First Contacts between East and West
One pretext for the Allied conference was to enforce the zones decreed at Yalta. The Allies had all ended up in the wrong places: the French had been in Stuttgart; the Americans were in Thuringia and had advanced to Halle in Saxony; the British had occupied the western half of Mecklenburg, while other American units had crossed the Harz Mountains to reach Magdeburg on the Elbe. This so-called Magdeburg Pocket was due to the Soviets. The Allied zones remained fluid until just before Potsdam, and there was a good deal of idle speculation about who would fall to whom. Even at the beginning of September it was still not clear to Berliners who was where. It was said that the Russians were to evacuate Eisenach and Jena and that the British had control of the airport in Erfurt (all three were in the Russian Zone). The British were to receive Thuringia, they heard, and the Russians would be compensated in East Asia. The Western Allies were forced to retreat to positions previously agreed by the politicians at Yalta behind the Elbe and the Harz. The generals grumbled. In their enthusiasm to take back their rightful territory, the Russians also attempted to grab Coburg in Franconia, probably because they thought the town was in Thuringia. This led to a stand-off with the Americans.
On 11 July 1945, Margret Boveri reported a fresh wave of arrests connected with the conference. The neighbouring communes were being cleared of Germans to make room for the delegates. Babelsberg was already purged, now it was the turn of Wannsee. Intellectuals were the main targets, Pgs or non-Pgs. Pace Hanna Grisebach, there were disadvantages to their academic status.
The conference proved a chance to survey the behaviour in the Allied camps. There was bad blood on both sides. The Soviets still believed that they had done the lion’s share of the fighting and borne the brunt of the losses. The East did not trust the West, and vice versa. The Russians believed that the Western Allies were merely taking a breather before they attacked the Soviet Union and that they had kept their options open throughout the war by conducting secret negotiations with the Germans. That channels were open is undoubtedly true, and the Soviet authorities had been informed of the fact by the British intelligence officer Kim Philby and others. The Russians said they were not allowed to interview all the prisoners held by the West. But they were allowed to talk to a number of them and ‘the records of the interrogations confirmed that there had been some backstage negotiations between the Nazis and the US and British Intelligence about the possibility of a separate peace.’10 The Russians had also held talks with the Germans.11
There were advocates for war against the Soviet Union in both the British and American camps, but how far up they went was concealed during the Cold War. The Hitler Book, prepared for Stalin from interrogations with high-ranking German POWs in 1948, abounds with accusations of Western Allied perfidy.12 Some British generals, notably Montgomery, were anxious to push on against the Russians. This had been supported by Churchill, but the plans would have been leaked to the Russians by Donald Maclean of the British Foreign Office, adding to the feeling of distrust that existed among the Big Three. In 1945 the Russians believed the British were holding back a substantial German army for use in the next campaign and for that reason had omitted to disarm German forces in their zone. At Potsdam Zhukov made a formal protest, claiming the British were keeping the 200,000-man Army Group North in readiness and that a million men in Schleswig-Holsteinej had not been given POW status.13 The Americans were rounding up scientists and taking them back to the United States to use in - among other things - their atom-bomb programme.14 That the Russians were hardly averse to this themselves does not figure in Zhukov’s memoirs. The Russians believed that the Anglo-Americans had intentionally failed to bomb targets that would be of use to them later. One example of this was the headquarters of IG Farben in Frankfurt, which was virtually intact - so much so, in fact, that the Americans took it over as their own HQ.15
Truman had no desire to continue the war against the Soviet Union and agreed to fall back to the lines agreed by the Big Three at Yalta. Churchill now expressed ‘profound misgivings’ in a cable to the president.16 These pieces of territory might have been used for bargaining, for example, on the Oder and Neisse rivers. There was a little warm-up for Potsdam in Berlin on 5 June when Montgomery and William Strang from Britain, Eisenhower, Clay and Robert Murphy from the United States, and the French commander de Lattre de Tassigny were invited to settle the government of the city at Zhukov’s HQ in Karlshorst. The Anglo-American generals were then invested with the Order of Victory, while de Lattre de Tassigny had to make do with the Order of Suvorov First Class.17 Clay gave Zhukov the Legion of Merit.18
