POLAND BEDEVILS THE POTSDAM CONFERENCE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27224, 16 December 1953, Page 10

POLAND BEDEVILS THE POTSDAM CONFERENCE

“TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY”

tB» the Kt. Hob. Sir WINSTOW CHUBCHIIXI XL VI

Victory over Japan was neither &e most difficult nor perhaps the of the problems which counted us at the Potsdam Confer-

Germanv had collapsed; Europe must ■be rebuilt. The soldier must go ho “ e and the refugee return, if he could, ito Above .all, the nations ■must make a peace in which toe. : could live together, if not m comfortat anv rate in freedom and safetj. i I do not intend to recount our de- : tailed exchanges in formal conference and in private conversation on aU toe urgent and multitudinous questions whdeh pressed upon us. Many of '•them are still unsolved. _ Poland, for whom Britain went to war is neither free nor quiet; GerImany is still divided; there is no peace with Russia. Russia s share of Poland. Poland’s share of German?, land the place of Germany and the ■Soviet Union in the world, such were ■the topics which dominated our dis- ■ SiioS. and to which, for reasons • O f soace this account must be limited. We had agreed at Yalta ■should advance her western frontier into Poland as far as tne Curzon Line.” We had always recognised mat ! Poland in her turn should receive ; substantial accessions of German tem-

tO -fhe question was. how much? How far into Germany should she go? There had been much disagreement. I Stalin had wanted to extend the western frontier of Poland along the river Oder to where it joined the Western ■ Neisse; Roosevelt, Eden, and I insisted it should stop at the Eastern heads of Governments had i publicly bound themselves at Yalta to Iconsuit the Polish Government, and to leave it to toe Peace Conference ’for final settlement.

Vast Population Movements This was toe best we had been able to do. But in July, 1945, we faced la new situation. Russia had advanced iher frontier to the Curzon Line This f meant, as Roosevelt and I had realised, that the 3,000,000 or 4.000.00) Poles who lived on toe wrong siae of the line would have to be moved to toe > West. ... Now we were confronted wito ( ' something much worse. The Sovietdominated Government of Poland had algo pressed forward not to the Eastern Naisse, but toe Western. Much of this territory was inhabited by Germans, and although several millions had fled, manv had stayed behind. What was to be done with them? Moving 3,000,000 or 4.000.000 Poles was i bad enough. Were we to move more than 8.000,000 Germans as well? Even if such a transfer could be I contemplated, there was not enough food for them in what was left of I Germany. Much of Germany’s grain i came from the very land which toe Poles had seized, and if this was denied . us, toe Western Allies would be left : with wrecked industrial zones and a starved and swollen population. For the future peace of Europe here was a wrong beside which AlsaceLorraine and the Danzig Corridor were • trifles. One day the Germans would! want their territory back, and the' Poles would not be able to stop them. | The Press and the Conference i The first plenary session of the con- i ference was held at 5 o’clock on the; afternoon of Tuesday, July 17 [19453. Stalin pronosed that the President should take* the chair. I supported this,. and Mr Truman accepted our invitation. A number of lesser problems i • then appeared. When the conference met for its ' second session at 5 o’clock on the, iafternoon of July 18. I at once raised; i another matter which, though outside i Itoe agenda, was of immediate importance. i At Teheran it had been very difficult for the press to get hear the meeting place, and at Yalta it had i : been impossible. But now. immediately outside the delegation area, there were ! 180 journalists prowling around in a ; state of furious indignation. They car- ! ried very powerful weapons and were . making a great outcry in the world press about the lack of facilities accorded to them.

I offered to see the press men myself and explain why they had to be excluded and why nothing could be ,divulged until the conference ended. Stalin irritably asked what all the journalists wanted, and Mr Truman said that each of us had his own representative to stand between him and the press. We had agreed to exclude them and matters should be left as they were. I submitted to the majority, but I thought and still think that a public explanation would have been better. We turned to Poland.

Return of the Emigres Sought I asked the indulgence of the President to unfold an important matter, because our position with regard to it was unique—namely, the demobilisation or transfer to their homeland of the Polish forces that had fought with us in the war.

I continued that our policy was to persuade as many as possible, not only of the soldiers but also of the civilian employees of the late Polish Government, to go back to their country. But we must have a little time to get over our difficulties. Of course, the better the conditions in Poland the more Poles would go back, and it would help £f the new Polish Government would

assure them their livelihood and freedom and would not victimise them for their former allegiance.

Stalin said he appreciated our problems. We had sheltered the former rulers of Poland, and in spite of our hospitality they had caused us many : difficulties. But the London Polish Government still existed. They had means of continuing their activities in the press and elsewhere, and they, had their agents. This made a bad impression on all the Allies. I said we must face facts. The Lon- 1 don Government was liquidated in the official and diplomatic sense, but it was impossible to stop its individual members living and talking to people, including journalists and former sympathisers. I asked Stalin to put his trust and confidence in His Majesty’s Government and give us a reasonable time. Mr Truman declared .that he saw no fundamental differences between us. I had asked for a reasonable amount of time, and Stalin had undertaken to

drop anv of his proposals wnjc-n vtu u complicate the issue. The best thing was for toe Foreign Secretaries to discuss these points; but he hoped the Yalta agreement would be carried out as soon as possible.

