THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW THE basic pattern of Allied peacemaking was unveiled at a Prussian palace in Potsdam last week when the Big 3—Generalissimo Josef Stalin, Prime Minister Clement Attlee, and...
...On the following day it was revealed that Gen...
...THE WAR IN REVIEW THE basic pattern of Allied peacemaking was unveiled at a Prussian palace in Potsdam last week when the Big 3—Generalissimo Josef Stalin, Prime Minister Clement Attlee, and President Harry Truman—released a 7,000-word document detailing the results of their 17-day conference behind locked doors...
...This is that Russia, in addition to the loot from her own zone, shall be entitled to take from areas occupied by American, Britain, and France 25 per cent of the industrial capital equipment deemed not necessary to support a German "peace economy...
...4. In the field of freedom of the press, the 3 Powers agreed that the Allied press "shall enjoy full freedom to report to the world upon developments in Poland before and during the elections...
...Yugoslavia was not even mentioned...
...The U.S.S.R...
...ATOMIC POWER UNLEASHED The prospect of greatly shortening the war in the Pacific was enhanced tremendously this week when President Truman announced the first use of an atomic bomb, described as the greatest destructive force in history...
...announces the Pact of Potsdam, "undertakes to settle the reparation claims of Poland from its own share of reparations...
...In the reparations clauses of the Potsdam statement Soviet Russia makes its domination of Poland official...
...Included in the Polish booty is the old Polish Corridor, the former Free City of Danzig, and the Baltic shipbuilding center of Stettin, which has been under German control for 225 years...
...The atomic bomb, harnessing the basic power of the universe by drawing its force as the sun draws its power, is the deadliest and most terrible weapon in all history, and unless the principles developed by scientists in studying the atom are harnessed for constructive purposes, this world-shaking development could lead to the destruction of the very civilization which produced the atomic bomb...
...Politically, the Potsdam planners provided that "all democratic political parties with rights of assembly and of public discussions shall be allowed and encouraged throughout Germany...
...Similarly, "subject to the necessity of maintaining military security," the Big 3 decreed that "freedom of sneech, press, and religion shall be permitted, and religious institutions shall be respected...
...An expert, interpretive discussion of this new development will appear in The Progressive soon...
...The single bomb, said to pack the destructive power of a 20,000-ton load carried by 2,000 Super Fortresses, was dropped over Japan by an American Air Force bomber with results that had not been officially disclosed as this issue of The Progressive went to press...
...Payment of reparations, said the Big 3, "should leave enough resources to enable the German people to subsist without external assistance...
...The Potsdam conference left many critical issues unresolved...
...The Pact of Potsdam does not complete the dismemberment of Germany or the aggrandizement of the Allies...
...OTHER POTSDAM PROVISIONS 1. The Kommandantur of Berlin, whereby control of Germany is maintained by Russian-American-British-French commanders in the German capital, is continued, but "so far as is practicable, there shall be uniformity of treatment of German population throughout Germany...
...The U.S.S.R...
...2. The Big 3 announced that they would welcome membership in the United Nations organization by the nations which remained neutral in World War II, except Franco Spain...
...The problems over the Dardanelles, Turkey, and the oil reserves of the Middle East nowhere are discussed in the declaration by the Big 3. Many major decisions were left for the proposed Council of Foreign Ministers, including, presumably, determination over Allied partition of Italian colonies...
...Regarding freedom of the press in other areas, the Big 3 were more evasive...
...It was a hard peace they drew—harsher by far than the repressive provisions of the Treaty of Versailles...
...Not once is the Near or Middle East mentioned...
...Said they: "The 3 governments have no doubt that in view of the changed conditions resulting from the termination of the war in Europe, representatives of the Allied press will enjoy full freedom to report to the world upon developments in Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Finland...
...STATUS OF GERM ANY The Pact of Potsdam establishes the principle that "in organizing the German economy, primary emphasis shall be given to the development of agriculture and peaceful domestic industries...
...Poland's western frontier will run to within a few miles of Berlin itself, along the Oder and the western Neisse Rivers to the Czechoslovakia frontier...