The inferior decoration handed out to de Lattre was emblematic of the status of the fourth ally: France was not invited to Potsdam.ek It was ‘a bitter blow to French pride’.19 Truman had given the French assurances that their wishes would be noted and their arguments put forward, but they had not endeared themselves to the Americans through their behaviour: they had occupied Stuttgart and the Italian Val d’Aosta and they had indulged in colonial rivalry with the British in the Levant. The French had forgotten nothing, and learned nothing. In 1919 they had taken 50 per cent of Germany’s reparations; now they demanded machines, coal and labour, as well as the restitution of all that the Germans had taken from them. The French were desperately angling for the Ruhr with its natural resources and heavy industry, but the incoming foreign secretary Bevin and the British in general did not want to give an inch, fearing that the Russians would also claim their pound of flesh.20
At the Berlin meeting Germany formally ceased to exist as an independent nation. The Allies signed the Declaration of Defeat and Assumption of Sovereignty. The four powers also agreed the form of the Allied Control Council that was to rule Germany, but the Russians made it clear that the Western Allies would not be allowed to take up their sectors in the capital until they had complied with Yalta: they had to fall back behind the River Elbe and the Harz Mountains. Western politicians wanted this decision to be taken by the Control Council, but Eisenhower (who was impressed by Zhukov) was in favour of giving in to the Russians, and Truman’s emissary Harry Hopkins had discussed this quid pro quo in Moscow.21 Zhukov believed that the Western Allies were prepared to accept this loss of territory because they were still anxious for the Russians to play a military role in the war in the Far East.22 Ursula von Kardorff already had a fair idea of the future Russian Zone on 11 June - Weimar, Leipzig, Dresden - and doubted Stalin’s credentials as a ‘benefactor of mankind’. The zones were ratified on 26 July. 23
Zhukov also had a meeting with Hopkins the next day, 12 June. Hopkins had flown in from two weeks in Moscow, where he had had six meetings with Stalin to discuss the UN Charter among other things and the chance of fitting in a few non-communists in the government of the Lublin Poles. Otherwise his task had been to reassure the Russian leader that the United States had no foreign political ambitions in Europe, thereby leaving him a free hand in Poland and Austria. Hopkins had not consulted Churchill, whom Truman was holding at arm’s length, while he refused to speed up the scheduled talks. Members of Truman’s entourage, however, took a completely different view, arguing for a showdown with Russia. These included Harriman, Forrestal and Leahy.24
Stalin and Molotov backed four or five of Hopkins’s Poles, who later had to flee for their lives. On the way out Hopkins’s aircraft had flown over Berlin. Seeing the ruins he remarked, ‘It’s another Carthage.’25 He was sympathetic towards the Russians, and regretted the former president’s sudden death. He had no close relationship with Truman: ‘It is a pity President Roosevelt didn’t live to see these days. It was easier with him.’26 Hopkins told Zhukov that the Americans would not be ready for 15 June and that they would need to postpone the leaders’ conference for another month, until 15 July. Zhukov proposed Potsdam because there was no suitable building in Berlin in a good enough state of repair. The only place in Potsdam was the crown prince’s palace, but there was the advantage of Babelsberg,
a largely undamaged area of villas that had been inhabited by film-folk and politicians in Weimar times.27
The themes on the agenda were the political and economic future of Germany, denazification, demilitarisation and decentralisation, Germany’s eastern border, the status of Königsberg and East Prussia. Austria was also on the agenda, as well as all the other former belligerent powers. Zhukov took Hopkins and his assistant Charles ‘Chip’ Bohlen on a tour of the ruined city and afterwards there was a buffet lunch that was ‘light on food, heavy on vodka’.28
Hopkins had been present at Yalta, and knew his old master’s mind. He had been sent to deal with de Gaulle, which he clearly found an onerous duty. When Roosevelt’s interpreter at the conference, Chip Bohlen, had said, ‘We can all admit that de Gaulle is one of the biggest sons of bitches who ever straddled a pot,’29 the late president had laughed. Roosevelt was insistent that de Gaulle should not receive a place at the top table. Churchill had to present the French case and obtain an occupation zone in Germany. Stalin only agreed as long as it took nothing away from his portion. What is striking is how little fight the Western Allies put up against the Russian leader even at Yalta. Hopkins had advised Roosevelt to accept Stalin’s huge reparations demands,30 and when America and Britain gave way on Poland’s western borders, it is not clear they knew exactly what was involved.
