THE TREATMENT OF GERMANY
 
I.    POLICY FOR THE PERIOD IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING
      THE CESSATION OF ORGANIZED RESISTANCE
 
      A.   Control Machinery
 
      1.   The Department of State recommends that the draft
      "Agreement on Control Machinery in Germany" should be accepted
      without reservation.
 
      This proposal provides for the exercise of supreme authority
      over Germany by the American, British and Soviet generals, each
      in his own zone of occupation and also jointly, in matters af-
      fecting Germany as a whole, in their capacity as members of a 
      supreme organ of control designated as the Control Council.  The
      functions of this Council would be (a) to ensure uniformity of
      action in the several zones of occupation, (b) to inititate plans
      and make agreements, within the powers granted by the respective
      Governments, for dealing with question involving the whole of 
      Germany, (c) to control and direct the central German administra-
      tion, and (d) to direct the administration of the joint zone of
      Greater Berlin. Appropriate sub-agencies would be organized on a
      tripartite basis to carry out the administrative and supervisory
      functions of the Control Council.
 
      2.   The Department of State recommends that the directives
      given to the commanding generals should so define their duties
      that the Control Council's authority would be paramount through-
      out Germany and that the zones of occupation would become, in so
      far as feasible, areas for the enforcement of the Council's
      decisions rather than regions in which the commanders would
      possess a wide latitude of autonomous power.
 
      This recommendation rests on two convictions:     (1) that it
      is highly desirable, even at the expense of curtailing to some
      degree the freedom of action of the commander of the United States
      zone, to prevent any of the occupying powers from dealing as it
      pleases with its zone of occupation, and (2) that it is essential,
      in the interest of effective military government to maintain
      such parts of the normal administrative unity of Germany as will
      have survived the defeat.   The problem, for example, of providing
      sufficient food for the German people to prevent epidemics and
      disorders would be seriously complicated if the Control Council
      could not direct the transportation and distribution of the total
      food supply within Germany.  Should the surplus supplies of the
 
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