Die New York Times und der Weg zur Potsdamer Konferenz

Einführung

Zahlreiche Zeitungen und Nachrichtenagenturen der USA berichteten, zum Teil mit eigenen Korrespondenten, über die Kämpfe in Deutschland. Darunter waren: The New York Times (NYT)[1], Assocociated Press (AP)[2], United Press[3], Reuters[4], Detroit Free Press[5], Fort Worth Star-Telegramm[6], Los Angeles Times[7], Chenery Collier`s[8], Chicago Sun[9], Hearst Newspapers[10], Saturday Evening Post[11], Reader`s Digest[12], Washington Star[13], This Week Magazine[14], New Orleans Times-Picayune[15], St. Louis Post-Dispatch[16], Minneapolis Star-Journal[17], The Kansas City Star[18], The American Magazine[19], Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance[20], Houston Chronicle[21]. Hinzu kamen Rundfunksender, wie die National Broadcasting Company[22].  Von weit über 100 Korrespondenten bei der Presse-Abteilung des Obersten Hauptquartier der Alliierten Expeditionsstreitkräfte (SHAEF)[23] war am 10. Mai 1945 auf Seite 9 der Ausgabe der NYT die Rede. Am 17. Juli 1945 wird von rund 200 Berichterstattern geschrieben, die sich im alliierten Pressecamp in Berlin-Zehlendorf aufhielten.

Anfang Mai 1945 weilten auf Einladung des Oberkommandierenden der US-Truppen in Europa, Dwight D. Eisenhower[24], 18 Verleger in Deutschland. Sie besuchten die Konzentrationslager Buchenwald und Dachau, unterhielten sich mit Opfern und erhielten Einsicht in Dokumente über die Nazi-Verbrechen. Am 5. Mai 1945 gaben sie dazu eine Erklärung ab, die von der NYT am 6. Mai auf S. 8 veröffentlicht wurde.

Für die drahtlose Übertragung der Nachrichten von Europa in die USA gab es seit dem 10. September 1944 eine Sendestation in Paris. Sie wurde betrieben von der Press Wireless Incorporation (PWi).[25] Am 12. Mai 1945 berichtete die NYT auf S. 4, dass es zwei weitere Sendestationen geben solle. Sie bezog sich auf eine Erklärung von J. W. Chaplin, Direktor für Kommunikation des Unternehmens. Den größten Umfang an zu übertragenden Nachrichten hatte die Pariser PWi-Station am 8. Mai 1945 zu bewältigen.

Die Berichterstatter mussten sich durch die Presseabteilungen der Oberkommandos der jeweiligen Streikräfte – USA, Großbritannien, Sowjetunion – akkreditieren lassen und durften sich nur in deren jeweiligem Kampfbereich aufhalten. Nach Kriegsende galt das entsprechend für die Besatzungszonen. Daraus ergibt sich, dass das es kaum Berichte westlicher Korrespondenten aus dem Umfeld der Roten Armee bzw. der Sowjetarmee gab. Die wenigen Beiträge dazu entstanden in Verbindung mit offiziellen durch die Besatzungstruppen genehmigten und organisierten Presseterminen.

Die Auswertung der Berichte der Nachrichtenagenturen und der größten Zeitungen der USA sowie Großbritanniens über die Ereignisse in Deutschland würde dazu beitragen, unser Wissen über die Vorgänge rund um die Potsdamer Konferenz zu erweitern. Zumal mehrere Korrespondenten auch ungewöhnliche Wege gegangen sind, um als erste an Nachrichten zu kommen.

Am bekanntesten wurde der für AP arbeitende Journalist Edward Kennedy[26]. Er war einer von 17 Journalisten, die am 7. Mai 1945 im Hauptquartier der US-Streitkräfte in Reims miterlebten, wie Generaloberst Alfred Jodl als Vertreter der Wehrmacht die bedingungslose Kapitulation des Dritten Reiches unterzeichnete. Für die Meldung über das Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges galt eine Sperrfrist: Die Nachricht sollte zunächst unter Verschluss bleiben, um den sowjetischen Truppen in Berlin eine eigene Zeremonie zur Kapitulation Nazi-Deutschlands zu ermöglichen. Kennedy brach die Sperrfrist und löste einen ernsten Konflikt mit dem Oberkommando der US-Expeditionsstreitkräfte in Europa aus. Als Reaktion sprachen die Militärs bis zur offiziellen Kapitulationserklärung ein Nachrichtenembargo aus.[27] Kennedy wurde von AP entlassen.
Wenig später traf der Bannstrahl der Militärs noch zwei andere: Virginia Irwin[28] von der Zeitung „The St. Louis Post Dispatch“ sowie Andrew Tully[29] von „The Boston Traveller“[30]. Ohne dafür die Genehmigung vom SHAEF erhalten zu haben, verfassten sie Augenzeugenberichte von den Kämpfen um Berlin. Auf Befehl von General Eisenhower sollten sie in die USA zurückkehren. Aufgrund von Protesten aus der Medienbranche wurde der Befehl abgemildert. Beide konnten später wieder aus Deutschland berichten.
Über die „Bestrafung“ zwei weiterer Journalisten durch SHAEF berichtete die NYT am 17. Mai 1945. Es handelte sich um Seymour Freidin[31] von „The New York Herald Tribune“ und um John Groth[32] von „The American Legion Weekly and Parade“. Sie wurden für einen Monat aus Deutschland ausgewiesen und nach London befohlen. Auch in diesem Fall ging es um einen nicht genehmigten Aufenthalt zur Berichterstattung in Berlin.

Der nachfolgende Text ist in erster Linie eine Auswertung der in der Zeitung „The New York Times“ zwischen dem 25. April 1945 – Kampf um Potsdam – und dem 17. Juli 1945 – Beginn der Potsdamer Konferenz – veröffentlichten Pressebeiträge. Dabei kam es vor allem auf die wörtliche Wiedergabe dieser Texte an. Eine erste Auswertung ist teilweise erfolgt. Es wurde bewusst auf eine Übersetzung der Texte in die deutsche Sprache verzichtet.

APRIL 1945

25. April 1945, Mittwoch

„Zwei Sowjet-Armeen in Berlin eingedrungen“, titelte die „New York Times“ (NYT) auf der Hauptseite ihrer Ausgabe vom 25. April 1945.

Auf Seite 2 veröffentlichte sie „The Texts of the Day`s Communiques on the Fighting in Various War Zones“. Sie enthielten die Aktivitäten an den einzelnen Frontabschnitten vom 24. April 1945. Im Kommunique der Roten Armee findet Potsdam keine Erwähnung. Aber das Berliner Umland.

Repelling the enemy and inflieting continuous blows, troops of the First White Russian Front captured a number of Berlin suburbs and linked up with troops of the First Ukrainian Front advancing from the south.

Der vom Norddeutschen Rundfunk am 24. April 1945 verbreitete und von der NYT veröffentlichte Lagebericht informiert u.a. zu Potsdam.

In the battle for the Reich capital the Bolsheviks despite bitter resistance by our troops and Volkssturm units, thrust as far as the areas southeast of Brandenburg, south of Potsdam and north of Koenigs Wusterhausen into the outskirts of the eastern and western parts of the city.

Mit einer Karte wurde auf Seite 4 die aktuelle Situation des Kampfes um Berlin veranschaulicht.

Hanson Weigthman Baldwin[33] kommentierte die Lage in Berlin.

Berlin Returns to Dust.
700-Year-Old City Now an Inferno.
While Allied Armies Near a Junction

Berlin was dying yesterday, and with it the nation that men once called „civilized“.
Russian armies had virtually ringed the city and were fighting their way into its heart. The Nazis were staging with sadistic frenzy their Wagnerian finale, that epic of death and destruction of which their leaders had so long prated. Berlin was shrouded in the funereal smoke of battle and of flames. Germany was split in two and overrun, her cities shambles, her industries destroyed, her soul warped and shriveled by the base doctrine of a philiosophy of nihilism.
It was the end of an era; the curtain was falling slowly upon the last cataclysmic scenes of battle. It was the beginning of an epoch; the curtain was rising upon organized chaos, and the ominous gallop of the Four Horsemen echoed over Europe.
House by house, street by street, block by block, Berlin was dying – smashed, blotted out, returning in the fires of its agony to the dust from which it grew – a little village at the crossings of the Spree, seven centuries ago.
Building by building, district by district, the city was slowly conquered. Already the Russians, still driving hard after one of the greatest „come-backs“ in military history, hold Koepenick, Lichtenberg, Pankow, the workers suburb where Brown Shirts once battled in the streets against the few who fought for Freedom. Already, the long-barreled 122`s of the Red Army are searching out the heart of the city, sending their screaming shells into what was once one of the world`s greatest boulevards – Unter den Linden.
Already the Katushas and the mortars, emplaced on the Landsbergerstrasse and in Mariendorf, are hammering at Tempelhof, blasting into the rubled ruins of the Air Ministry and of Pottsdamerplatz, slashing deeper rents in the shambling facades and broken sidewalks, along the Kurfurstendamm, where once the café and the restaurants – now thronged no longer – served schnapps and beer. Already the probing steel fingers of the armored columns – giant Stalin tanks and the smaller Shermans – are poking deep and deeper into the little streets.
Berlin is dying. Some measure of the hatred that name has come to mean to the peoples of Europe is that the city`s only threnody is the crackle of the flames of conflagration and the screaming of the retributive shells; the city`s only pall, the smoke that cloaks what might have been grandeur and glory but now is justly reduced to dust and ashes in expiation of ten thousand crimes.

*  *  *

Elbe Likely Junction Point

The Elbe River – or its immediate environs – plainly has been selected as the junction point of Russian and American forces. Only in one area, the Ninth Army`s bridgehead, south of Magdeburg, do the Western Allies hold any area east of the Elbe. That bridgehead was established nine days ago; an earlier one near Magdeburg, was smashed. Since its establishment, the Barby bridgehead has been extended, deepened and strengthened, but the Ninth Army has made no strong attempt to date to exploit it.
There probably are several reasons for this. Until a few days ago, the dominating reasons were problems that arose out of your swift advance across Germany. The Ninth had by-passed several pockets of German resistance in its four-and-a-half-week, 225-mile dash to the Elbe. These had to be reduced, and a German raiding force that drove across the lines of communication of the Ninth Army from its northern flank had to be eliminated. The supply situation had to be straightened out, dumps established, troops reorganized and greater strength brought up to the Elbe.
The First Army on the southern flank had reached the Mulde River, but not the Elbe, and at this writing is still pushing eastward to that river. Elements of the Ninth Army and the British Second Army near Dannenberg to the north are still clearing out some enemy resistance west of the Elbe.
German forces east of the Elbe were known to be strong, as the successful enemy reaction to our first bridgehead proved, and we were not prepared to „stick our neck out“ and possibly take large losses in an attempt to dash into Berlin. There was, wisely, a pause for consolidation.
But it now seems quite probable – especially since the bulk of the German troops in the Oder-Elbe corridor have been drawn into action against the Russians – that our continued pause west of the Elbe is by prearrangement with the Russians.
To the Russians, Berlin is symbolic, and there is no doubt the Russians want for the Red Army by credit of capturing the German capital. Moreover, there was danger of accidental casualties if the two forces, both lunging furiously ahead, should meet headlong somewhere between the rivers. And a combined assault on Berlin by Allies of the east and west would have been very difficult to manage. We have had no experience of coordination with the Russian Army, and liaison would have been, at best, difficult. For there is no unified command vis-á-vis the Russians and the western Allies in Europe, nor is there likely to be one.
For all these reasons, it looks very much as if the Elbe or its immediate vicinity had been selected as the arbitrary junction point of the two armies.
The most encouraging news from Europe yesterday was not the impending junction of the Russian and American forces, not the Russian entry into Berlin, both of which had been anticipated, but the rapid progress of the drives in Bavaria, in Austria and in Italy. These campaigns are threatening the encirclement of Bohemia and Moravia in Czechoslovakia, the German hold on the Po Valley and a quicker encirclement of the Nazi`s Alpine „redoubt“ area than had been anticipated.