Polish Occupation of Germany We did not return to Poland till our fifth meeting, on July 21. The Soviet delegation wanted Poland’s western frontier to run to toe west of Swinemunde, as far as the Oder river leaving Stettin on the Polish side, then up the river Oder to the estuarv of the Western Neisse, and from * there along its course to Czechoslovakia. Mr Truman recalled that we had agreed to divide Germany into four zones of occupation, based on her 1937 frontiers. The British and the Americans had moved their troops back ’into their zones, but apparently the Soviet Government had given the

Poles a zone of their own without consulting us. Unless this zone counted as part of Germany how could we settle reparations and all other German questions? Stalin denied giving the Poles a zone of their own. He declared that the Soviet Government had not been able to stop them. The German population had retreated westwards with the German armies. Only toe Poles •remained. The Soviet armies needed ' someone to administer their rear ■areas. They were not accustomed to fight and clear territory and set up their own administration at the same I time Why not let the Poles do it? Reparations “We ought to keep to the zones we agreed at Yalta.” said toe President I “If we won’t reparations and all sorts of matters will be difficult to settle.” “We are not worried about repar- : ations,” said Stalin. ‘•The United States will get none. I anyhow,” answered Mr Truman, "but they will also try to avoid paying anything.” : “Nothing definite was fixed at Yalta I about the western frontier,” said Stalin. ■"None of us are bound.”

This was true. The President gaid be did not think we could settle the matter now. It would have to wait for the Peace Conference. "It will be still more difficult.” said Stalin, “to restore a German administration.” "You can use a Polish one in your own zone of occupation in Germany,” said the President. “That is all very well,” was Stalin’s answer, “but the Germans have fled and the natural and indeed toe onlysolution is to set up a friendly administration of Poles. This does not commit us to any particular boundary, and if the conference cannot agree about one it can remain in suspense.” "Can it?” I interrupted. “These are very important areas for feeding Germany.” “Who will produce the grain?” countered Stalin. “There is nobody left to plough toe land except Poles.” “What has become of the Germans?” we both asked.

Problem of Feeding Germans I had taken little part in these interchanges. but now I spoke. How, I asked, were we to feed the Germans who had fled? A quarter of Germany's arable land would be lost If the area suggested by Britain and America was given to Poland, about 3.000.000 or 4.000.000 Poles would have to be moved; but the Soviet plan would mean shifting: more than 8.000.000 Germans. Would there be room for them an. what was left of k Germany?

I was not even sure that Stalin was right that aH the Germans had fied. Some people thought that more than 2.000.000 were still there. Stalin thereupon challenged my figures, saying that the Germans had called up many men from these regions. The rest had fled. The President still wanted us to leave the western frontier to the Peace Conference, but I persisted.

Poland. I said, deserved compensation for the land east of the Curzon Line which she was going to lose to Russia, but she was now claiming more than she had given up. It would do Poland no good to acquire so much extra territory. If the Germans had i run away from it they should be allowed to go back. The Poles had no right to risk a catastrophe in feeding Germany. "Germany has always had to import : food.” said Stalin. “Let her buy it ifrom Poland.” The British View “His Majesty’s Government” I answered, "can never admit that East German territory over-run in the war has become Polish.” i “But Poles inhabit it” said Stalin, I “and cultivate the land. We can't compel them to produce bread and ! give it away to the Germans.” I protested that these were sot i normal times. The Poles were apparselling Silesian coal to Sweden ; while Great Britain was having the ! worst fuel shortage of any time duri ing the war. Food and fuel frooi

the Germany of the 1937 frontiers should be available for all Germans within them, irrespective of the zone in which they lived. Stalin asked who was to prccuse the coal. The Germans were net producing it, but the Poles wert_ P 2 ® German proprietors of the Silesian coalfield had fled. If they came back the Poles would probably hang them. I reminded him of his remark at a previous meeting about not allowing memories of injuries or feelings of retribution to govern our policy, and I asked him to realise what we were faced with, namely, a large number of Germans dumped in our zone who could only be fed from the area whicn s the Poles had occupied. Stalin said that his remarks before :did not applv to war criminals. Bd* not all the '8.250.000 who have fled are war criminals:” I answered. He , then said he meant the German .owners iof the Silesian coalmines. Russia ner- ‘ self was short of coal and was buym* it from Poland. Here Mr Truman supported me. (To be continued) (Copyright 1953 in U.S A- *by the New York Times Company ana Time Inc. (publishers of Life); in the British Empire by inDaily Telegraph Ltd.: elsewhere o. International Co-operation Press vice Inc. World right reserved. Rproduction in whole, or in part, in any language strictly prohibited).