 May).

34. Clay to Echolls (8 April and 2 May) and record of press conference (27 May), Smith (ed.) op. cit. (note 6) p. 186–7, 203–4 and 128–22; F.R.U.S., 1946, Vol. V, (Washington, 1969), pp. 550–556;Google Scholar and, on the debate among historians, see Schmitt, H. (ed.), U.S. Occupation in Europe after World War II, (Kansas, 1978), pp. 67–72 and 89–91.Google Scholar

35. De Gaulle, op. cit. (note 3) p. 214. French policy was later defended by Fontaine, A., ‘Potsdam: a French view’, International Affairs, 46 (07, 1970), pp. 469–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. See Schlaim, A., Britain, the United States and the Berlin Blockade, (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 18–21.Google Scholar