*  *  *

GI`s Suggestions Expedited

A reform, which for the Army is major, has been adopted by the Army Ordnance Department, following published protests that GI suggestions for the new devices or modification of old weapons were not sufficiently encouraged.
Maj. Gen. Levin H. Campbell Jr., Chief of Ordnance, has issued to all ordnance personnel a directive that shlashes red tape, by-passes the traditional channels of administrative authority that all communications in the Army usually follow, and allows Ordnance personnel to write directly to General Campbell about inventions and modifications.
Such communications may also be sent directly to the National Inventors` Councilin Washington. An Ordnance soldier may also communicate his ideas directly – instead of through his commanding officer – to the editors of „The Ordnance Sergeant“ and to „Army Motors“, technical publications for Ordnance soldiers. It is hoped by these means to encourage new inventions and ideas and to secure wider dissemination of such ideas.
But, unfortunately, the old channels of authority and communication still hold good for the bulk of the Army. The new order, slashing red tape and by-passing administrative channels, applies only to Ordnance troops.[34]

Lowell Thomas[35], Nachrichtenkommentator des amerikanischen Rundfunksenders National Broadcasting Company (NBC[36]), hatte die Möglichkeit erhalten, am 24. April 1945 mit einem Flugzeug der US-Air Force über das Berliner Kampfgebiet zu fliegen. Seine Eindrücke wurden danach per Funk übertragen. Die NYT informierte ihre Leserschaft darüber auf S. 4.

Lowell Thomas sees Berlin from a plane

Lowell Thomas, NBC news commentator, flew over Berlin yesterday and said last night in a broadcast from Paris that the German capital was „in flames from one end tot he other“ with the exception of the Potsdam area.
Mr. Thomas said he flew over the city in a P-51 Mustang reconnaissance plane, with another fighter as escort, at 6,000 feet.
„Just below an artillery duel was going on,“ he said. „Heavy guns on both sides were going all out, with dense clouds of smoke rolling over Berlin.“
„Potsdam and the southern side of Berlin seemed comparatively undamaged, while the rest of Berlin is blazing from end to end.“
Mr. Thomas said that on the way back from Berlin he saw an encampment of 20,000 to 30,000 unarmed Germans heading through the corridor between the Russians and Americans toward the United States line and added: „When the Germans reach our lines it will be the largest mass surrender of this war.“[37]

26. April 1945, Donnerstag

Die Einschließung Berlins durch die Truppen der Roten Armee war eine der Schlagzeilen der NYT vom 26. April 1945.

Von der Nachrichtenagentur The Associated Press (AP)[38] wurde desweiteren eine Meldung vom 25. April wiedergegeben, dass russische Truppen den ehemaligen französischen Ministerpräsidenten Édouard Herriot[39] befreit hätten. Das geschah in Babelsberg. Aber die Meldung enthielt keinen Ort.

Herriot liberated by Russian Forces
By The Associated Press.
London, April 25 – Edouard Herriot, three times Premier of France who was thrown into a German concentration camp in 1942 after criticizing Marshal Henri-Philippe Pétain`s collaboration policies, has been liberated by the Russians, the Soviet communique announced tonight.
There were no details of the liberation of the 72-year-old Frenchman who was serving as President of the Chamber of Deputies in the Vichy Government when his blunt protest at a decree by Pierre Laval was followed by announcement of his arrest.
Three times he was reported dead – once by the German news agency DNB[40] – and each time back came other reports that the sturdy head of the French Radical-Socialists survived.
The exact location of the camp from which he was liberated was not mentioned. The Russian communique said only that „west of Berlin troops of the First Ukrainian front freed from German captivity the former Prime Minister of the French Republic Herriot.“

Mit Datum 26. April war die von Cyrus Leo Sulzberger[41] aus Moskau übermittelte und auf S. 1 veröffentlichte Nachricht über die erfolgte Einkreisung Berlins versehen. Fortgesetzt wurde sie auf S. 9.

Germans trapped
2 Soviet armies merge west of capital after by-passing Potsdam
Riesa on Elbe won
Pillau falls, ending Nazi grip on East Prussia – Bruenn menaced

By C. L. Sulzberger
By Wireless to The New York Times

Moscow, Thursday, April 26 – Two powerful Russian armies linked up northwest of Potsdam yesterday, completing the encirclement of devastated Berlin, and plunged deeper into the smoking city to occupy four more city districts and additional groups of suburbs. …

Potsdam and Spandau Remain

The climatic closing of Marshal Stalin`s trap was effected today, when the First White Russian Army Group under Marshal Zhukoff drove westward and southwestward with unhindered momentum, capturing Elstal, Rohrbeck and Marquardt, while Marshal Koneff shoved his Ukrainian armies northwestward, by-passing Potsdam and occupying Ketzin to complete the junction of the two.
Every hour that passes, the arc around Berlin is deepened around the defenders of shambles.
Already Marshal Zhukoff is pushing on twenty-five miles west of Berlin from Nauen on the Hamburg railway, driving without slowing his pace toward the Americans waiting on the Elbe.
The entire front is crumbling and Berlin has become what the Russians call a „kessel“ or cauldron to be mopped up like Breslau. But never since the Stalingrad cauldron has there been such a mopping-up task at hand and such a juicy net of prisoners tob e fished out of the miserable wreckage.
At this moment the only important strong points remaining west of Berlin are by-passed Spandau and Potsdam, which, since the days of Frederick the Great, have been famous ordnance centers and drill schools of the Prussian soldiery. Their collapse is obviously imminent. …[42]

Im auf S. 2 veröffentlichten Kommunique des Oberkommandos der Roten Armee wurde das noch genauer ausgeführt. Die auf S. 8 veröffentlichte Karte gab den Stand der Kämpfe um Berlin wieder. Die schwarze, unterbrochene dicke Linie zeigt den Frontverlauf.

27. April 1945, Freitag

Die Einnahme des größten Teils von Berlin war eine von mehreren Schlagzeilen, die auf S. 1 der NYT veröffentlicht wurde. Potsdam findet weder in diesem Beitrag noch in den auf S. 2 veröffentlichten Kommuniques eine Erwähnung.

Die Karte mit dem Frontverlauf vom 27. April zeigte gegenüber der vom Vortag in Bezug auf die Umgebung von Potsdam kaum eine Veränderung.

28. April 1945, Sonnabend

„Russen in Potsdam“ ist eine der Schlagzeilen der NYT am 28. April 1945. C. L. Sulzberger wertet in seinem aus Moskau gesendeten Bericht die Informationen des Oberkommandos der Roten Armee aus.

Spandau Arsenal and Potsdam Fall

Moscow, Saturday, April 28 – Russian assault groups overwhelmed the southern half of Berlin yesterday, capturing four city districts, including the famous Tempelhof airdrome, and advancing to within one mile of Unter den Linden. (Three-fourths of the capital was in the Red Army`s hands, The Associated Press reported.)
At the same time the Russians ground their way into martial Potsdam, where lie the remains of Frederick the Great, and seized Spandau, where since that monarch`s reign the best German smallarms weapon had been manufactured in old ordnance plants.
On the western outskirts of the city it was Marshal Gregory K. Zhukoff`s First White Russian Army group that battered ist way through Potsdam and Spandau, last two strongly held outer bastions of Berlin`s crumbling defense.[43]

Auf S. 2 wurden die offiziellen Verlautbarungen aller kriegführenden Parteien publiziert. Die auf S. 5 veröffentlichte Karte zeigt, wie die Frontlinie sich in Richtung Potsdam verschoben hatte.

29. April 1945, Sonntag

Die Sonntagsausgabe der NYT hatte einen Umfang von 124 Seiten. Auf S. 1 wird die Leserschaft mit einem Bild von durch die Straßen Berlins rollenden Panzern der Roten Armee begrüßt.

Da der Fall Berlins nicht mehr weit entfernt ist, orientiert sich die Zeitung auf die Frage nach dem Schicksal Hitlers.
Die auf S. 5 veröffentlichte Karte zeigt, wie sich die Front immer weiter auf das Zentrum der Reichshaupstadt zuschiebt. In der vereinfachten Darstellung wird nicht berücksichtigt, dass es an verschiedenen Orten im Umland Berlins ebenfalls noch Kampfhandlungen gab, vor allem in westlicher Richtung zum Teil heftige.

30. April 1945, Montag

„Russen ziehen den Ring um Berlins Herz weiter zu“, lautete eine der Schlagzeilen der Ausgabe vom 30. April der NYT. Berichte von den Kämpfen um Berlin auf den S. 1 und 4 neben vielen weiteren von den anderen Kriegsschauplätzen und die offziellen Verlaubarungen über die Kampfhandlungen auf der S. 2 folgten.

Die außerhalb des Stadtgebiets von Berlin noch geführten Kämpfe werden auf einer weiteren Karte dargestellt.

MAI 1945

1. Mai 1945, Dienstag

Die über dem Reichstag wehende Siegesflagge der Russen ist die erste Schlagzeile der Ausgabe der NYT vom 01. Mai 1945. Die auf S. 6 veröffentlichte Karte zeigt wie nah das Ende des Hitler-Regimes ist.

2. Mai 1945, Mittwoch

Die Information über Hitlers möglichen Tod in der Reichskanzlei bestimmt u. a. den Inhalt der Ausgabe der NYT vom 2. Mai 1945.

Die Karte verdeutlicht das nahe Ende des Kampfes um Berlin.

3. Mai 1945, Donnerstag

„Berlin an die Russen gefallen. 70 000 ergeben sich“, mit dieser Schlagzeile dokumentierte die NYT das Ende des Kampfes um Berlin.

4. Mai 1945, Donnerstag

Das Bild mit den durch das Brandenburger Tor in Gefangenschaft ziehenden Überlebenden des Kampfes um Berlin auf S. 1 bildet gewissermaßen einen Abschluss der Berichterstattung der NYT über diese Kampfhandlungen. Neue Themen werfen ihre Schatten voraus und finden Niederschlag in der Berichterstattung der Zeitung.

In den folgenden Wochen befasste sich die NYT immer wieder mit der Entwicklung in Berlin und ging, was Deutschland anbelangte, vor allem auf die Entwicklung der Beziehungen der Siegermächte untereinander ein vor allem aber der westlichen Alliierten gegenüber der Sowjetunion. Eine große Rolle spielten die Berichte über die Abfassung und die Unterzeichnung der Kapitulationserklärungen.

8. Mai 1945, Dienstag

Das Ende des Krieges in Europa verkündete die NYT am 8. Mai 1945 auf S. 1. Ohne zu ahnen, welcher Ärger sich aus dieser Veröffentlichung ergeben würde. Edward Kennedy hatte mit seiner Nachricht (Spalte 7 u. 8) die von den Militärs darüber verhängte Sperrfrist gebrochen und einen Konflikt unter den Alliierten ausgelöst, vor allem aber zwischen diesen und der Sowjetunion.

10. Mai 1945, Donnerstag

Robert Ervin Reuben[44], Berichterstatter der Nachrichtenagentur Reuters, hatte die Möglichkeit zu einem offiziellen Besuch bei Truppenteilen der Roten Armee. Seine Eindrücke veröffentlichte die NYT in ihrer Ausgabe vom 10. Mai 1945, S. 6.

Soviet Policy seen as liberal in Reich
Russians said to oppose mass. Permanent Punishment of German Civilians
By Robert Reuben (Reuter Correspondent)

WITH THE RUSSIAN ARMY, May 9 – The Soviet military government in occupied cities of Germany is following a liberal policy toward civilians, and many Russian officers today told a group of newspaper men that they were opposed to mass permanent punishment of the German people.
„The German people basically are not bad,“ one Russian colonel said with surprising moderation. „The have been infected with the virus of fascism policies to oppression as well as to propagandization of the people. When fascism is removed there is no reason why the Germans cannot become a normal decent nation.“
This does not mean that the Russians are mollycoddling German civilians, who live in mortal fear of their conquerors. The Soviet policy is one of stern retribution, but the emphasis is on fairness and in the occupied cities the Germans are allowed to select their own Mayors to serve with appointed officials of the Soviet Military Government. By contrast in territory occupied by the western Allies, a German Mayor is appointed by the Allied military government.