Churchill had tried to settle the Polish issue before the Red Army arrived, but Russia’s might had won the day. He had had a change of heart. On 15 December 1944 he had been quite open about the complete expulsion of Germans from the eastern territories, but he was worried about numbers. It appeared that he thought six million was the upper limit, and now he learned that the figure would be eight or nine, which was completely impossible to effect.31 Churchill clung to his Wismar pocket as a bargaining counter, and on 9 June 1945 he cabled Truman to advise him to do the same and hold on to American positions in Thuringia and Saxony. He might have hoped for a better rapport with Truman, as his relations with Roosevelt had been strained at the end of the late president’s life. He told Truman not to consider withdrawing until the Austrian question had been properly settled. On 14 June Truman cabled Stalin, however, and agreed to move his troops back to the Elbe. Churchill had no alternative now but to comply with his ally’s decision. He now informed Stalin that the British would be gone by the 15th. Stalin then played for more time. He requested that the Allies wait until 1 July before taking up their lines in Berlin. There were mines to be cleared, and other chores to be effected first.32
They should have known what they were in for by now - Stalin had already shown his hand in eastern Europe. Czechoslovakia was a case in point. The government in exile had taken leave of King George VI on 15 February and left England on 12 March. On 19 March Beneš and Masaryk were in Moscow. On 6 April they arrived in Prague to be welcomed with bread and salt. On 9 April an interim government was set up under Zdenek Fierlinger with representatives of the four parties and four non-party members. The highest goal was co-operation with Moscow.
The Poles had been obliged to accept the Curzon Line in the east, but on 21 July 1944 Stalin was able to placate the Lublin government by dangling compensation in front of their eyes, in the form of German territory in the west. Churchill and Roosevelt had raised no objection to the Oder-Neisse Line at Yalta, although there had been misgivings about giving the Poles such a large amount of German territory and it was left that land would be found for them in the west and north. The Poles were well aware of what they wanted from the Potsdam conference. The Lublin regime had formally stated that they wanted the Oder-Neisse on 5 February 1945. As Władisław Gomułka put it, ‘we must expel all the Germans because countries are built on national lines and not on multinational ones’.33
The issue was scheduled for review at Potsdam. The reason why the Russians had stood by and watched the Warsaw Uprising from the other side of the Vistula was that they wanted those elements out of the way that were not in favour of a communist or pro-Moscow Poland. The Western Allies continued to support the regime in exile in London. The sixteen London government emissaries who went to Moscow to enquire about possible collaboration were arrested. Meanwhile the Lublin men trotted along behind the Red Army. In March 1945 they created five new Polish woiwode: Masuria, Pomerania, Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia and Danzig. They were already referring to the areas as the ‘Recovered Territories’. The move resulted in protests from Washington: there had to be peace talks first!34
In their policy of demontage and cultural pillage, the Russians showed no desire to co-operate with the West. Some of the Soviet generals, such as Bulganin, thought like Montgomery - they had won a battle, not the war. Fascism had to be defeated, particularly in America. ‘America is now the arch-enemy!’ said Bulganin on the eve of the storming of Berlin. ‘We have destroyed the foundations of fascism, now we must destroy the foundations of capitalism - America.’ In cultural terms this was expressed by the Russian officer Vladimir Yurasov prior to the Western Allies’ arrival in Berlin: ‘Take everything out of the Western Sector of Berlin. Do you understand? All of it! What you can’t take, destroy. Only leave nothing for the [Western] Allies: no machine, not even a single bed; not even a chamber pot!’35 Berlin and its industrial satellites were being stripped bare: the hardware of companies such as Osram and Siemens, of the telephone exchanges, of the S-Bahn and so on, right down to their typewriters, was being loaded up and shipped back to Russia.
