762.022/7–2353
No. 638
Memorandum by Coburn Kidd of the
Office of German Political Affairs to the Counselor of the
Department of State (MacArthur)
personal
Apropos of our conversation Wednesday about current difficulties,1 especially in the German part of the picture, it seems to me that there is one source of trouble which people do not give near enough attention to: the Saar. No one talks very much about the Saar. M. Bidault and French candidates for investiture say that this is of course a precondition for ratification, which can be taken up again with Adenauer after the German elections. Adenauer says that, understandably, no one would expect him to go into the subject at this time, until after the elections. The British and we say that we should be glad to endorse any solution mutually acceptable to the French and Germans, but they must by no means allow this problem to stand in the way of bigger things. In short, we all act as though this were a rather small unmentionable case of piles in the body-politic of Europe, whereas in fact it may be a fistula as large as that from which Cardinal Richelieu was reputed to have suffered.
I can illustrate the point by something Gruber told me in Vienna a year ago. Koudryavtsev, the Soviet Political Adviser, told Gruber one day that the Soviet Union had been much concerned at the efforts being made by the Western Powers to create the EDC and bring Germany into it, since it was obviously an aggressive military [Page 1450] pact aimed at the Soviet Union. They had been concerned, he said, until they learned that in connection with the negotiations Adenauer and Schuman had begun discussions about a settlement of the Saar. The Soviet Union felt that, with the Saar issue involved, there was much less reason to fear that the EDC need be taken seriously within the foreseeable future.
The relevance of Koudryavtsev’s remark, it seems to me, is borne out by a number of things. We could not have any serious discussion of a German settlement with the Soviets because the three Western Powers have never agreed on a number of most fundamental points with regard to their German policy. We are so far apart that many things are never even discussed. The furthest separation is between ourselves and the French, but the British are affected by it and share the general malaise.
The symptoms are an impossibility to obtain agreement with the French, not only on big things like the EDC and general German policy, but on a host of little things which sometimes very nearly fill the basket—electrical equipment from Berlin, border police, unfinished rivets for Dutch planes, small patrol boats, German assets in Greece, war criminals, AR questionnaires, OSP, Foreign Legion recruiting, pistol licenses for 32 distinguished Berliners, etc., etc.
In seeking the cause of this state of things, I have no doubt that there are many intangible factors, which add up to “the Frenchman’s state of mind”, that are contributing causes; but I am struck with the fact that Bidault once came forward with something quite concrete and specific, and fought his battle for it openly for two years (from September 1945 through 1947), with every indication that this was the keystone of French policy toward Germany. His proposition was “separation of the Ruhr, the Rhineland, and the Saar”. The French lost the trick on the Ruhr and the Rhineland; I think that their feelings and their policy may be summed up as “damned if we are going to lose the trick on the Saar”. The war would not be regarded as having been worth fighting if they do not at least get that much out of it (as President Auriol said in almost so many words to Ambassador Dillon last month). From the first meeting of the Control Council in 1945 until it broke up in 1948 General Koenig blocked every attempt to create central German governmental agencies, or to associate the French with “Bizonia” or “Trizonia”, on the grounds that “questions of this nature could only be discussed after the Western frontiers of Germany had been settled”.
My point is that this earlier French policy may by no means be discounted as merely a passing phase, but, at least so far as the Saar is concerned, must be regarded as still the French position, now much strengthened by force of habit. I would wager, at liberal [Page 1451] odds, that after a conference with the Soviets has been held (if it will be held), and has failed, and we ask the French “Now will you ratify the EDC?”, their reply will be: “Not until we are satisfied with respect to the Saar—and if you are really anxious for us to act, you might bring pressure to bear upon Adenauer in order for him to make it possible for us to ratify.”
The result is that neither tripartite agreement on fundamental German problems nor the coming into effect of the EDC may be possible so long as the Saar problem is outstanding.
I have no idea what to do about it. In the good old days Bismarck could have made a deal with Napoleon III to give him the Saar in exchange for support for recovery of the Oder-Neisse. I believe that certain confidential remarks of Adenauer lead Dr. Conant to believe that Adenauer can make the necessary concessions after the elections. Any so-called concessions that have been made up till now, from either side, have been finely calculated, not to obtain agreement but to make the other side look unreasonable in the eyes of the British and the U.S.
I am very skeptical about Adenauer’s making the “necessary” concessions. The problem is partly political, partly economic. The Germans would probably make rather substantial economic concessions if they could feel assured that they would not, in the long run (5 or 10 years), politically lose the Saar, i.e. the Saar to remain German territory or have the possibility of opting for Germany. This is precisely what the French are interested in preventing. Among the reasons why the Germans will not give, in any final sense, on the political side, is that they might thereby seriously prejudice their case, such as it is, for recovery of the Oder-Neisse areas. In the pre-Bermuda conferences we gladly passed over the subject of frontiers as almost too disagreeable to talk about. In the attached position paper,2 especially the Annex on the history of the problem, I have tried to show exactly how disagreeable it is.
In the case of both the Saar and the Oder-Neisse there is the problem of the area intrinsically and the problem of the area as a symbol. In both cases the symbolic aspect so overshadows the intrinsic that it would be taken as a major blow to national prestige—French or German, Polish or Russian—to have to give way without compensation. I suppose that it is the same for Trieste also, but in the other case there is still a sporting chance that the Germans would be willing to pay something for the sake of unification.