Populace cleans up debris

In most cities held by the Soviet-Army the entire populace is rounded up indiscriminately and required to clean up wreckage and debris and reorganize the place physically so that it is quickly habitable. I saw many groups, including women, vigorously wielding shovels. One woman wore a mink coat.
Contrary to German propaganda, we saw many Russians playing with German children, and officers told us they had somewhat of a problem to prevent fraternization between the troops and German women – a problem that also bothers the American und British Armies.
Endless columns of horse-drawn buggies and other vehicles, as well as herds of dairy cattle driving down military highways, are part of the incredible great Soviet Army which stands unchallenged in the heart of Germany tot he Elbe River.
Down these higways carge tremendous Russian tanks which dwarf anything I previously had seen in the war. They spread over most of the roadway, pointing their long, huge guns in front. But this army is an enigma – for while boasting thousands of great armored vehicles and capable of historic, fast sweeps that isolated entire German armies, it still appearsto be supplied mainly by miles of animal caravans, reminiscent of the American covered-wagon treks.

A forest of horror

With these nomadic supply columns travel herds of dairy cattle tended by uniformed men and women soldiers, the women being part of the thousands of Sovietwomen in the front line areas of occupation.
As we passed one Russian Column, we drove into a forest of horror, where one of the great Soviet-German battles tot he death had just ended. The forest was as devastated as more most German villages, with smashed trees falling into huge craters. Dead littered the area, and everywhere you looked or turned bodies testified tot he ferocity of the fighting. The Soviet Army paid a price for victory. Scores of its large tanks, destroyed by German bazookas, littered the sides of the highways.
In Cities occupied by the Russians every front yard showed a similar scene – well-kept horses, both cavalry and vehicle animals, were grazing, while soldiers carried fodder and water tot hem.
Most of the Soviet troops are billeted in German homes and there are no separate sections for their women soldiers. „Our women are brave and can take care of themselves,“ said Lieut. Vsevolod Altaev of Moscow[45]. „They do not need special treatment.“
The Russians showed great interest in American Army food, pay and living conditions, and their soldiers do not differ much from the American GI. They have the same complaints and are remarkably similar in their type of humor.
Universally the greatest respect and effection fort he late President Roosevelt could be observed. „We think he was a great humanitarian,“ one officer told us quietly.[46]

Einer von Reubens Gesprächspartnern, Leutnant Wsewolod Jakowlewitsch Altajew (siehe Foto v. 1945), war am 8. Mai 1926 in Odessa geboren worden, übersiedelte aber später mit seinen Eltern nach Moskau. Zu Beginn dses Krieges wurden sie nach Leninabad[47] evakuiert, wo er 1943 das Militär-Meteorologische Institut besuchte. Nach der Rückkehr nach Moskau wechselte Altajew an das Militärische Institut für Fremdsprachen, Fakultät Anglistik. Zu Beginn des Jahres 1945 ging er an die Front und diente bei der 1. Belorussischen Front als Dolmetscher beim Kommandeur der 8. Gardearmee, General W. I. Tschuikow. In dieser Eigenschaft nahm Altajew am Treffen von Russen und Amerikanern an der Elbe teil. Im September 1945 kehrte er an das Fremdspracheninstitut in Moskau zurück und diente bis 1950 bei der Armee. 1992 emigrierte der Wissenschaftler, der zuvor am Institut für Wirtschaft in Moskau tätig war, in die USA. Wo er 2004 verstarb.

Eine kleine Sensation, auch wenn die Nachricht erst auf Seite 8 der NYT veröffentlicht wurde, stellte die Mitteilung über ein mögliches Treffen von Churchill, Stalin und Truman dar. Sydney Gruson[48], NYT-Korrespondent, hatte sie aus London übermittelt. Die Notwendigkeit für ein Treffen der Großen Drei wurde aus den Problemen abgeleitet, die sich in Europa nach Kriegsende abzuzeichnen begannen. Am Ende des Textes brachte Gruson die Möglichkeit ins Spiel, von Churchill als Gastgeber und London als Tagungsort für ein derartiges Treffen.

Big Three Meeting is seen in London
Poland, Istria, other problems
Said to require prompt
Personal discussion

By Sydney Gruson
By Wireless to the New York Times

London, May 9 – Germany`s unconditional surrender is expected here tob e followed soon by another Big Three meeting at which President Truman could consult personally for the first time with Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin.
The swiftness of Germany`s disintegration, it is thought, brings the Allies up against a number of problems far sooner than envisaged in Yalta, and an old one – Poland – is again plaguing relations among the three great powers. The Foreign Ministers` failure to find a settlement in SanFrancisco, where the situation was aggravated rather then improved, puts the case right back before the leaders themselves, in the opinion of diplomatic quarters here.
Such a meeting would enable Mr. Truman and Mr. Churchill to perfect their plans fort he prosecution of the Japanese war. Russia`s position, now that her huge armies have been freed from combat in Europe and the Russian-Japanese pact has been denounced, has already created exciting speculation here. The British people, at least, are hoping that Russia will make her weight felt in the Far East without delay.
Although plans for the Allies` handling aof Germany were made in Yalta and are already being put into effect, the thoroughness of the German collapse poses some new questions for joint consideration. The disposition of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, Marshal Hermann Goering and other German leaders must be decided and guidance must be provided fort he Allied Control Commission beyond the point reached in the present plans.
There is also the matter of territorial adjustments to follow the European war, involving such questions as Yugoslavia`s claim to Istria and Goriziaand what to do with Italy`s colonies. These are matters for final decision at the peace conference but, it is thought, they call for preliminary personal discussion.
The difficulties of arranging the meeting have been considerably lessened by the end of the European war. Premier Stalin, always reluctant before the leave Moscow and the personal direction of the Red Army, might be more amenable now to meeting the others farther west. The British freed from the danger of bombs for the first time in almost six years, would undoubtedly like to play host tot he meeting, partly as a matter of prestige and partly from the desire to pay tribute to the Russian leader and to see for themselves what the new President is like.

Seite 9 dieser Ausgabe nahmen Texte zur „Verfehlung“ des AP-Korrespondenten Edward Kennedy ein. (siehe Abschnitt „Einführung“ dieses Beitrages)

16. Mai 1945, Mittwoch

Auf Seite 1 der Ausgabe der NYT stand ein aus Washington stammender Beitrag von Bertram D. Hulen[49], Sonderkorrespondent der Zeitung. Darin ging es erneut um ein mögliches Treffen der Großen Drei.

Truman, Churchill hopefull of parley with Stalin soon.
Allied Leaders imply decision of Soviet Premier is awaited on Big Three Meeting.
De Gaulle not included.
President indicates problems are pressing – Prime Minister Cites Europe`s „Confusion“

By Bertram D. Hulen.
Special to The New York Times.

Washington, May 15 – President Truman expressed the hope topday that a meeting of the Big Three – himself, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin – would be possible for the purpose of discussing peace plans.
Mr. Truman, in response to questions at his press conference emphasized that he could not say that the meeting actually would be held. He took the same position that Mr. Churchill had earlier in the day before the House of Commons.
In the light of the two statements, it is presumed that the question whether there will be a conference depends upon Marshal Stalin. No indication of his attitude was available here today. …[50]

Eine Meldung der Nachrichtenagentur United Press zur Position Churchills hinsichtlich eines Treffens folgte auf 6 dieser Ausgabe. Darin wurde erneut London als möglicher Tagungsort angesprochen. Aber auch erstmals Berlin.

Churchill points to confusion

London, May 15 (U.P) – Prime Minister Churchill said today that he devoutly hoped for an early meeting with president Truman and Premier Stalin, to clear up confusion in continental countries.
There has been no indication, however, that Marshal Stalin is ready for another Big Three meeting and the cautions wording of Mr. Churchill`s statement indicated that many obstacles remained in the way.
In reply to a question in the House of Commons whether a Big Three meeting was contemplated. Mr. Churchill said: „I devoutly hope so. I would be very odd if such a long, fierce war ended without any settlement even among the victors.“
Mr. Churchill did not amplify this remark. Presumably, he foresaw the possibility of a momentous conference at which he, President Truman and Marshal Stalin would try to dispose of some of Europe`s many problems, pending a final peace conference.
Europe is in a state of „frightful confusion,“ Mr. Churchill said, and many things remain tob e cleared up.
He did not reply when a member asked if he realized how delighted Britons would be if a Big Three conference were held here.
Little hope was held in political quarterst hat a meeting could be held in London. At the same time , many Britons would oppose the idea of another visit by Mr. Churchill and the President of the United States, to Russia it was said – the thought being, presumably, that Marshal Stalin might do a little travelling.
Warning words by Mr. Churchill recently that there are dangers to peace in Europe have made a strong impression here. The liberal Manchester Guardian said today:
„One cannot doubt that the general public wish is for the Britzish Government to avoid the sort of acquiescence in Russian highhandedness which might be classified as appeasement.“
Some newspapers have proposed Berlin as the site of a Big Three meeting.
Mr. Churchill said Britain has finished celebrating victory in Europe and has turned to „difficult and unpleasant tasks, including the defeat of Japan“. He said formal victory parades would be postponed until Japan was defeated. Asked if it was probable Britain could celebrate the surrender of Japan before next Christmas, Mr. Churchill observed: „We would all do justice to it.“[51]

JUNI 1945

2. Juni 1945, Sonnabend

Am 2. Juni 1945 meldete sich Bertram D. Hulen mit einem weiteren Beitrag zu einem Treffen der Großen Drei zu Wort, diesmal aus Washington. Sein Beitrag erschien im Keller von S. 1.

Truman says Big 3 will meet soon;
Sees no crisis before trip abroad

By Bertram D. Hulen.
Special to The New York Times

Washington, Juni 1 – The proposed Big Three conference will take place in the not distant future, President Truman said today at his news conference.
He prefaced his statement with the remark that details had not been fixed but that the conference was getting closer. He then made the first explicit statement that the meeting would be held.
The President made it clear that the French-Syrian crisis and the world security conference in San Francisco were not delaying the plans.
The President did not say exactly when and where the conference would be held. Asked if it was possible that it might be held in this country, he replied with a chuckle that it was possible but not probable. The general impression was that Mr. Truman, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin would meet in Europe.
Mr. Truman indicated that the meeting would not be held before mid-June but did not say whether it would be before or after the British elections on July 5.
Asked in this connection whether a delay of about two weeks in the adjournment of the San Francisco Conference might defer the Big Three meeting, he replied that it would not. He expects the San Francisco Conference to end in about ten days, he said, without undue prolongation.
Mr. Truman saw no reason why the French-Syrian crisis should have any effects on plans for his proposed meeting with Gen. Charles de Gaulle. He added, however, that no date had been set fort hat meeting.
In response to other questions the President again rejected any idea that the Big Three meeting might be enlarged into ab Big Four or Big Five conference through the inclusion of France or China.
He had talked about only one meeting, a Big Three meeting, he declared. …

Brighter view seen

In view of the President`s announcements today, the reports that Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Davies have transmitted to the White House have evidently been encouraging. It has been assumed that while desirous of a Big Three conference, the President would not want one to be held unless he was satified in advance that it could be made a success.
It is considered obvious that the Russian attitude ist he central factor in the situation. Anglo-American relations are, in general, good, but British views on Russian polices have evidently required exploration. In sending Mr. Davies to London, the President selected one who has long been a friend of Soviet Union and thus could approach problemswith a sympathetic understanding of Moscow`s attitude.
Mr. Hopkins was sent to Moscow because of his intimate knowledge of our relations with Russia and his excellent personal standing with Marshal Stalin. He previously made two successful missions to es as knowing more than any other American what took place at the Yalta conference.[52]

7. Juni 1945, Donnerstag

Am 7. Juni 1945 informierte auf S. 4 Sydney Gruson aus London über den dort diskutierten Stand einer Konferenz der Großen Drei.

Meeting of Big 3 is still indefinite.
Time and Place not set despite
Soviet-held radio`s report
Stalin has acceded

By Sydney Gruson
By wireless the The New York Times.

