Union should submit a plan for the reunification of Germany. After all, that is the agreement of the Heads of our Governments; that is the directive they gave us. The Western powers have submitted a plan for the reunification of Germany and it would seem to me that we are entitled to expect from the Soviet Delegation a plan for the reunification of Germany.

Now, I turn to the second element in our directive on the German problem. It says Germany should be reunified "by means of free elections." The proposal submitted by the Western powers meets this requirement of the directive. It contemplates that "free and secret elections should be held throughout Germany, including Berlin, at the earliest possible date." It contemplates an electoral law which would be worked out in consultation with German experts taking into account the electoral laws already drafted for this purpose by the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany and in the Soviet zone by the Volkskammer.

Our proposal goes on to contemplate guarantees to assure that the elections will be really free and so that those in any part of Germany who have social programs or economic projects, which they wish to present to the German people, will have a full opportunity to do so. It contemplates that these free elections will be so supervised that there will be an all-German national assembly which will draft a German constitution and prepare for peace treaty negotiations.

In this way we try to comply with the directive that Germany shall be reunified by means of free elections.

The proposal submitted by the Soviet Union makes no provision whatsoever for the free elections for which our directive calls and, indeed, the remarks which accompany the proposal indicate that it is the view of the Soviet Delegation, that free elections are rather dangerous things because it is pointed out no one can be sure in advance what the results will be.

Now, I have here the ballot which was used in the elections in the East-German zone. One could know in advance what would come out of that election because there was only one set of names on the ballot. There was no opportunity to vote for anyone else, and the only freedom that was had was the freedom to put this particular ballot in the ballot box. Then, indeed, one could be sure in advance what would come out, because it was decided in advance what went in.

I admit that with free elections one cannot be sure what the result will be before the elections take place and I realize that that is sometimes inconvenient. It is particularly inconvenient if you turn up on the losing side, as I sometimes have. But that risk is inherent in free elections which are designed to ascertain the popular will, for no one can be sure in advance what the popular will may turn out to be. That, as I say, is a risk inherent in free elections. Surely the Heads of our Governments, who agreed that there should be free elections, must have taken that risk into account and nevertheless agreed that there should be free elections in Germany.

Therefore, it seems to me, that it is not in order for us here to question free elections, to doubt whether free elections are good or bad

because the results are unpredictable. We are under a directive which requires us to bring about the reunification of Germany "by means of free elections". That is the order of our Heads of Government which the three Western powers have complied with by submitting a plan for free elections in Germany, and I very much hope that the Soviet Delegation will also either accept our plan or submit a plan of its own.

The third element of our directive is that this reunification through free elections shall be carried out in conformity with the national interests of the German people. I underline the words "national interests." The emphasis, you will see, is upon a national Germany, not upon a sectional or divided Germany.

The Soviet Delegation has called attention to what it believes to be social gains which have been achieved in a certain portion of Germany and also it feels that there is grave doubt whether these so-called "social gains" will be preserved if the whole people were given an opportunity freely to express their will. Therefore, it seems to be argued by the Soviet Delegation that a national view shall not prevail, but that some form of sectionalism and the maintenance of a divided Germany must be maintained as against a national viewpoint in order to preserve these sectional so-called "gains". In this respect there seems to be a retrogression not merely from the directive under which we operate, but even from the condition which existed at the time of the Berlin Conference, when the proposals made by the Soviet Delegation seemed to accept the view that the German people would decide on a national basis what were the social conditions which they wanted to have.

On the 4th of February 1954 the Soviet Delegation submitted a proposal which called for all-German elections-I am quoting now, "as a result of which the German people would take their decisions, without any interference on the part of foreign countries, concerning the social and state organization of a democratic Germany."1 In other words, by that Soviet proposal it was conceded that the German people acting as a whole would take their decisions as to the kind of a social system which they wanted and that they would do so without any interference on the part of foreign governments who might prefer to see the Germans maintain one or another social system.

2

As Mr. Macmillan said yesterday, the language and the spirit of the directive are that Germany should again become a nation which would determine its own foreign policy and its own domestic policy and decide on a national basis what kind of a social system it wanted. That feature of the directive, it seems, is now abandoned by the Soviet Delegation even though that seems to involve also an abandonment of the prior position which it took in Berlin last year.

With respect to the right of Germans to determine their own foreign policy and foreign relations, I must observe the denunciation by the Soviet Union of the exercise by 50 million Germans in the Federal

1 Foreign Ministers Meeting: Berlin Discussions, January 25-February 18, 1954 (Department of State publication 5399; 1954), pp. 228-229.

2 The Geneva Meeting of Foreign Ministers, pp. 82-85.

Republic of their right through a free government, chosen by free elections, to associate themselves with the North Atlantic Treaty1 and with the Brussels Treaty for Western European Union.2

I am not quite clear, nor has it been pointed out, what are the specific features, for example, of the Brussels Treaty which the Soviet Union finds objectionable.

3

Is it objectionable that by joining that treaty the Federal Republic agrees closely to limit its military forces-to limit them to a degree far more modest than that which is the case with respect to the so-called GDR? Is it objectionable that the Federal Republic of Germany foregoes the right to have atomic weapons, bacteriological weapons, and chemical weapons? Is that objectionable? Is it objectionable that under the Brussels Treaty the military establishments and armaments of the Federal Republic are subject to investigation and control through the Brussels Treaty Council representing predominantly states which in the past have suffered from German aggression? Is it objectionable that by that Treaty and by the North Atlantic Treaty the Federal Republic of Germany solemnly is committed to a purely defensive posture for the future?

