Office of the Historian

740.00119 (Potsdam)/7–3045

No. 1051
Proposal by the British Delegation1

[Babelsberg,] July 30, 1945.

Source of Supply for the Zones of Occupation, Including the Greater Berlin Area

British Proposal

(a) As a general principle in the absence of special reasons for the contrary, each of the Zones of Occupation, including the Greater Berlin Area, will draw its supplies as far as practicable from the areas of Germany on which it had drawn before the war.

(b) Food—During the period until the 1946 harvest is available for consumption, it is recognized that the Zone of Occupation for which the Soviet Government are responsible may have little or no surplus foodstuffs to supply to the Western Zones. But during this period the Zone of Occupation for which the Soviet Government are responsible should supply enough food to ensure that this Zone and the whole of the Greater Berlin Area will be self-supporting and will maintain a nutritional standard up to the minimum level established by the Control Council for Germany as a whole without foodstuffs having to be imported from the Western Zones.

From the 1946 harvest onwards, the Zone of Occupation for which the Soviet Government are responsible should provide for supplies to the Greater Berlin Area and also to the Western Zone to approximately such extent as was customary in the past. This follows as a result of the general principle of treating Germany as a single economic unit.

(c) Coal—That part of German territory within the 1937 frontiers which is administered at present by Poland should supply 5 million [Page 1034] tons of hard coal a year to the Western Zones and to the Greater Berlin Area for a period of 3 years.

(d) Alternatively, an agreement covering specific quantities of food and coal and other fuel should be worked out by the Control Council, and when such an agreement has been concluded, this agreement and the agreement that the Soviet Government should obtain industrial plant from the Western Zones and, particularly, from the Ruhr,2 will come into operation simultaneously.

  1. Attachment 3 to the summary of the Tenth Meeting of the Foreign Ministers, July 30. See ante, pp. 486, 497.↩
  2. Cf. document No. 960.↩