London, June 6 – Despite reports broadcast by the Russian-controlled Radio in Graz, Austria, that Premier Stalin favored an early meeting of the Big Three, London diplomatic sources said tonight that no date or place fort he meeting had yet been arranged.
In the House of Commons today Sir John Anderson, speaking for Prime Minister Churchill, said only that there was no chance of the meeting`s being held „on British soil.“
It is still hoped in London that a meting can be convened quickly to deal with the mounting problems that have defied solution by lower officials.
The Graz radio report early today said that Harry Hopkins` special mission to Mr. Stalin had played a large part in shaping the Premier`s desire for an early meeting with the top American and British leaders. Mr. Churchill has already said that the coming British general election need not be an obstacle to a conference. …[53]

8. Juni 1945, Freitag

Am 08. Juni ist es dann offiziell: Treffen der Großen Drei in den nächsten 40 Tagen. Bertram D. Hulen darf auf S. 1 über diese Neuigkeit schreiben. Fortsetzung auf S. 5.

Truman gives plan.
Cites his expectations of Parley with Stalin and Churchill soon.

Bars Big 5 talk on Syria.

But he excludes any deals without french participation – Hopkins leaves Moscow

By Bertram D. Hulen
Special to The New York Times

Washington, June 7 – President Harry Truman expressed the opinion at his proposed meeting with Premier Joseph Stalin and Prime Minister Winston Churchill would take place within the next forty days.
At the same time he rejected flatly French and Russian suggestions for a Big Five Conference to settle the French-Syrian dispute. Mr. Truman rejected the idea in response to questions a short time after Ambassador Henry Bonnet of France had delivered a note to the State Department from his Government proposing a Big Five meeting in Paris for a discussion of Near Eastern problems. French invitations have been sent tot he other three members of the Big Five.
The only meeting he was contemplating, President Truman explained in response to questions at his press conference, was a session of the Big Three for a discussion of world affairs. Anyway, he thought the Syrian controversy would be settled in the near future.

Stand taken after study

His rejection of the suggestion reflected no hasty conclusion, for it had been obvious for some time that this Government was cool to the idea of a big conference on Syria in the belief that it was an impractical way to deal with the question. State Department opinion has been inclined that way from the first, and the President has given the subject careful consideration. …
By placing an outside limit on the meeting of the Big Three he implied that he might not meet with Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin until after the British elections on July 5. There was no expressed modification of earlier White House hopes for a meeting before the elections, but, if it should not be for forty days, the elections would have been over for several days.
Something may depend upon the conversations Harry L. Hopkins has had in Moscow. Mr. Truman would reveal no details concerning those talks today, refusing even to say whether he thought Mr. Hopkins was meeting with success. All he would say was that he would talk about the mission after Mr. Hopkins returns here. Mr. Hopkins left Moscow today for Washington.
According the reports in diplomatic circles, he has achieved some success in obtaining clarification of various points on which there had been uncertainly and even some concessions from Marshal Stalin. No opinion has been voiced in these circles as to how substantial the concessions are.[54]

14.Juni 1945, Donnerstag

„Treffen der Großen Drei beschlossen“, mit dieser Meldung machte die NYT am 14. Juni 1945 auf S. 1 auf. Auf Seite 8 folgte die Fortsetzung. Bertram D. Hulen lieferte die Sondermeldung aus Washington. Über den Ort und das genaue Datum des Treffens konnte er noch nichts berichten. Dafür aber über Spekulationen: z.B. über Wien, als möglichen Tagungsort.

Time, Site Secret

Some expect talks to be held in Vienna after British elections.

Hopkins, Davies to go.

President credits them with arranging parley – War in Pacific my be topic.

By Bertram D. Hulen.
Special to The New York Times.

Washington, June 13 – A time and place have been set fort he meeting of the Big Three, President Truman announced today.
The arrangements were made through the assistance given by Harry L. Hopkins on his mission to Moscow and Joseph E. Davies on his similar trip to London, but neither the time nor the place will be announced until the meeting has been convened, the President said. However, he added, it will be within fewer than forty days.
In the face of his reticence, reports persisted that the meeting would take place next month, probably soon after the British elections on July 5, and that it would be held in Vienna. Ist main objective, according to Mr. Trumann will be to get ready for a peace conference.

Explains Emissaries` Missions

„In ordert o secure an interchange of views more satisfactorily and quickly than by cable.“ The President said at his press conference. „I sent Mr. Hopkins to Moscow and Mr. Davies to London. Their discussions covered the arrangements for the time and place of the meeting of Prome Minister Churchill, Marshal Stalin and myself, as to what would be most convenient for all three.
Since their return, Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Davies have made their reports to me. The results have been completely satisfactory and gratifying. The all-important thing which confronts us is that the unity, mutual confidence and respect which resulted in the military victory should be continued to make secure a just and durable peace.“
In other word, Mr. Truman explained, he, Mr. Churchill and Premier Stalin must be able to meet and talk and trust one another in that we want to believe that each wants a just and durable peace. That was one of the reasons fort he preliminary visits of Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Davies, he added.

Scope of Meeting Wide

Presumably sufficent common understanding has been developed during the preparations to make a successful conference assured. It is expected to deal not only with preparations for a peace conference but with many aspects of the aftermath of the war in Europe, involving the control of Germany and assistance to liberated areas. It is considered possible, also, that aspects of the Pacific war will be touched on.
The President will be accompanied to the Big Three meeting by Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius Jr., Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Davies, if his health permits; former Supreme Court Justice James F. Byrnes, who accompanied the late President Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference and has given Mr. Truman much information concerning that conference; Admiral William D. Leahy, his personal chieff of staff; the American Chiefs of Staff and Charles G. Ross, his press secretary.
The naming of Secretary Stettinius prompted a question whether there had been any change in his status as Secretary of State. There has been none, the President replied. He then suggested with a laugh that the correspondentens keep asking him that question, as they have in past weeks. Mr. Truman brushed aside inquiries whether there was any implication in the remark.
Asked whether he would be accompanied to the conference by Congressional leaders, Mr. Truman answered negatively. Asked whether Russian staff officers would be present, he suggested that the correspondents ask Marshal Stalin. He did not know.
He added that no reporters would be permitted to be present at the conference. The meeting will not be conducted in a spotlight of publicity, Mr. Truman said.
Reminded that the American people had received their first news of previous conferences from foreign sources, the President declared that this would not happen again, that American reporters would have an equal chance with those of other nations. Presumably announcements will be made through official channels.[55]

16. Juni 1945, Sonnabend

Am 16. Juni 1945 erfuhren die Leserschaft der NYT und die sonstige Weltöffentlichkeit, dass das Treffen der Großen Drei voraussichtlich im Raum Berlin, in Potsdam oder auf der Insel Wannsee, abgehalten werde. Clifton Daniel[56] berichtete dies aus London, wo er das NYT-Büro leitete. Der Beitrag von S. 1 wurde auf S. 5 fortgesetzt.

Attle Bares Site

British Laborite Chief accepts Churchill bid to Berlin parley
as ´Friend and Counselor`

Washington suggests leaders will meet in Potsdam or Wannsee suburbs

By Clifton Daniel
By Wireless ot The New York Times.

London, June 15 – The Big Three will meet in Berlin. The site of the conference, which will be held next month, was disclosed tonight by Clement R. Attlee, leader of the Labor party, in a letter formally accepting Prime Minister Churchill`s invitatio nto attend the meeting as „friend and counselor“ of the British Government delegation.
(An announcement from Prime Minister Churchill`s official residence confirmed later that the meeting would be held in Berlin, The Associated Press reported. A spokesman said that a date had not been fixed for the meeting, which is likely to be held between July 5, the first date of the British election, and July 26, when the results are to be announced.)
(The White House said that the conference would to be held „in the vicinity of Berlin“. This led tot he belief that Potsdam or Wannsee would to be the site.)
The exchange of letters between Mr. Churchill and Mr. Attlee, who are rivals fort he office of Prime Minister in the July election, further developed the policy, now widely accepted, of maintaining the wartime unity of the major British parties on essential` issues of foreign affairs. Political enemies at home, the two wish to appear abroad as friends.

Laski` Objective Met

The letters were made necessary because, after Mr. Churchill had announced yesterday in the House of Commons that he had invited Mr. Attlee to attend his conference with President Truman and Premier Stalin., Prof. Harold J. Laski, chairman of the Labor party, issued a statement saying that Mr. Attlee should go „in the role of an observer only“ and could not take responsibility for agreements entered into by the Conservative party`s leader, Mr. Chruchill.
Taking cognizance of Professor Laski`s statement, Mr. Churchill wrote to Mr. Attlee today:
„His Majesty`s Government must of course bear the responsibility for all decisions. But my idea was that you should come as a friend and counselor and help us on all the subjects on which we have been so long agreed by public declaration. In practice I thought the British delegation would work just as they did at San Francisco.“

Labor Colleagues Consulted

Mr. Attlee, who was with Foreign Secretary Antony Eden at the San Francisco conference, replied after consulting his principal colleagues in Parliament:
„There was never any suggestion that I should go as a mere observer. *** There seems to me to be great public advantage in preserving and presenting tot he world at this time that unity on foreign policy which we maintained throughout the last five years.“
Mr. Laski said „everything has now been satisfactorily cleared up.“ While Mr. Laski is chairman of the Labor party, Mr. Attlee holds a party position comparable with that of Thomas E. Dewey in the Republican party.
Although Mr. Attlee`s status was quickly regularized, Professor Laski`s statement was still a political issue. Brendan Bracken, First Lord of the Admirality, asserted in a broadcast tonight that the Laski statement had cast doubt on the continuity of Brisith foreign policy under a Labor Government and that it was therefore essential to re-elect Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden.
Leslie Hore Belisha, Minister of National Insurance, declared in Coventry that Mr. Attlee as Prime Minister would be „hamstrung“ by his party machinery in the conduct of foreign affairs.[57]

Mit einem Spezialbericht aus Washington durfte Bertram D. Hulen die vorstehende Meldung ergänzen.

Potsdam may be site

Wannsee another possibility for meeting, Washington believes

By Bertram D. Hulen
Special to The New York Times

Washington, June 15 – The meeting of the Big Three will be held in the vicinity of Berlin. Charles. G. Ross, Presidential press secretary, said today after Mr. Attlee had announced that it would take place in the German capital.
„In view of the British announcement, I will say that the meeting of the Big Three will take place in the vicinity of Berlin,“ Mr. Ross said. It was believed that the meeting would be held in Potsdam or in Wannsee nearby lake resort.
Official details concerning the exact location as well as the time of the meeting were refused, however.
The time and place of the meeting were arranged as a result of the recent missions of Harry L. Hopkins to Moscow and of Joseph E. Davies to London. The fact that the meeting would definitely take place was announced by President Truman on Wednesday after Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Davies had returned and reported to him.
It is expected that the Conference will be open during or close tot he second week in July. The President has said that the meeting will take place within a fortyday period which ends July 17.
It will be the third meeting of the Big Three and the first that President Truman will attend. Plans for it have been carefully worked out here, and as a result of the missions of Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Davies confidence is expressed that it will be a success.
President Truman has had this own plans for participation so well worked out that he would have beeng lade to hold the conference earlier, even before the British elections. A unanimous agreement, however, for an earlier date could not be reached.
With arrangements virtually completed here the President will be free to be away from Washington considerably before he leaves for Berlin. He will visit Olympia, Wash., address the final session of the World Security Conference in San Francisco, attend home-coming celebrations at Independence and Kansas City, Mo., and address the Governors` Conference at Mackinac Island, Mich., on July 3, returning here next day.
Whether the President will time his departure for the Big Three meeting so as to arrive much before the opening session is doubtful. However, he may be preceded by members of the military and other staffs who will assist him at the conference. Many of them left in advance of President Roosevelt when he went to his meetings with Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin.[58]

17. Juni 1945, Sonntag

Die Wochenübersicht der NYT auf S. 42 der Sonntagsausgabe fasst die Informationen zu der bevorstehenden Konferenz der Großen Drei zusammen.

Berlin Meeting

Big Three plan it

Within the next three to six weeks the leaders of the Big Three, President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin, will meet. It was announced last week that they will confer in Berlin, ruined capital of the aggressor nation their armies had destroyed, or a suburb, perhaps Potsdam – symbol of a bankrupt militarism.
This will be the third of the historic conferences held by the Anglo-American-Russian triumvirate. The first, at Teheran in November 1943, brought a coordination of Allied blows to crush Germany. The second, at Yalta in February, 1945, completed the Allied military partnership and made a start on reorganization of Europe and establishment of a world security system.
The forthcoming meeting promised to be one of the most dramatic of a troubled epoch. Ist purpose was stated by President Truman: „The all-important thing which confronts us is that the unity, mutual confidence and respect which resulted in the military victory should be continued to make secure a just and durable peace.“
His words pointed up one of the history`s fateful lessons. Wartime coalitions of the past broke up after victory because they were unable to maintain unity once the military danger was over. The Allied partnership of World War I has been cited as an example. It failed to win the peace at least partly because differences among the Big Four over European settlements spurred rivalries that eventually paved the way fort he comeback of an aggressive Germany.

