Future of Germany

Report Outline
German Problem and the Foreign Ministers
Four-Power Rule of Occupied Germany
Future Extent and Structure of Germany

German Problem and the Foreign Ministers

Before the Council of Foreign Ministers winds up the meeting it is scheduled to open in New York on Nov. 4, it will decide the time and place for a future meeting to take up the long-delayed question of a peace settlement with Germany. There is still no German government to sign a peace treaty, and the end of the Allied occupation is not in sight. However, failure to settle such questions as the future frontiers of the country, the form of the new German state, and the obligations it will be required to assume is complicating the task of the occupying authorities and retarding the recovery of Europe in general. Settlement of the German problem, it is generally agreed, is a necessary prerequisite to solution of numerous other European problems.

Byrnes' Plea for Early German Settlement

Secretary of State Byrnes outlined American policy toward Germany in an address at Stuttgart on Sept. 6, 1946.

More than a year has passed since hostilities ceased [he said]. The millions of German people should not be forced to live in doubt as to their fate. It is the view of the American government that the Allies should, without delay, make clear to the German people the essential terms of the peace settlement which they expect the German people to accept and observe. It is our view that the German people should now be permitted and helped to make the necessary preparations for setting up of a democratic German government which can accept and observe these terms.