The Yalta Story: Germany

Short of conquering all of Germany for themselves (which they knew they would not do), the Russians most wanted a power vacuum where Germany used to be. Stalin did not, in so many words, press this desire at Yalta. He did not have to.

Even in the gloomy days of 1941, Anthony Eden had described the Germany required for orderly Europe. Said Eden: "It is not part of our purpose to cause Germany to collapse economically. I say that not out of any love for Germany, but because a starving and bankrupt Germany in the midst of Europe would poison all of us who are her neighbors. That is not sentiment. It is common sense." But at Yalta, Eden admitted that "there had yet been no [British] Cabinet discussions" on plans for postwar Germany.

The U.S. State Department advanced a plan consistent with Eden's policy. Against the State Department view stood Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and his right-hand man, Harry Dexter White, later to be revealed as an accomplice of a Communist spy ring. They wanted Germany to be economically gutted and turned into a country "primarily agricultural and pastoral." Harassed between Morgenthau and Secretary Hull, Roosevelt ended up with a plague-on-all-plans attitude.

At Yalta, in the absence of any concrete U.S. or British proposals, Stalin was able to concentrate the German discussion on Russia's reparations demands ($10 billion in German industrial plants, rolling stock, etc.). Churchill protested: "We must consider the phantom of a starving Germany, and who is going to pay for that. . . ? If you wish a horse to pull a wagon you will at least have to give it fodder." Retorted Stalin: "Care should be taken to see that the horse does not turn around and kick you." Note the Yalta minutes: "[Stalin] obviously felt suspicious of the British opposing Russian reparations as part of a program to build up a strong Germany."

The final Yalta protocol referred the reparations problem to a three-power commission—with the Russian demands to be used as an initial basis for discussion. Through the whole critical postwar decade Germany remained a power vacuum.