Leaders and staffs

The Big Three leaders bring to such conferences large staffs of diplomatic and military advisers. On ther advice and information, the leaders are able to state their positions and to work out compromises on disputed points. Thus knotty problems that would take months of negotiation through the usual means of diplomatic communication can be cleared up in a few hours or a few days.
Much has happened during the four month since Yalta. Germany has been defeated. President Roosevelt has died. Some rifts among the Big Three has developed. On their agenda will be questions affecting not only the future of Europe but of the wohle world.
Many of these questions center in Europe. The final defeat of Germany has brought the Allies face to face with the political and economic problems of some 270,000,000 Europeans in liberated or ex-Axis countries. Of these 70,000,000 are Germans, wo will be under joint Allied controls the details of which are not yet complete. In other countries boundary disputes, ideological differences and the pressing need for material rehabilitation have raised issues that might endanger efforts to build a better world. The Big Three were faced with the reorganization of a continent, and their decisions, as President Truman hinted, may set the pattern for a European peace conference.
Looking beyond Europe, some observers considered it likely that the vast reaches of Asia and the Pacific might also come under examination. Two of the Big Three are pressing the war on Japan. Russia, although officially neutral, has vital interests in Asia und unofficially at least has shown sympathy with the Allied powers in their fight on the remaining stronghold of „fascism“.[59]

Mit einer bildnerischen Gestaltung durch Frank Williams[60] von der Detroit Free Press erfolgte auf S. 44 die visuelle Zusammenfassung.

18. Juni 1945, Montag

Plan Victory March for the Big 3 Meeting

The Russians „are making preparation fort he great victory parade in Berlin which will take place during the meeting of the Big Three in Potsdam,“, the London radio said yesterday, quoting the diplomatic correspondent of The Sunday Times of London, according to the Columbia Broadcasting service.

Moscow, June 17 (AP) – Several Berlin suburbs could handle in comfort and safety the forthcomming meetings of President Truman, Premier Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill.
At one place the Russians have a large staff of girls and women on hand already as cooks, waitress and chambermaids. This place has one big meeting place large enough for any three-power conference.
It has even a huge round green table around which the conference could be arranged. This table was taken there from Moscow. It already ahs telephone and telegraph wires apparently ample to handle the vast amount of traffic necessary at any Big Three meeting.
Several Berlin suburbs were not badly damaged by the fighting and bombing and could accommodate the meeting, but the most likely are in the southeast section of Greater Berlin. Wendenschloss is particularly appropriate. Spandau and Charlottenburg were not knockecd about much, but it is believed unlikely that the meeting will be held there.
The place that is especially suitable, however, is situated on the blanks and near an arm of the Spree River. It has many fine villas and newly built houses in excellent condition. Professional persons with high connections lived there during the war but fled when Berlin was about to fall.[61]

Während laut den Einstiegsbemerkungen es klar zu sein schien, dass Potsdam Tagungsort der geplanten Konferenz sein würde, spekulierte der Moskauer AP-Korrespondent über Wendenschloss in Berlin-Köpenick.

JULI 1945

01. Juli 1945, Sonntag

Nachdem über eine längere Zeit kein Beitrag zu der Konferenz der Großen Drei zu finden war, veröffentlichte die NYT am 1. Juli 1945 auf S. 4 eine Kurzmeldung über den möglichen Beginn derselben.

Start of Big Three Parley reported as July 9 or 10

A report that the forthcomming conference of President Harry S. Truman, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Generalissimo Joseph Stalin would be held on July 10 in Berlin was carried by the British Broadcasting Company.
The Paris radio said the conference would be held July 9, The Associated Press reported from London.[62]

3. Juli 1945, Dienstag

Die Ausgabe der NYT vom 3. Juli 1945 widmete sich vor allem den Veränderungen zwischen der sowjetischen und der amerikanischen sowie der britischen Besatzungszone und dem Einzug der westlichen Allierten in die ihnen in Berlin zugewiesenen Zonen. Auf S. 2 berichtete sie über die Pläne zur Berichterstattung über die Konferenz der Großen Drei.

Big 3 Conference limits reporters

Correspondents of the western Allies will be excluded,
Army Chief announces

Paris, July 2 (U.P) – The Big Three conference in the Berlin area may be held without news coverage by correspondents of the United States, Britain or other western Allies, Allied Supreme Headquarters disclosed tonight.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower`s deputy, intimated in a message relayed through Supreme Headquarters that the War Department at Washington had advised him that correspondents of the western Allies would be excluded and the situation could be changed only by „agreements“ among the Governments concerned.
About 120 correspondents representing the United States, Britain, Canada, France, China, Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Poland and Venezuela started for Berlin today. They had been gathering for a week at Brussels, Weimard and Halle.
It had been understood here and in London that these correspondents would covert he entry of American, British and French occupation troops into Berlin and the Big Three Conference. However, Air Marshal Tedder`s message said the correspondents were going only to covert he entry of the troops, not the Big Three.
It might be, he said, that because of limited accommodations or Government agreements or both that all or most of the correspondents would have tob e excluded from the British and United States conferene areas and from the place of meeting.[63]

__________________________________________________________________________________

Washington, July 2 (U.P.) – Charles G. Ross, White House press secretary, said today that the date set fort he Big Three meeting in Berlin „is off the record.“ He refused to comment on a Paris radio report that the parley would begin July 9.[64]

Erstmals erscheint unter den Berichterstattern für die Zeitung „The New York Times“ (NYT) aus Berlin Raymond Daniell[65]. Er leitete das neue Berliner Büro der NYT und arbeitete zusammen mit seiner Frau, der Journalistin Tania Long[66]. Während Daniell die offizielle Berichterstattung zu den Vorgängen in Berlin und später zur Potsdamer Konferenz übernahm, lieferte Long mehr Hintergrundinformationen.

5. Juli 1945, Donnerstag

Die Neuordnung der Besatzungszonen nahm auch am 5. Juli 1945 den beherrschenden Platz in der Berichterstattung der NYT über Deutschland ein. Über die Arbeiten zur Vorbereitung der Konferenz der Großen Drei veröffentlichte sie auf S. 1 ein Foto.

Hinzu kommt ein über zwei Seiten gehender Beitrag von Raymond Daniell.

U.S. Flag raised in Berlin;
British take over

By Raymond Daniell
By Wireless to The New York Times.

Berlin, July 4 – More than one-fourth of this blasted, blistered, battered capital came under American rule today as British forces rolled in a to occupy a section only slightly smaller. The Russians, who have been in sole occupation of Berlin since they fought their way in just before the unconditional surrender, will retain the largest section, even if the French later take over a small part. The transfer of authority took place at a formal ceremony on the parade ground of the Elite Guard in the Adolf Hitler barracks not far from the headquarters of the American Berlin district in Zehlendorf.
There, after Gen. Omar N. Bradley, commander of the Twelfth Army Group, and Maj. Gen. Nikolai Barinoff, commander of the Red Army`s Berlin garrison, had exchanged compliments, the American flag was hoisted alongside the Russian. The two flags flying together, General Bradley said, symbolized the unity of the two nations.

Boundary lines indefinite

The region now under American military and civil rule includes the boroughs of Zehlendorf, Kreuzberg, Schoeneberg, Tempelhof, Neukoelln and Steglitz. The boundary lines have not yet been definitely drawn but the British, when tey take over on Friday, will have charge of Wilmersdorf, Spandau, Charlottenburg, Reinickendorf, Tegel and Siemensstadt.
In a general way it may be said that the Russians have what is perhaps the most important region industrially, the British have the most fashionable and the Americans have the most comfortable. For the southwestern corner allotted to the Second Armored Division and units of the Firt Airborne Army seems to have escaped in large measure the destruction suffered throughout the rest of the city.
The British were delayed in their entry by a sudden change in their itinerary imposed by the Russians. The force consisted of the Eleventh Hussars, a fire battalion of the Grenadier Guards, a mixed battalion of all the Canadian dvisions that fought on the western front and various service units. Like the American occupying forces, the British were fully motorized and constituted a miniature self-sufficient army. A crowd of 300 German civilians standing on heaps of rubble saw Maj. Gen. L. O. Lyne, the commander of the Seventh Armored Division – the Desert Rats – take their salute before a bombdamaged trolley station in Spandau. They watched with curiosity but without cheers or applause.

Bradley sees bomb damage

The same was true at the American flag raising. General Bradley arrived at about 2 P. M. at the Tempelhof airport. Without fanfare he was taken on a tour of the Wilhelmstrasse and Unter den Linden, where the evidences of the devastating effect of air power are most visible. He left his car twice – once to inspect the blackened Reichstag and once to view the ruins of Spittelmarkt.
Then he hurried tot he Adolf Hitler barracks, where detachments of Russian and American troops were lined up facing each other in the paved barrack square. Behind the American troops, in their battle jacktes and combat boots, six self-propelled 105-mm guns were drawn up. Salutes were exchanged, the national anthems of the Soviet Union and the United States were played and Old Glory was hoisted tot he top of the pole until it was level with the Russian flag on another staff. Then a forty-eight gun salute was fired.
General Barinoff gracefully acknowleged the Soviet Union`s debt to the United States, which he called the real arsenal of democracy, and declared that the United States and Russia must continue to work together to stamp out nazism and establish democratic principles in Europe. General Bradley, replying in a brief speech, a large part of which was lost because of the failure of the public-address systems, declared that the coalition of powers against Hermany had been forced by the nation`s efforts to dominate neighbor states. He expressed the hope that it would never again be necessary to conquer a nation so completely as Germany has been vanquished in this war.
While the ceremony took place this afternoon, it was a pure formality that was part of the Fourth of July celebration. Inasmuch as the program did not call for the Americans to take over the actual road posts until midnight, the Russians held that the acutal transfer of authority could not take place until the stroke of twelve.[67]

Parks to command Americans

Berlin, July 4 (AP) – General Bradley was accompanied by Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Parks, commander of the First Airborne Army, who has been appointed, American commander of Berlin, and the French commander, Maj. Gen Geoffroi de Beauchesme.[68]

[69]

6. Juli 1945, Freitag

Russians in Berlin in billets of U. S.

No detail planning done in advance of our entry – Many problems remain

By Raymond Daniell
By Wireless of The New York Times.

Berlin, July 5 – Although the Russians formally turned over six boroughs in the southwestern part of Berlin to American military authorities yesterday they were still occupying billets earmarked for United States troops and they continued to take an active part in the administration of the zone. Incredible as it many seem, there had been no detailed planning in advance of the American entry into the conquered capital for the transfer of authority to British and American forces or for coordination of the four-sided government.
The French were reported today tob e preparing to occupy Reinickendorf, an island zone between the Russo-British zone in a northern suburb of the city.
(French troops marched into northeast Berlin, occupying the Reinickendorf borough allotted to them, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Berlin.)
While confusion prevailed regarding the exact boundaries of the Allied zones of control and the manner in which the city is to be administered, Templehof airport was formally taken over at midnight by Col. William G. Booth of Birmingham, Mich., of the 301st Troop Carrier Command, who replaced the Russian troops who had been in occupation of the field since late April. But there were many complaints from the commanders of American units still living under canvas and eating K-rations that the billets and barracks that had been promised them were still inhabited by Red Army troops, who refused to give up their quarters.