...The Pact of Potsdam provides for the complete disarmament of Germany—which eery non-Nazi everywhere applauds—but in plan-m"n«r for this purpose, the Big 3 ordered the deindus-tr'alization of Germany, the looting of her factories by the Allies, principally Russia, and the saddling of such fantastic economic restrictions on conquered Germany as to render her reconstruction as a stable, democratic force in Europe virtually impossible...
...Russia generously agreed to waive all claims to the German gold seized by the Allies, preferring instead the right to strip Germany of factories, machines, machine tools, and equipment desired by the Soviet Union for her own development and expansion...
...President Truman revealed as he sailed for home that powerful new blows to speed complete defeat of Japan and liberation of Japanese-held territories were planned by the Anglo-American high commands at Potsdam...
...Italy is listed as deserving of early Big 3 attention because, among other things, "she has now joined with the Allies in the struggle against Ja...
...REPARATIONS The 3 victorious Powers agreed to exact their separate reparations from Germany only in the separate zones which each of the Big 3 occupy and from "appropriate external assets," with one major exception...
...The Big 3 asserted that they were determined to wine out German Nazism and militarism for all time, but they assured the world that "it is not the intention of the Allies to destroy or enslave the German people...
...It decreed the stripping of German factories— for the benefit of Russia—so as to leave Germany helpless not only to wage war, but to rebuild a great industrial economy...
...Nevertheless, despite this pious assurance, the Big 3 viroceeded to make it as difficult as they could to enable the democratic forces in Germany to lead the way to reconstruction...
...Among the principal provisions in the Potsdam statement were these: * * * TERRITORIAL AGGRANDIZEMENT Soviet Russia and her satellite, Poland, emerged from Potsdam with huge slices of German territory...
...3. The Messrs...
...1. As its major task, "the Council shall be authorized to draw up, with a view to their submission to the United Nations, treaties of peace with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Finland, and to propose settlements of territorial questions outstanding on the termination of the war in Europe...
...The claims of France, Belgium, and Holland on Germany's western frontier have not yet been filled by the conquerors...
...Soviet-dominated Poland also did handsomely at Potsdam...
...already enriched by many thousands of souare miles wrested from old Poland under the terms of her pact with the Nazis, grabbed an additional 5.400 miles of East Prussia at Potsdam, and won Att-lee-Truman acceptance of her demand for the ice-free German port of Koenigsberg...
...The Pact of Potsdam carved off great sections of Germany and handed them to Soviet Russia and Poland...
...However, "for the time being there can be no central German government...
...Also, the 3 Powers approved the decision of the Polish provisional government to hold "free and unfettered elections as soon as possible and on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot in which all democratic and anti-Nazi parties shall have the right to take part and to put forward candidates...
...Local self-government is ordered restored throughout Germany on democratic principles and in particular "through elective councils as rapidly as is consistent with military security and the purposes of military occupation...
...COUNCIL OF FOREIGN MINISTERS The Big 3 created a Council of Foreign Ministers, on which France and China would also be represented, to meet regularly in London, beginning Sept...
...It is the intention of the Allies that the German people be given the opportunity to prepare for the eventual reconstruction of their lives on a democratic and peaceful basis...
...She was given those parts of East Prussia which the Russians didn't take, Pomerania, and mouth-filling slices of West Prussia, and Upper and Lower Silesia...
...Truman and Attlee placed their stamp of approval on Stalin's Polish regime and reaffirmed their decision to have nothing to do with the London Polish group...
...RUSSIA AND THE SECOND FRONT Although the prospect of a second-front against Japan is dangled before Americans everytime there is a Big 3 conference, there was no more specific action taken at Potsdam than at Yalta or Teheran...
...Douglas MacArthur had been placed in command of the entire Ryukyu Island chain south of Japan as a base "from which a mighty invasion force is being forged" for the final conquest of Japan...
...The Russians remained silent regarding the war in the Pacific, and in all the Pact of Potsdam, the only mention of Japan appears, oddly enough, in the section dealing with Italy...
Vol. 9 • August 1945 • No. 33
