Page 513 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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ActA
As early as August 22, 1944 the Chargé of the Delegation of the French Committee
of National Liberation in London asked about being informed about the Allied plans
60
for the surrender of Germany. Although the British and the American Delegations
were very reluctant about the French request, in the end, they had to invite the French to
become a member of the EAC on November 11. The initiative of inviting the French
61
originally came from the Soviet side: “His Majesty’s Government have now heard from
French Embassy that the Soviet Government immediately informed M. Massigli 62
of their decision in favor of permanent French membership of the European Advisory
Commission. His Majesty’s Government and the United States cannot therefore delay
much longer their own decision on the French request.” 63
The French had now the possibility to express their own ideas about customizing the
zones of occupation and about a policy towards Germany. Although the Soviet Union
had put pressure on the American and British side, to welcome the French in the EAC,
it treated the French delegation to the EAC as second class ally. At the Yalta-Confer-
ence, the dismemberment of Germany became official policy, but the Soviet Union op-
posed to inform the French. 64
SHAEF received a surrender document trough Ambassador John Winant on May
1. This included the amendments made by the French but had no stamp that symbol-
ized the approval of the “Big Three”-governments. As a result, SHAEF was in pos-
session of two surrender documents: One was the approved version that contained the
crucial word “dismemberment”, the other one was not officially approved and did not
contain this crucial word. To complicate things, Smith told Ambassador Winant that he
was not authorized to use both versions since neither Washington nor London nor
the CCS had issued any guidance in that matter. Smith was now caught between the
devil and the deep blue sea by having two surrender documents that had not been ap-
proved by all four governments and also having no directive what to do with them. So
he disregarded them and started with drafting his own surrender document, obviously

60 The Chargé of the Delegation of the French Committee of National Liberation in London (J. C. Paris) to the

American Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant), London, August 22, 1944, in: FRUS 1944, Vol. I, p.
86 – 87

61 President Roosevelt to the Acting Secretary of State, Hyde Park, N.Y., November 8, 1944, in FRUS 1944,
Vol. I, p. 98; see further a copy of the press statement of the declaration accepting the French, in: The
American Representative to the French Provisional Government (Caffery) to the Acting Secretary of State,
Paris, November 10, 1944, in: FURS 1944 Vol. I, p. 99; further Wilfried Loth, “Die deutsche Frage und
der Wandel des internationalen Systems,” in Der Zusammenbruch des Deutschen Reiches: Die Folgen des
Weltkrieges, ed. Rolf-Dieter Müller, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg 10/2 (München: Deutsche
Verlags-Anstalt, 2008), 201–378., p. 274
62 René Massigli was the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs within the French Committee of National Liberation

and later on French Minister for Foreign Affairs, see Footnote 76 in FRUS 1944, Vol. I. p. 85
63 The British Embassy to the Department of State, November 7, 1944, in FRUS 1944, Vol. I, p. 97 – 98, here

p. 97

64 See D. K. R. Crosswell, Beetle: The life of General Walter Bedell Smith, American warriors (Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky, 2010)., p. 916