Mud and rain unpleasant

Living under canvas may not seem like a hardship in July, but it has been raining off and on fort he past ten days. Fields have become viscous masses of mud, and the temperature is more like that of late autumn than midsummer. There does not seem to be any illwill behind the Russian reluctance to make their withdrawal from the American zone complete. It is rather that nobody on higher levels on either side seems to have taken the lower echelons into their confidence. And in the Russian`s Army, where the chain of command is different from ours, very little individual initiative is left to officers below brigadier generals.
Consequently, many Russian commanders are awaiting confirmation of what they regard as semi-official orders to pack up, and on the American and British side occupation authorities and military Government officials are awaiting directives from Washington and London on how to proceed about the business of governing the city in collaboration with Allies who do not see eye to eye on all civil problems.
For instance, there has been no clarification from higher levels on the equalization of rations in the French, Russian, American and British zones. Hours and wages remain tob e fixed, and such questions as whether schools are to be reopened in American and British zones, as they have been in Russian territory, remain tob e settled. Similarly, there is a question whether the press and radio shall be permitted to resume and if so on what terms regarding censorship and control.
The fact is that by barring American officials from Berlin for more than nine weeks after the Nazi capital fell the Russians have in one sense set the pace. They have chosen the burgomasters of the city`s twenty Boroughs and the High Burgomaster fort he whole city. Under their rules, motion picture theatres and one or two cafes have been permitted to reopen, und scholls have been resumed for children in lower grades.

Would follow Russians pace

An American Military Government official said this afternoon that, while it had not been the American policy to proceed at such a pace, he doubted that any such concessions would be countermanded by the American or British occupying forces. The curfew hour established in the Russian zone, he said, probably would be standard for the whole city, and he declared that it was neither desirable nor possible to restrict free movement of Berliners from moving from one zone to another. Nor is there any present plan for removing any Russian-appointed German officials in the American zone unless there is a specific complaint against them.
However, all these matters, togehther with the problem of mechanics of administering the city under four-power control, he said, would probably have tob e settled by President Truman, Premier Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill when they meet in the near future to devise methods for continuing the grand alliance of the war into the period of peace and reconstruction. It has not yet been settled, it was learned today over what route the British and American troops in Berlin, completely isolated from the rest of Europe by the cordon of Red Army forces, are tob e kept supplied.
The Anglo-American forces entered Berlin over routes prescribed by the Russians, and they brought sizable stores with them, but there is no firm promise that these routes will continue to be at the disposal of the Allied troops. Already those using them have found it difficult to convince sentries at road blocks that is all right for them do do so. Negotiations are proceeding now, with the aim of establishing a permanent zone of communication from Bremen through Russian lines. Whether British and Americans will share one highway or each have his separate route has yet tob e decided.[70]

76 Wacs reach Berlin

Berlin, July 5 (AP) – A vanguard of seventy-six Wacs assigned tot he American occupation district of Berlin arrived today in a downpour of rain, eleven months after leaving England for duty with the Allied First Airborne Army. They wore three campaign stars on their European service ribbons.[71]

 

7. Juli 1945, Sonnabend

British in Berlin held up by Soviet

Troops arriving to raise flag find no accommodations have been made for them

Berlin, July 6 (Reuter) – The Union Jack was hoisted in Berlin today and soon afterward British troops in the German capital learned that no accommodation had been arranged fort hem before the arrived.
There had been a misunterstanding between the British and Russian Governments, Bgrig. O. N. Wales explained in an order of the day to his troops. He added that he was taking steps to make them more comfortable.
Dealing with the „rigid security maintained by the Russians,“ Brigadier Wales` order of the day said: „I hasten to advise you not to take offense at this or to interpret it as an indication of mistrust or suspicion.
„Our Russian allies have developed an extremely high standard of security which they have clearly decided to maintain in spite of the fact that hostilities have ceased. It is not for us to question this policy and we must therefore accept the rather unexpected circumstances in which we find ourselves with good grace and without loss of temper or dignity.
„I am taking steps to ensure that the maximum of movement is afforded to British troops in this area.“
British troops housed in the great Hermann Goering barracks in Reineckendorf in the distant northwestern suburbs of the capital have not had time to explore the city.
They had been looking forward to seeing the Red Army „traffic girls“ looking spick and span in their picturesque uniforms and carrying red and yellow flags for directing traffic, and are very disappointed by news that the Red Army High Command has ordered their removal from all crossroads in the British and American sectors.
It was learned here today that the Canadian troops in the Berlin garrison were to stay in the capital only for a few weeks.
There a token force and their place ist o be taken later by British personnel.
In the flag-raising ceremony today a veteran of the Dunkerque evacuation, Sgt. Maj. Eric Cole of Britain`s ace infantrymen, the Brigade of Guards, unfurled the flag at the foot of Berlin`s victory memorial in the Charlottenburger Chaussee. Pipes and bands played a royal salute and a combined British and Canadian guard of honor was mounted. British, Russian, American and French area commanders watched the parade.[72]

U. S. occupation delayed
Berlin, July 6 (AP) – An American officer said today that contradictory orders from „high levels were preventing. American military government representatives from taking over control of the assigned central area of Berlin, currently occupied by Soviet forces.
The Red Flag and the Stars and Stripes both fly over the Schoeneberg district adjoining the Tiergarten, but two Soviet lieutenant colonels still are issuing orders to their appointed burgermeister.
Lieut. Col. John J. Maginnis of Worcester, Mass., recveived instructions to become the military officer of the Schoeneberg district two nights ago.
„My Soviet opposite number told me he had been ordered not to withdraw from Schoeneberg,“ Colonel Maginnis said. „I told him I had been ordered to come in. We have established most friendly relations between us while waiting for higher levels to clear up the matter.[73]

8. Juli 1945, Sonntag

Allies at impase with soviet army over Berlin food

U.S. and Britain defer taking over zones until question of supply is settled

Clay and Zhukoff talk

Big Three may be called upon to adjust distribution at meeting in Potsdam

By Raymond Daniell
By Wireless to The New York Times.

Berlin, July 7 – It is becoming more and more evident that an agreement on the distribution of food in the Berlin area is the key to the harmonious Allied administration of the city. Robert D. Murphy, Lieut. Gen. Lucius D. Clay and Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Parks conferred a long time this afternoon with Marshal Gregory Zhukoff, and it is a fairly safe assumption that a large part of their talk was concerned with this subject.
For the fact is that there seems to be a serious misunderstanding between the Russian and Anglo-American Allies regarding the responsibility for feeding the German population in areas they have occupied. Until it has been resolved the American and British military governors have deferred assuming responsibility for administering the areas the Russians turned over to them with considerable punctilio.
A spokesman for the Russian military commander, who also is responsible for the civil government of Berlin, said today that it was his understanding that each of the Allies would assume responsibility for feeding the Germans in its own area. The difficulty is that the Russians occupy all the food-producing country around Berlin and that the only way the Allies have of providing food for their sections of the capitals is by importing it from outside.
When it was pointed out to the Russian officer that this would entail considerable difficulty for a country on the other side of the Atlantic, he shrugged his shoulders and say why not take the necessary food from the regions in Germany now occupied by the American and British forces.
These regions, largely industrial and dairy-producing areas, already are short of grain, potatoes and sugar, but the Russian was not impressed, remarking that they were richer than the lands held by the Red Army in many other ways, such as mineral deposits and manufactured products. Asked if an arrangement could be made for the exchange of goods, he shrugged his shoulders again and said „perhaps“, adding that this was a matter to be settled on a higher level than the military.
Meanwhile neither the Russian military Government nor that of the Americans and British is allowing the formalities of flag raising and speechmaking to cause any alteration in the civil administration of the former Reich capital. In the American zone the buergermeisters still are taking their orders from the Russians. Red Army M. P.`s go about at night in the American and British zones making sure that the Germans are obeying the curfew and otherwise conforming to the regulations laid down for them.
As matters stand now this condition is likely to continue until Premier Stalin, Prime Minister Churchill and President Truman meet here in the near future to work out some way of coordinating the four-power rule of partitioned Germany, so that economically, at least, the defeated nation can be administered as whole.[74]

9. Juli 1945, Montag

[75]

All Berlin ruled by the Red Army as impasse holds

U. S. and British officers say food and fuel deadlock bars control of zones

Big 3 action awaited

Parley with Zhukoff fails – U. S. notices torn down by Russian soldiers

By Raymond Daniell
Vy Wireless to The New York Times.

Berlin, July 8 – A deadlock has developed between the Anglo-American authorities on the one hand and the Russians on the other on how Berlin ist o be governed by all three in harmony and on how and by whom more than half of the people of the Reich capital are to be fed. This fact, suspected since soon after the punctilious Fourth of July flagraising ceremony to which Marshal Gregory K. Zhukoff sent a deputy, was confirmed officially today by Brig. W. R. N. Hinde, British military governor, and in less specific terms by his American counterpart, Col. Frank Howley, who said he was enough of an optimist to believe in a happy ending.
Brigadier Hinde said specifically that the Russian`s ordert o continue their control of the twelve boroughs of Berlin occupied by American and British troops in the sense of their physical presence there was issued as soon as the question of food and fuel fort he occupied areas arose.

Russians make arrests

Colonel Howley, conceding that Marshal Zhukoff had countermanded the order to transfer civil authority in southwestern Berlin for the American occupying force a little after midnight July 4, attributed the action to a desire to hold off until the details of administering the city as a whole had been settled.
An example of how much authority the Americans and British have in their own zones came when it was learned that Russian soldiers had forcibly removed employes from houses in the British area on political charges. Colonel Howley said he had no doubt that persons arrested by civil and military police in the American zone were being handed over to the Russians.
Colonel Howley also conceded that the Russian policy of permitting political parties to function was contrary to the American occupation theory but we added „That`s one more place where we are not functioning.“
Colonel Howley, who headed the civil affairs unit that started the machinery of government in Cherbourg and Paris, at first insisted that whatever the British might be doing his detachment of eighty Officers ans 162 enlisted men were „functioning.“ Under questioning however, he conceded that he merely meant that they were establishing headquarters, making surveys and preparing to „function“ in the manner in which they were intended to do.
„The Russians are running all of Berlin,“ he said, explaining that Red Army officers, not he or the British, were issuing orderst o the Oberbuergermeister and the twenty borough heads and that until the problems of government had been resolved on a higher level than his own, supreme authority in all of Berlin, was Russian.

U. S. notices torn down

For instance, when Red Army soldiers tore down his proclamations concerning punishments for civil offenses it was to Maj. Gen. Nikolai N. Barinoff that Colonel Howley complained. General Barinoff good naturedly issued orders to his subordinates to leave the American posters alone but it was clear that if he had not, there was not much that Colonel Howley could have done about it.
This impase among the three major conquering powers over the administrative problems in Berlin is likely tob e No. 1 on the agenda at the impending Big Three conference. Belief among political observers here is that the Russians have not the faintest idea of trying to force the United States and Britain to import food for the German civilians in the capital but are working a squeeze to get something else, such as, for instance, consumer goods or machinery in exchange for food that they would supply from the Russian-occupied German farmland completely surrounding Berlin.
At a conference last night with Lieut. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, Deputy United States Military Governor of Germany; Robert D. Murphy, chief American civilian authority in Germany; British Lieut. Gen. Sir Ronald M. Weeks; Maj. L. O. Lyne, and Maj. Gen. J. S. M. Whitely, Marshal Zhukoff showed a disposition to trade but nothing came of it because the British and American representatives lacked sufficient authority, it was learned from a private source.

Source of order untercertain

But it was quite apparent from what Brigadier Hinde and Colonel Howley said that until an agreement on such fundamental matters as providing fuel and food for Berlin and whether the city is to have three or four separate governments or a combined and integrated administration, the Russian troops will remain in the American and British zones in their present strength and will continue to see that their commander`s orders are carried out.
The Russian spokesmen are quite firm in their statement that each occupying power has agreed to feed the people in its own zone of occupation, but they have not said where the agreement was reached or by whom.
Colonel Howley estimated that it would take about 600 tons of food daily to maintain the present ration for the 800,000 persons in the American zone. Brigadier Hinde estimated the population of the British zone at 900,000 and said that there were about 1,100, 000 in the Russian area.[76]

Die Differenzen der Alliierten über die Verwaltung Berlins als eine in vier Besatzungszonen aufgeteilte Stadt beherrschen auch die Berichterstattung der NYT am 10. und 11. Juli 1945. Am 11. Juli kann sie schließlich verkünden, dass es eine Alliierte Kommandantur für Gesamt-Berlin geben werde.

11. Juli 1945, Mittwoch

Scheinbar völlig nebenbei erscheinen in der NYT-Ausgabe vom 11. Juli auch Informationen über die Anreise der Großen Drei zur Konferenz in Potsdam.