The Federal Republic of Germany in the exercise of its sovereign rights has followed a foreign policy which carries it into such a course designed to assure that Germany will not be again a militaristic country and that it will live peacefully in association with its neighbors. That is a right which we believe should be preserved for the unified Germany-not that we know or demand that it should exercise its right in any particular way. We provide that it should be entirely free. We do recognize that Germany operating as our directive says upon a "national" basis shall have the right to determine its own foreign policy as well as its own domestic policy.

4

In this connection I recall a provision of the Eden Plan which forms a part of the proposal submitted here last week, which reads "The all-German Government shall have authority to assume or reject the international rights and obligations of the Federal Republic and the Soviet Zone of Germany and to conclude such other international agreements as it may wish".

In consonance with the directive, our plan affirmatively provides and contemplates that in terms of domestic policy, for example, the kind of social system they want, and also in terms of foreign policy, that the German nation as established through free elections will be in charge of its own destiny and decide what it wants: whether it wants to accept or to reject the kind of relations which now exist between either the Federal Republic of Germany and its neighbors to the West or the relations which exist between the so-called GDR and its neighbors to the East, "or other international agreements as it may wish."

We believe that it is inadmissible and contrary to our directive to 1 See the Protocol of Oct. 23, 1954, to the North Atlantic Treaty; supra, pp. 871-873.

2 See supra, pp. 968-989.

3 German Democratic Republic.

4 See supra, doc. 124.

try to decide for the Germans what will be their future policy either internally or externally.

That leads me to the fourth element in the directive to which I have referred, namely, that German reunification shall be carried out in "the interests of European security".

Mr. Molotov suggested yesterday that perhaps nations which "were not very close to the conflagration" were not very good judges as to how to prevent a recurrence of such conflagrations for the future. I assume that that had reference to the United States, which is the only one of the four of us whose land was not directly attacked by the Nazi forces. I would say that, while the losses of the United States in the first and second world wars were not as great as some others, nevertheless we did pour out a sufficient volume of blood and of treasure in both of those world wars so that I would think that it could be assumed that we would be anxious not to have to do so again. But if that assumption is not entertained by the Soviet Union, I would think at least that the Soviet Union would recognize that France is a country which is qualified to speak on that subject; and I was deeply moved, as I think all of us must have been, at the words of President Pinay yesterday on this subject.' He pointed out a fact which is so clear that none of us who is interested in the peaceful future can be blind to it: namely, that the greatest danger of recreating German militarism is by perpetuating the division of Germany.

I was particularly struck by that because I was at the Versailles Peace Conference-I think I am perhaps the only one here who can claim that honor, if it be such-and I recall the well-intentioned plans which were there evolved and embodied in that peace treaty to prevent a second world war by means of repressions, the division of Germany, and a series of measures, which as it turned out, merely provoked after a period of pacificism a rebirth of fanatical nationalism. Mr. Molotov has suggested that that rebirth of militarism occurred because they had free elections in Germany. Well, in the first place, Mr. Hitler did not come to power through free elections. The last free election held in Germany showed a decline in Hitler's vote. But the fact that he had any large vote at all was due to the pre-existence of measures which aroused fanatical German nationalism. As President Pinay said, any of us who study history must see clearly the lesson which it teaches as we face again the problem of Germany. If we are capable at all of learning from the lesson of history, we must realize that to continue indefinitely the division of Germany is the most dangerous thing that we can do. That is surely the reason why our Heads of Government, in their wisdom, saw and affirmed "the close link between the reunification of Germany and the problems of European security", and why they said that Germany must be reunified by means of free elections in accordance with the national interests of the German people and the interests of European security, because the last two considerations coincide.

When we

speak of the lesson of history, let us not forget that the

1 The Geneva Meeting of Foreign Ministers, pp. 102–105.

German people have learned something too. We have all, in varying degrees, suffered greatly from past German aggressions, but I do not think that any nation in history ever suffered as severely as did the German nation as it faced defeat during the closing period of World War II. And if today we see, at least in the Federal Republic of Germany, fifty million Germans who are eager to promote European security by associating themselves with others in a way which will assure a limitation of their armaments, an exclusion of their use of the most dangerous kinds of weapons, and the acceptance of controls, that is because the German people, certainly the German people of this generation, want to make sure that the lesson which they have learned will be accepted and so riveted into the very warp and woof of German life that there will never again be the opportunity for a future generation to commit the follies which have been committed by Germans of the past over a good many generations.

So as we consider this fourth element in our directive, "the interests of European security," let us never forget what is said in the opening of our directive, "the close link between the reunification of Germany and the problems of European security," and let us make sure that we do not perpetuate what, in my opinion, could bring about a rebirth of excessive nationalism in Germany; that is, the continued division of a great people.

So, Mr. Chairman, for the reasons I have given, the explicit mandate we have from our Heads of Government, the reasons for that mandate reasons which are indelibly marked on the pages of history-let us in truth try to bring about this reunification of Germany. I ask the Soviet Delegation, which has every reason to be moved by the same considerations as I think move us, to submit to us a proposal for the reunification of Germany by means of free elections to be carried out in conformity with the national interests of the German people, and in the interests of European security.

130. STATEMENT BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE,

NOVEMBER 4, 1955 1

1

Mr. Chairman, we have now completed a week of discussion, and we are about to proceed into three days of recess, and it did occur to me that it might be useful to try to sum up the position that we are now in.

We are working still on the first item of the Directive,2 European security and Germany. In that matter, I recall that we were instructed to take account of the close link between the reunification of Germany and the problems of European security, and I furthermore recall that the Directive instructs us to consider various specific proposals with reference to security, such as the renunciation of

The Geneva Meeting of Foreign Ministers, October 27-November 16, 1955 (Department of State publication 6156; 1955), pp. 127-130.

Supra, doc. 123.