Stalin Note
Although East and West Germany finally reunified in 1990, the Soviet Union had offered to reunify Germany in 1952 but was rejected by the United States, its allies, and even West Germany.
On March 10, 1952, the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s “Stalin Note” proposed an end to the “abnormal situation” in Germany by: (1) a peace treaty between the Four Powers and Germany, (2) administrative unification of the four occupied zones of Germany, and (3) holding of all-German elections (in that order). The proposal also asserted the right of a sovereign Germany to arm itself, with the conspicuous proviso that it remain neutral. President Harry S. Truman remained on a Florida fishing trip while mid- to high-level State Department officials handled the rejection of German reunification in 1952. The paradox was for the United States and its allies to reject discussion of German reunification without looking like they were rejecting it, such as by proposing talks to investigate the possibility of proposing talks on the matter. The missives lasted until the U.S.-British- French note of September 23, after which the Soviets abandoned the failed Stalin Note bid.The context for the Stalin Note was the multifaceted “German Question.” First, the German Question involved how Germans identified themselves and related to the outside world; West, East, or neutral. The first chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer, argued that an independent road would result in Germany “sitting between two chairs” (Steininger 1991, 10). He instead courted the West with an image of a neo-Carolingian empire, which dovetailed with U.S. policy at that time. Second, the German Question involved how the world related to Germany, complicated further by the frictions then developing between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies (France, Britain, and the United States). Germany was no longer only a problem as a defeated enemy and future, potential aggressor, but also as a potential ally for both sides.
Given that the Soviets defeated Germany only with the help of the West, a Germany in NATO would combine past and present mortal dangers. The stalemate was that the Soviets wanted a unified Germany only if at least it extended its buffer westward from the Elbe to the Rhine, while the United States wanted a unified Germany only if it expanded NATO eastward from the Elbe to the Oder.The continuing controversy over the Stalin Note involves the allegation that the West missed a genuine opportunity to reunify Germany and defuse the cold war in 1952 and the even more dramatic claim that the Stalin Note was another “stab in the back” foreign conspiracy in which the West betrayed Germans’ true interests. Much of the scholarship has focused on a determination of Soviet sincerity; although declassified Soviet documents now appear to confirm Adenauer’s and others’ suspicions that at least the primary purpose of the Stalin Note was to derail the West’s integration of West Germany. Meanwhile, indications of Soviet sincerity on Germany’s unification often tend to undermine Soviet sincerity on Germany’s neutral independence. Declassified Soviet and East German documents support Adenauer’s claim that “neutralization means sovietization” (Steininger 1990:80) and indicate that East Germany was complicit in these endeavors to use neutral reunification as a Trojan horse to sovietize the united Ger
many. Whether or not the Soviets would have followed through on the full Stalin Note terms as a price worth paying to prevent West German integration into the U.S. sphere remains debatable because it is a road that was not taken. However, the issue of Soviet sincerity to a certain extent is irrelevant because U.S. State Department documents authored by Richard M. Scammon, Robert W. Tufts, and John H. Ferguson indicate that the State Department actually assumed Soviet sincerity as a basis for action precisely to avoid any possibility of the Soviet Union agreeing to a German reunification.
The more important point was that the United States would have rejected the Stalin Note even if it was certain of Soviet candor. As early as April 1949, the U.S. State Department adduced “An Approach to the CFM” (Council of Foreign Ministers) that officially (but not publicly) subordinated German reunification to European recovery because U.S. containment policy required rebuilt and rearmed allies. American analysis determined that European recovery required the industrial and military input of West Germany, and American documents well before the Stalin Note assumed West German integration into the U.S. alliance as a prerequisite for its security plans. Because West German voters’ support for Adenauer’s pro-Western integration Christian Democratic Union (CDU) might not hold in a united Germany, U.S. policy also required a specific sequence of events; first integration (of West Germany), then reunification. The reverse order would have imperiled both U.S. security plans and Adenauer’s foreign policy. As a result, the Stalin Note with its German neutrality clause was dead on arrival.John W Walko
See also German Unification (1990)
References and Further Reading
Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford University, 1997.
Steininger, Rolf. The German Question: The Stalin Note of1952 and the Problem of Reunification. New York: Columbia University, 1991.
Walko, John W. The Balance of Empires: United States’ Rejection of German Reunification and Stalins March Note of 1952. Parkland, FL: Universal, 2002.