Von United Press ist ein Bericht auf S. 1 (Fortsetzung S. 4), der sich mit Trumans Anreise befasst.

Truman on cruiser maps peace plans

President confers often with Byrnes and Leahy – Will fly from port to Big 3 talks

By The United Press.

Aboard a United States Cruiser, July 10 – President Truman was on the mid-Atlantic today aboard this ship, bound for a northern European port. There he will board a plane for Potsdam, Berlin suburb, for the conference next week with Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin.
The Chief Executive, accompanied by Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Presidential Chief of Staff, and a small corps of attaches, left Newport News, Va., on Saturday. Mr. Truman will have covered more than 10,000 miles on the trip.
Because of security considerations, no advance announcement of the date of Mr. Truman`s arrival can be made, according to the White House press secretary, Charles G. Ross, who is accompanying the President.
The skipper of the fighting ship that Mr. Truman chose for his first Atlantic crossing since he returned from France after World War I is Capt. James H. Foskett.
Another cruiser makes up the force carrying the Presidential party. Rear Admiral Allan R. Mc Cann is in command with Capt. Robert L. Boller the flagship. It is a veteran of the African, Sicilian, Italian and Normandy campaigns.
(In Washington the Navy said that Captain Foskett commanded the U. S. S. Augusta and Captain Boller the U. S. S. Philadelphia, The Associated Press reported. It was on the Augusta that President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill met in August, 1941, to draft the Atlantic Charter.)
As he headed for the Big Three conference to map the end of the war and lay the groundwork for a durable peace, the President traveled under conditions drastically changed from those obtaining when Germany was still fighting. There was no blackout. No destroyers or aircraft covered the cruisers, which were churning along in picture-perfect weather.
As the warship sliced through the Atlantic, Mr. Truman held continued conferences with Admiral Leahy and Mr. Byrnes.
The party was the smallest to accompany a President to such a conference.
The first day out Mr. Truman like the rest of the passengers had a lifeboat position assigned to him and went through „abandon ship“ drill with the crew, donning a heavy life jacket from which dangled a whistle and a waterproof flashlight. He appeared on deck in a sailor`s white cap, one he wears when cruising near Washington on the Presidential yacht Potomac.

Works in shirt sleeves

Mr. Truman` schedule aboard ship is essentially the same as his White House routine. He rises shortly after 6 A. M., naps after lunch and retires well before midnight. When not working in the Flag Admiral`s suite, which he occupies on the command deck, he spends much time on deck in shirt sleeves and tweep cap.
Accompanying Mr. Truman are his military and naval aides, Brig. Gen. Harry H. Vaughan and Capt. James K. Vardaman Jr.; Benjamin W. Cohen, assistant to Mr. Byrnes; Charles E. Bohlen, State Department Russian expert and a veteran of other Big Three meetings, at which he served as Russian interpreter for President Roosevelt; H. Freeman Matthews, director of the State Department`s Office of European Affairs, and Capt. Alphonse McNahon, a Navy physician.
Mr. Truman says that he is getting a kick out of the journey and his curiosity has taken him to virtually every part of the cruiser. Sunday was cloudy and blustery, but he was up before 7 for a stroll around the decks. He attended church services with the crew in the forward mess hall and took a long nap after lunch. He conferred later on foreign policy with Mr. Byrnes.
The President devoted part of yesterday to a tour of the ship. He went from the gun deck deep into the engine and boiler room, from the boat deck to the sick bay, where he chatted with seamen.
When the President reaches Potsdam he will be joined by consultant experts from the State, War and Navy Departments in including the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Joseph E. Davies, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, who did some of the preparatory work for the conference, als will join Mr. Truman at the parley site.[77]

Auf Seite 4 beschreibt die NYT mit einzelnen Meldungen die Situation in Berlin.

Berlin Airdrome Busy

Berlin, July 10 (U.P.) – A big fleet of transport planes swept in over Berlin today, apparently bringing the vanguard of officials and experts for the Big Three conference.
The airdrome was declared off, limits for newspaper correspondents.
Several convoys of army passenger automobiles passed through Berlin apparently to take Big Three personnel to headquarters. W. Averell Harriman, United States Ambassador to Russia, was believed to have arrived.[78]

Stalin prepares to leave

Generalissimo Stalin and hiss taff are preparing to leave Russia for the Big Three meeting, the British radio, quoting „a Moscow message,“ said last night, according to the National Broadcasting Company.
Mr. Davies arrived in London yesterday on the Queen Mary, a National Broadcasting Company correspondent in the British capital said. Mr. Davies accompanied by Ambassador John G. Winant, plans to have lunch today with Anthony Eden. Later he will fly to Frankfort on the Main to confer with Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.[79]

Ihren vermutlich ersten Beitrag aus Berlin veröffentlichte auf S. 4 die für „The New York Times“ schreibende Journalistin Tania Long.

Russian soldiers aware of U. S. help

Troops in Berlin exhibit great interest in America – Many sure of war with Japan

By Tania Long
By Wireless to The New York Times

Berlin, July 10 – The Russian soldiers one meets and talks with in the streets of the German capital are friendly and full of curiosity about America and its people. They are just about as eager as any GI to return to their families back home. What is more, they have a surprisingly fair picture of the Anglo-American contribution to the winning of the war.
I was sitting in the sun in Olivaer-Platz Park yesterday when two young Red Army men approached and saluted. Speaking in German, they asked: „American or British?“
I answered in Russian that I was an American, whereupon they grinned broadly and said I was the first American they had spoken to.
„We`re in from the country today, and we want to see some Americans. Greetings, comrade,“ one of them said putting out his hand to shake mine. This is how the conservation went on: „How is it that an American speaks Russian?“ the taller one asked. „Are there many who do?“
Before I had a chance to answer, the shorter of the soldiers turned to his pal and said, chidingly, „Well, you know there are many Russians in America. There are people from all over the world in America. Dont`t you remember your history lessons? How people from all the nations in Europe went to America to get away from the troubles and wars over here, and that`s how the United States of America came to be?“
„Yes, yes,“ replied the other. „I know. But this time they had to fight, all the same, didn`t they?“ I continued to listen while the two carried on.

Allies`help is valued

„Yes, and it`s well that they did,“ the shorter one said. „It would have gone hard with us if the English and the Americans hadn`t been in the fight.“
„Yes,“ the tall one said meditatively. „I suppose it would. Maybe we could have finished it alone. I don`t know. I would have taken many years longer, though.”
„No, no,” replied the other with vigor. „It would have gone bad with us. We couldn`t have done it alone. We had to come at him (the enemy) from both sides before we could finish him.“
Then, after asking me some questions about what I was doing in the Army and about American women generally, they wanted to know whether the Americans were being demobilized. „I haven`t seen my wife and child since long before Stalingrad,“ one said. „Some of our men already are going home – I hope I may, too, soon.“
Both soldiers had been in the battle of Stalingrad. They proudly showed the medals that had been awarded them for it. They had been fighting almost steadily until Berlin fell. Both have had enough of war, although one, the shorter one, from the Ukraine, thought Russia would have to fight Japan, too, before she was through.

Views on Japan mixed

The opinion of the other soldier was that Japan would crack before Russia had a chance to turn her armies around to the East. Russian troops, in general, seem to be divided on the question. Their information on world events, incidentally, seems full and up to date, owing no doubt to the frequent meetings in the evenings, at which their officers or political commissars discuss … with them the latest happenings.
When the two Red Army men left me, they again shook hands and politely, and somewhat formally, thanked me for having talked with them.
„When we go back to our barracks tonight,“ the shorter one said, grinning, „we can say that we talked to an American comrade – and a woman at that!“
Other Russian troops to whom I have talked, including one elderly sea wolf in a naval uniform who insisted on kissing my hand in Old World fashion, expressed much the same friendliness, interest and ideas as the two quoted above.
There seems to be great eagerness on their part to get together with their Western Allies, although language differences make this difficult. One thing the America GI`s have learned, though, is how to barter or sell to the Russians. The Red Army has been paid recently for the first time in months, in some cases years, and their soldiers are eager customers for watches, cameras and other „souvenirs“ that our troops have collected in Germany. The Russians pay fantastic prices for them.
Today, as I rode along one of Berlin`s main roads, I saw a GI standing in the middle of the street pointing to his wrist watch every time a Russian-driven car went by. I had hardly passed him when a car stopped; the driver, a Russian sergeant, got out and the sale was being made.[80]

12. Juli 1945, Donnerstag

Das Befinden von Präsident Truman auf seiner Seefahrt nach Europa ist der einzige mit der bevorstehenden Konferenz verbundene Beitrag in der NYT-Ausgabe vom 12. Juli 1945, auf S. 1 (Fortsetzung S. 4).

Truman again sees Byrnes and Leahy

President confers repeatedly as he nears first meeting with Churchill, Stalin

By The United Press.

Aboard the cruiser Augusta, July 11 – President Truman held lengthy conferences with two of his top international advisers today as the warship carrying him to next week`s Big Three meeting at Potsdam, Germany, swung northeast and sped through choppy seas toward a northern European port.
As Mr. Truman neared Europe, plans were made for the Augusta and the accompanying light cruiser Philadelphia to be joined off the British Isles by an escort of British men-of-war. A delegation of British naval officers will board the Philadelphia for the remainder of the trip.
(According to The Associated Press, Mr. Truman intends to go to the Big Three meeting without talking beforehand with Mr. Churchill. The idea apparently is to assure Premier Stalin that the American President has no thought of making any independent agreements, even of a tentative nature.)
The President will debark at an unspecified port and proceed to Potsdam by plane.
Mr. Truman left the United States last Saturday. He spent more time today conferring with the Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy on the position the United States will take at the meeting with Premier Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill.
They reviewed details of Mr. Truman`s two principal aims for the parley – a speedy end to the Pacific war and a foundation for durable peace.
Mr. Truman also discussed with the small staff accompanying him tentative plans to visit European capitals after the Big Three meeting. He does not, however, plan to go to France.

Truman plays shuffleboard

Between staff conferences, the President took time out for a game of shuffleboard as this heavy cruiser pitched and rolled through the first real sea weather since he embarked at Newport News, Va.
During further exploration of the ship he met a third cousin, Fire Controlman 2/C Lawrence Truman of Owensboro, Ky. They arranged to have a family chat.[81]

13. Juli 1945, Freitag

Am 13. Juli kann die NYT als Schlagzeile auf S. 1 (Fortsetzung S. 10) mitteilen, dass das Treffen der Großen Drei am Montag, 16. Juli, beginnen würde bzw. einen Tag später.

Big 3 Meeting due Monday

Potsdam parley expected to outlast previous talks

Truman prepares for long conference with Stalin and Churchill – Keeps in hourly touch with successes of Third Fleet

By the Associated Press.

Aboard the cruiser Augusta, July 12 – The Big Three`s meeting will begin next Monday or Tuesday, it was learned today amid indications that it would be prolonged. President Truman prepared for the possibility of a long conference while keeping in hourly touch with the Third Fleet`s successes off Japan.
Remaining in the Admiral`s cabin, the President went over with Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy the agenda covering a world-wide range suggested for discussion by the United States, Great Britain and Russia. A review of the suggested topics, including proposed territorial adjustments, feeding, occupation and scores of others, was said to have convinced the President that the conference might outlast those of Yalta, Teheran and Quebec. The Yalta meeting took eight days.
The President`s major concern for the moment is speedy victory over Japan in the interest of saving thousands of American lives. Elated over reports that the Third Fleet`s air forces now dominated the sea as well as the air over Japan, President Truman followed the new and most powerful Pacific operations through detailed sea charts covering all the waters of the Pacific, kept constantly up to date by Comdr. John A. Tyree, assistant naval aide. He brought along smaller editions of all the White House maps and new developments are posted hourly.
The President is in constant and instantaneous radio communication with the White House and the State, War and Navy Departments, as well as advance units of the American delegation to Potsdam, SHAEF and European embassies. It is presumed that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower will join other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Potsdam.
Because of the uncertainty over the length of the conference, the President has not finally commited himself to any side trips. Even a reported visit to London is classed as tentative, and there is no prospect that the President will visit France to talk with Gen. Charles de Gaulle.[82]

First bad weather of trip
Aboard the cruiser Augusta, July 12 (U.P.) – The President`s special task force, comprising the Augusta and the light cruiser Philadelphia, encountered its first sloppy weather today – the sixth day out of Newport News, Va. Low clouds and frequent gusts of chilly rain caused the postponement of a practice catapult launching of the Augusta`s scout planes.
Mr. Truman joined the crew for lunch today in the cafeteria-style mess. Weather permitting, he planned to attend a crew smoker tonight to witness boxing bouts and comedy skits in the well deck.
One of his early callers was Lawrence Truman, fire controlman second class, of Owensboro, Ky., who is his third cousin. They spent some time discussing the family`s Kentucky branch.[83]

Old regiment to greet him
Antwerp, July 12 (AP) – President Truman is due to reach here on Sunday en route to Potsdam. He will be greeted by an honor guard composed of the entire 137th Infantry Regiment of the Thirtyfifth Division – the outfit in which he served as an artillery captain in the first World War.[84]

Elaborate precautions taken
Berlin, July 12 (U. P.) – Elaborate measures have already been taken for the protection of President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin, and civilians have been moved from a large area surrounding their meeting place, it was learned today.
The site of the meeting zone is regarded as a state secret here. Airfields are heavily guarded and areas now sealed off by Russian and Allied guards will probably remain so throughout the conference.[85]

14. Juli 1945, Sonnabend

Beitrag zum Treffen der Großen Drei auf S. 1 mit Fortsetzung auf S. 9. Auf S. 9 ebenfalls  weitere Nachrichten dazu.

