"SOVIET POLICY TOWARD GERMANY, 1952-1954"

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00429A001100040044-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 31, 2006
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: May 31, 1963
• Content Type: IM

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CENTRAL INTFLLIG93NCE AGBNCY
Office of Current Intelligence
31 May 1963
CURRENT I NTKLLIGSNCE M1s;M?RANDUM
SUBJECT: Soviet Policy Toward Germany, 1952-1954
We are not aware of any conclusive evidence
to support the contention that the USSR ever was
willing to, or contemplated, abandoning Bast Ger-
many. Much of the speculation regarding Beria's
alleged willingness to sell out East Germany stems
from Khrushchev's partisan rewrite of Soviet his-
tory of the period. We are prepared to believe,
however, that Beria might have been willing to re-
place the Ulbricht clique in mid-1953 as a means
~J C~ v
of placating popular opposition in Bast Germany,
heading off West German rearmament and stabilizin
Central 8uro e.
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CENTRAL INT~LLIG~NCE AGENCY
Off ice of Current Intelligence
31 May 1963
SUBJKCT: Soviet Policy Toward Germany, 1952-1954
1. Most speculation about Moscow's having in-
dicated~in the early and mid-1950's a willingness to
compromise an the future of Germany can be traced to
the Soviet note of 10 March 1952 proposing a peace
treaty for all of Germany and to allegations--seem-
ingly confirmed by Khrushchev and Ulbricht--that
Beria and, perhaps, Malenkov contemplated a pullback
from Bast Germany. Moscow's current dubious claim--
most recently advanced in the Soviet Hate of 17 May
to Bann, protesting the Franco-German Treaty--is
that Allied and West German intransigence vis-a-vis
what was to become the Sast German state ana-tie
question of reunification caused the period 1952-54
to become one of "lost opportunities," An examina-
tion of the record does not support this contention.
2. Moscow's ostensible aim in the 1952-1954
period was to create a united Germany Which, although
"neutralized," would be easy prey for subversion.
The Soviet note of 10 March 1952 fcillowed by two
months the promulgation of a Soviet Zone electoral
law, which ensured that the Ulbricht-led Socialist
Unity (Communist) Party would control the vote in
its half of the divided country. The "political
principles" in the draft treaty which accompanied
the note specified that a unified Germany should not
be allowed to join any coalition directed against
any of the former Allies-and that "anti-democratic"
and "anti-peace" parties and organizations would be
prohibited.
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3. The proposals for a unified Germany clear-
ly were designed to forestall signature of the Bonn
Conventions (which restored sovereignty to West Ger-
many) by appealing to nationalist sentiment in West
German. Although the "Potsdam decisions" on the
German-Polish frontier were upheld, the hypothetical
united Germany was to have national armed farces and
sufficient arms industry to support them; ex-Nazis
and veterans were to enjoy full political rights.
The note called for the immediate convocation of a
four-power conference to discuss a peace treaty and
the "means of f arming an all-German government," but
failed to mention elections,
4. On 25 March, the three Allies replied that
the conclusion of a treaty required prior formation
of a German government and that this, in turn, ne-
cessitated free elections--for which the machinery,
in the shape of UN commissions established in Decem-
ber 1951, already existed. They argued that a fu-
ture Germany must be free to conduct its own foreign
policy, denied that the German-Polish border had
been settled at Potsdam and claimed that the idea, of
a German national army was a step backwards, The
USSR countered on 9 April 1952, charging that the
West was delaying the conclusion of a treaty by dis-
patching diplomatic notes rather than appearing at
the conference table.
5, Moscow did, however, agree indirectly to
the idea of supervised elections. The Soviet Gov-
ernment,in rejecting the proposal for UN-supervised
elections, proposed instead that the four powers
oversee a plebiscite. But the USSR did not commit
itself to elections in advance of the formation of
a German government--the kernel of the western argu-
ment. By way of compromise, on 13 May the three
western powers confirmed their willingness to negoti-
ate. They did not rule out four-power supervision
of all-German elections; rather, they maintained that
a UN commission would be preferable and suggested
that the UN Commission exercise its mandate and re-
port back to the four powers which then would decide
upon the holding of an election. Two weeks later,
Moscow charged the Allies with willful delay and
protested the imminent conclusion of the Bonn Canven-
tions and the gurapean Defense Community (BDC) Treaty.
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Again the USSR did not allude to all-German elec-
tions .
6. The ;conclusion of those accords by the
West led to the inauguration of a new policy in
the Soviet Zone, i.e., all-out communization. At
the Second SED Congress, 9 - 12 duly, Ulbricht
proclaimed his regime?s foremost task was '"to con-
struct Socialism." A series of measures quickly
followed--the drafting of a new penal code, aboli-
tion
of
the traditional Laender and the establish-
ment
of
Soviet-style admrative districts, pres-
sure
on
the peasants to collectivize and the cre-
ation
of
"'barracked People?s Police," the nucleus
of an East German Army.
