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OCR Page 1 of 6THE UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE
ALLIED COMMISSION ON REPARATIONS
July 19, 1945
The Honorable
The President of the United States
My dear Mr. President:
The question of the disposition of the German Naval and
Merchant fleets has been raised by Generalissimo Stalin. As I
understand it, he suggests that one-third of the tonnage of these
fleets be allocated to each of the three powers.
Most of the German Naval and Merchant tonnage is in the
possession of the U. K., with some little in the hands of the U.
S., and a small although unknown amount is held by the Russians in
areas which they occupied.
Clearly under our proposed definition ofll war booty", the
Naval ships would be excluded from reparations But the Merchant
vessels not belonging to the German armed forces would be deemed
reparations I quote our definition of war booty:
s.
"War booty shall be limited to finished equipment
and supplies produced for and belonging to the
a SERVICE" AND
ALCORDS
German armed forces exclusive of any facilities
used to produce such equipment or supplies"
Under any definition of war booty heretofore laid down,
the German Naval fleet would be so classified and therefore excluded
from reparations. If we award one-third of the German Naval tonnage
to Russia, we would be making an outright gift to the Soviet Union.
While I do not object to making this gift, I believe that it should
be subject to certain specific conditions. These conditions are that:
One, Agreement be reached on proper definitions of war
booty, restitution, and reparations, including par-
ticularly the boundaries of Germany from which repa-
rations will be exacted.
Two, Whatever allocation of ships is made to the U.S.S.R.
shall not be delivered until the Japanese War is ter-
minated.
Three, The U.S.S.R. agree to provide approximately 50,000
barrels per day of petroleum or petroleum products
from Hungary and Rumania to relieve the present bur-
den on the U.S. and U.K. of providing tankers, needed
Terms
Subject
Potsdam Conference, 1945
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