860C.014/4–1045: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 10—5:05 p.m.]
1116. ReDepts 791, April 4, 6 p.m. and reEmbs 1091, April 9, 9 a.m. Clark Kerr has just given me a copy of a letter received from Molotov expressing the latter’s surprise at the request Clark Kerr had sent him on March 25 requesting information about the transfer of Silesia to Polish administration.
Molotov stated that the German population of both Polish and German Silesia had withdrawn with the retreating German Army and that only the Polish population remains so that it is most desirable for the civil administration to be in the hands of Polish administrators. He contended that this did not conflict in any way with the agreements reached by the three Governments regarding the occupation of and the control machinery for Germany since neither these agreements nor the Crimea decision treated with the question of administration in occupied German territory. Referring to the Crimea decision relative to the final settlement of the western Polish boundary which is to be postponed until the peace conference, Molotov stated that this had no relation to the present question since the organization under the above-mentioned circumstances of the Polish administration in the ancient Polish territory of Silesia cannot in any way be connected with, nor is it to be identified with, the question of the future frontiers of the Polish state.