7. Opposition to Ulbricht grew as the re-
gime's problems multiplied; 1953 was a year of
acute economic dislocation, serious party strife,
and the highest refugee flow since 1949, when sta-
tistics were first kept. In the wake of the Slansky
trial in Czechoslovakia and the "Doctors' Plot" in
the USSR, Ulbricht initiated what threatened to be
a sweeping purge. Disciplinary proceedings were
opened against Franz Dahlem, a "native German" party
leader, as distinguished from Ulbricht and the Mos-
cow-trained faction. This was the internal East
German situation confronting Stalin's successors
after his death on 5 March..
8. In their first few days, they gave clear
evidence of vacillation and abrupt changes of policy
both toward Germany and toward the Ulbricht regime.
an 17 April, two days after Ulbricht had publicly
reaffirmed his policy of "rapid socialization,''' the
political adviser to the Soviet Control Commission,
V. S. Semenov, was recalled. His replacement by
P. F. Yudin, a party theoretician and one-time editor
of the Cominform Journal, left no prominent Soviet
Foreign~i~ry o~~ial in Germany, pn 1 May the
Soviet press announced Semenov's elevation to the
collegium of the Ministry in Moscow, but on 28 May
the USSR revamped its representation in Germany by'
dissolving the Control Commission and naming Semenov
to the post of High Commissioner in Germany. Semenov's
return to Fast Berlin 3? days after his replacement
as political adviser to the Control Commission was in-
terpreted at the time as a sign of indecision in Mos-
cow and the failure of the Soviet leadership to agree
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on either organization or personnel far administer-
ing its policy in Germany.
9. Through late May Ulbricht persisted with
his program to enforce higher work productivity, al-
though a series of strikes already had shown the
workers were dangerously close to rebellion. We
now know that Semenav returned to Bast Berlin with
a "new course." Moscow was prepared to sacrifice
Ulbricht, or at least downgrade him, to placate the
populace. But whatever Soviet intentions were, the
uprising of 17 June overtook them, largely because
Ulbricht had maintained his rigorous dames tic poli-
cies ,
10, Khrushchev and Ulbricht have since accused
Beria and Malenkav of advocating in early 1953 a
policy which they charge would have led to abandon-
ment of Bast Germany, In so far as Beria is con-
cerned, there is evidence that Stalin`s erstwhile
henchman strongly advocated a moderate economic
policy for all of Bastern Burope in order to stabi-
lise Central Burope and head off West German re-
armament. He supported a group within the Bast Ger-
man leadership led by Minister for State Security
Zaisser. Zaisser allegedly sought the removal of
Ulbricht and his clique, and called far a remodeling
of the Socialist Unity Party into an all-German labor
party and far negotiations on reunification, on the
assumption that it was impossible to build Socialism
in a divided country.
rio s apparen y cony nce rus chev and Malenkov
that Beria `s German policies would lead to catastrophe
and, shortly thereafter, the Soviet leaders allied
themselves against Beria in Moscow, Beria `s '"radical
notions" evidently were made known to the Communist
bloc elite soon after his fall.
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12, After Beria's downfall the remaining So-
viet leaders moved to restore Ulbricht's primacy in
Bast Germany. Ulbricht pounced on Beria's proteges
in his party, accusing them of treachery to the party
and its program. At the 15th SED central committee
plenum in July 1953, he ublicl linked Beria with
Zaisser and his clique9
The Soviet leadership renewed its endorsement o U -
bricht during an August 1953 visit to Moscow.
13. After Adenauer's victory in the West Ger-
man elections of 6 September, the USSR replied non-
committally to a western proposal of 2 September for
a foreign ministers conference at Lugano on 15 Octo-
ber to discuss elections and the formation of an all-
German government. At the meeting, which finally
convened in Berlin on 24 January 1954, Molotov called
for the deputies of the ministers to prepare a draft
treaty within three months and the convocation of a
peace conference, with German participation, within
six months. The provisions he suggested as suitable
for inclusion in any treaty were meant to ensure a
neutralized Germany with armed forces adequate only
far internal security and border defense. The boun-
daries of the new German state were to para11e1 those
suggested at Potsdam and all foreign troops were to
be withdrawn. Later, he insisted that all-German
elections must be supervised by the Germans them-
selves, and not by the occupying powers. On 1? Feb-
ruary, he further proposed that a reunited Germany--
ar failing that, the existing governments in East
and West Germany--should be allowed to loin a 50-year
collective European security pact. The conference
ended in deadlock on 18 February 1954.
14. Even assuming that there had been a chance
for German reunification prior to this time, there
was none after. Subsequent Soviet policy was directed
at building up the prestige of the East German state.
As Khrushchev ascended, Soviet policy gradually hard-
ened until in 1955 he bestowed "full sovereignty" on
the GDR. Having failed to block West Germany's entry
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into NATD and gonnQs rearmament9 Moscow sought to
gain western acceptance of the concept of two Ger-
manies.
15. We conclude that the farmer Soviet police
boss aimed at the pacification of East Germany--
rather than its outright abandonment. His motives
probably were related not only to the domestioW?~itu-
ation in fast Germanys but to the emerging p
struggle in the Kremlin.
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