The Russian leader was also wary of American and British attempts to promote capitalism. The American minister responsible for Germany was John McCloy, who was a banker in normal life. He had some sympathy for the defeated Germans in that his wife had been born in Germany. In opposition to the Morgenthau view (which was essentially behind demontage) McCloy encouraged the rebuilding of Germany. Morgenthau had not abandoned his famous plan. In 1945 he published Germany is our Problem. Truman had been opposed to the plan even as a senator, so he was happy to listen to McCloy. Another opponent of Morgenthau was the secretary of war Henry Stimson, who thought the secretary for the Treasury ‘biased in his semitic grievances’. The day before his departure for Potsdam, Truman accepted Morgenthau’s resignation, commenting, ‘That was the end of the conversation and the end of the Morgenthau Plan.’ On the other hand the plan was still present in the minds of many of the soldiers, and their desire to lay waste to Germany had been sharpened by what they had seen in the concentration camps.36
In their recorded statements the Russians showed themselves more sympathetic to the conquered Germans. Anastas Mikoyan, then vice-president of the Council of People’s Commissars, expressed the view in an interview with Pravda, which found its way into The Times: ‘We have crushed Hitler’s armies in fierce combat and taken Berlin, but our moral sense and our traditions do not allow us to ignore the suffering and privations of the German civilian population.’ It was a far cry from the realities of life under Soviet dominion. Germans also clung to the comforting line of Stalin’s - ‘Hitlers come and go, but the German people remain.’37
It was also becoming clear how little the Anglo-Americans could trust Stalin. The Russians had occupied the Danish island of Bornholm, which, they said, lay to the east of the line of their own sphere of influence. The truce in Hungary was signed without any participation of the Western Allies, and at the time of Potsdam the west had yet to be allowed into Vienna. Just how much Stalin was lying at Potsdam is clear from an exchange between Clay and Zhukov on 7 July, just ten days before the meeting of the Big Three. Zhukov informed the American general that Silesia had already been turned over to the Poles; ‘the Germans had moved out of the area in such huge numbers that there is little agriculture remaining for this area’. The Russians did not even have access to the coal, said Zhukov. They had to pay for it like everyone else. The British and the Americans were having to supply the Germans with 20,000 tons of food every month. The loss of Silesia was therefore highly significant. The United States had already protested about the hand
ing over of Silesia to the Poles.38
At the Cecilienhof - the palace of the Prussian crown prince and the venue for the Potsdam Conference - the Russians planted a great red star of geraniums, pink roses and hortensias in the flower bed at the entrance.39 Inside the house there were frantic preparations for the arrival of the Big Three.40 The different quarters were to be colour-coded: blue for the Americans, white for the Russians and pink for the British. The conference table had been specially made in the Lux Factory in Moscow.41 The Russians and the Americans were already observing one another from either side of the Glienecke Bridge, as they were to do until the end of the Cold War.
In Potsdam itself Hanna Grisebach and her family were made aware of the coming of the Big Three by increased security around the Neue Garten and the Cecilienhof. They were lucky enough to be on the far side of the Heiligensee. All the streets leading directly to the palace had to be evacuated. GPU carried out a wave of arrests and a sentry was posted in their garden. There were one or two advantages: the Russians quickly laid out a new street and a bridge was thrown across the Havel to Babelsberg where the leaders were staying. A pontoon bridge was also put up to allow access to Sacrow and the airport at Gatow. Russian soldiers rode bareback and naked into the waters of the lakes, reminding Hanna of centaurs, but she was less pleased to find herself under house arrest from 16 July, living in a state of impotent rage while she observed the Red Army guard knocking twenty-five kilos of unripe apricots off their tree in the garden. Any attempt to go out was greeted by cries of ‘Dvai-Dvai! Zuhrick nah Haus!’ (Quick, quick! Back in the house!). When an aircraft flew low over their street she hoped it was the British and American leaders going home.42
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