Truman declared firm for Big 3 ban on secret pledges

Said to predicate U. A. Aid on Europe`s settling issues to destroy seeds of war

Plans congress report

President confers continually with top advisers – British ships escort cruiser today

By The Associated Press.

Aboard cruiser Augusta, July 13 – President Truman was described today as firmly resolved against any secret commitments in the Big Three meeting starting Monday or Tuesday in Potsdam, near Berlin.
As the Presidential cruiser steamed close to Europe, associates of the Chief Executive said that he planned to report to the Congress as soon as he returned from his talks with Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin.
The President was understood to be prepared to offer reasonable American cooperation toward the rehabilitation of Europe, expecting in return assurances that the European countries would work together for adjustment of issues that might carry the germs of war.
He was represented as feeling that a primary basis of American policy was readiness to help, when help would be welcome, in getting the United States`friends together when they disagreed.
The President holds the laying of a groundwork for permanent peace in Europe as an objective second only to speedy victory over Japan at the lowest possible cost in lives.
The approach to the historic conversations put additional pressure on the conferences with advisers that have kept Mr. Truman busy in the admiral`s cabin aboard the Augusta much of the time since the ship sailed from Newport News, Va., last Saturday. Meetings today with Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, the President`s personal chief of staff, were almost continuous.
The busines – like atmosphere was reflected also in activities of the crews of the two-cruiser force. Realistic battle practice occupied the complements of both the Augusta and the Philadelphia, which steamed within sight of the President`s ship. Both vessels launched scouting planes from catapults in a demonstration for Mr. Truman.
Tomorrow has been fixed for the rendezvous with British warships which will convoy the President through British waters.
The Augusta entered British territorial waters early tonight, passing the Scilly Islands.[86]

To inspect old outfit
By wireless to The New York Times.
Brussels, July 13 – On his first visit abroad as President Mr. Truman will set foot ashore Sunday on an Antwerp dock surrounded by scores of other docks piled high with supplies destined for the Orient. At the airport here he will inspect a guard of honor from his World War I outfit, 400 men of the 137th Regiment of the Thirty-fifth Infantry Division. The President served with the division as a captain in France.
The President is expected to go to Brussels and thence by plane to Potsdam. The route will be patrolled by at least 1,600 men from the same regiment.[87]

Harriman leaves for meeting
Moscow, July 13 (AP) – United States Ambassador W. Averell Harriman left Moscow today fort he Big Three meeting. He was accompanied by military and diplomatic attachès.[88]

Das Thema „Viermächte-Regime“ in Berlin beschäftigt die NYT auf S. 4 ihrer Ausgabe.

U. S. control group in Berlin offices
Establishes its headquarters to prepare for start of Four-Power Regime

By Raymond Daniell
By Wireless to The New York Times

Berlin, July 13 – The United States group of the Control Council for Germany, which sits at Frankfort on the Main to govern Amerian-occupied German territory in the west, established advanced headquarters here today presumably to insure the coordination of the policy of the capital and its hinterland.
Meanwhile the Russian withdrawal from and the transfer of authority to the British and Americans in the sectors that they occupy in the capital continued during the day.
The first trial of a German civilian in a military government court under American jurisdiction was held today. The German, accused of having given false answers on his questionnaire, was found guilty and sentenced to six month`s imprisonment.
British and American legal and economic experts spent the day conferring with their Russian counterparts on the details of the food and fuel arrangement. The details of the plan still remain to be disclosed.

Bank accounts blocked

There are also differencies to be settled between the Russians and their Anglo-American allies over such matters as wages and hours for labor and the handling of banks and bank accounts.
The Russians already have blocked all German accounts as of the date of the Germans surrender. All German nationals have been notified that they must account for all increases in wealth between 1933, when Hitler assumed power, and 1945 when his regime collapsed. Presumably those who cannot give a satisfactory accounting of their sources of wealth will have it confiscated.
Likewise the Russians have given all Germans until July 15 to surrender any Soviet bonds they may hold on the penalty of severe punishment for failure to do so. As many Soviet bonds were stolen during the German invasion of the Soviet Union it probably will take pretty conclusive proof of ownership to entitle the holders to any recompense from the Russians.[89]

15. Juli 1945, Sonntag

Der Ankunft Trumans in Antwerpen ist ein Beitrag auf S. 1 der NYT gewidmet, der auf S. 11 seine Fortsetzung findet.

Truman due in Berlin today;
Takes British navy`s salute

President will fly to site of Big Three Talks
After debarking at Antwerp – Parley set in a Potsdam Palace of Kaiser

By the Associated Press.

Aboard cruiser Augusta, July 14 – President Truman, en route to the Big Three meeting in Potsdam, near Berlin, will arrive in Antwerp at 11 A. M., British summer time, tomorrow, at the end of a 3,800-mile voyage. The conferences are expected to open tomorrow or Tuesday.
This was disclosed officially tonight as the President`s two-ship force moved through the calm but misty English Channel under escort of the British cruiser Birmingham and six destroyers flying the Stars and Stripes from their mastheads and their own white ensigns aft.
In Potsdam the President`s top-ranking party will be quartered in a thirty-room residence ten minutes by auto from a castle of former Kaiser Wilhelm where the Big Three conferences will be held.
(The castle referred to apparently was the huge quadrangular structure built by Frederick William I between 1660 and 1682, The United Press said. It has been the „Kaiser`s Palace“ since its constrution and contains many relics of Military`s military past, including mementoes of the reign of Frederick the Great.)
Honors that the British Navy reserves for the great who visit British waters were accorded Mr. Trumnan. The sailors who manned the Birmingham and the accompanying destroyers sounded the traditional three cheers while moving past the President`s ship.
A broad smile on his face, his hat across his heart, the President stood beside James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State, to acknowledge the impressive salute.
The seven ships returned to their posts of duty and three smaller escort destroyers took their place as the Augusta moved on toward Antwerp.
The President slipped out of Washington the night of July 6, going by train to Newport News, Va., where he boarded the Augusta the next day. Unusually fine weather has been the lot of the party from the start.
Standing on the deck of his veteran warship, his cap over his heart, President Truman acknowledged the honors pair him by the British men-of-war on their arrival as on official escort.
Two floating mines were sighted near the convoy – reminders of the European war, whose aftermath is a prime concern of the Potsdam Conference.
The British welcoming ships made their rendezvous with the Augusta and Philadelphia at 7 A. M. The sea was calm but the air was misty. The destroyers smartly lined up beside the American cruisers. The Birmingham circled the Augusta, all her crew standing at attention along the rails. Rear Admiral Cunningham-Graham was aboard.
The procession moved past Lands End, then on past Dover.
The President, finishing work on United States proposals to be made to Premier Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill, decreed the simplest of ceremonies for tomorrow`s debarkation.
He will be met by Charles Sawyer, United States Ambassador to Belgium, and an honor guard from the Thirty-fifth Division as he Mr. Byrnes. The President and his Secretary of State will be piped off together instead of separately, as diplomatic custom permits.
On leaving the ship two hours after it lands, the President and his official Party will enter automobiles for a 45-to-60 minute drive to Brussels, where they will board the Presidential C-54 plane for the two-and-a-half-hour flight to Potsdam. Mr. Sawyer will accompany the party to Brussels.
The route from Antwerp to Brussels will be guarded by American soldiers. There will be no reception by the Belgium Government since the area is included in the Allied military zone.[90]

Weitere Nachrichten auf S. 11, wie über die große Zahl von Menschen, die Trumans Passage als Zuschauer von Land aus beobachtet hatten oder über die Säuberung der Scheldemündung bei Antwerpen von Minen, um dem Präsidenten-Konvoi ein gefahrloses Anlegen zu ermöglichen.

Stalin and Molotoff leave
Moscow, July 14 (Reuter) – Generalissimo Stalin and Foreign Minister Vyacheslaff M. Molotoff left today for the Big Three talks.[91]

Churchill plane waiting
Saint Jean de Luz, France, July 14 (Reuter) – Prime Minister Churchill will probably leave his holiday castle at Bordaberry tomorrow for Potsdam. His plane is ready at Bordeaux.
A fireworks display was put on last night in a combined tribute to Mr. Churchill and Bastille Day. There was thunderous applause, when Mr. Churchill rose and said: „I`m going to make a great speech – „Vive la France.“
The British Prime Minister looks fit. His holiday has apparently done him much good.[92]

Admiral King en route
Paris, July 14 (Reuter) – Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief of the United States Navy, passed through Paris today on his way to Potsdam. He conferred briefly with Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley, commander of the navy. (Admiral Harold R. Stark, chief of the American Naval Forces in Europe, arrived in Brussels by plane today from Frankfort.)[93]

Potsdam alert for meeting

Potsdam, July 14 (AP) – This summer resort area, once popular with Nazi stars of the stage and screen, has been almost completely depopulated of Germans to furnish the security essential for the Big Three.
The American and British groups are housed in little territorial islands well within the Soviet zone in Greater Berlin. Traffic on the broad aspalt highway to Potsdam is a cosmopolitan collection of „high brass“ from Moscow, London and Washington.
Almost at the edge of the international Shangri-La a German roadside tavern advertises „dancing at 6 o`clock,“ and a few shabily dressed fräuleins sun themselves in rickety chairs at the entrance and ogle the Russian soldiers.
Several thousand elite green-capped Soviet frontier guardsmen compose the force chiefly responsible for policing the Potsdam Conference, and they are strictly business. If you do not have exactly the right pass, you don`t take a step forward and live.
These guardsmen have been trained for years to obey orders to the letter. Virtually none of them speaks English, or even German, for while the Red Army fraternizes to its heart`s content here the frontier guardsmen are a force apart.
All Allied soldiers on entry duty, except those in armored vehicles, have rifles with bayonets fixed and present arms at the slightest hint of an officer approaching. Soviet guardsmen are distributed every twenty feet along the roads and byways. American and British are almost as numerous.
To refresh the historical figures who are gathering here, expert caterers have had fine foods and wines flown in during the past few days. At Yalta last winter the Big Three feasted on the luxuries of the Soviet Union. The United States and the British Empire are contributing to the Potsdam functions.[94]

Raymond Daniell steuert, ebenfalls auf S. 11, einen Beitrag zur Situation der Medienleute vor Beginn der Konferenz der Großen Drei bei.

Parley corbs irk Berlin newsmen

They compare secrecy about Potsdam with daily reports from Truman`s cruiser

By Raymond Daniell
By Wireless to The New York Times.

Berlin, July 13 – Most of the American and British newspaper correspondents now in Berlin came here when they did chiefly to report the Big Three conference. But that is the one thing they cannot write about, not even to the extent of speculating on the time and place of the meeting of President Truman, Premier Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill.
That mystical word „security“ is the reason given for the present hush-hush policy, yet every day radio broadcasts give details of the President`s progress across the ocean, and the Russian radio at one time broadcast a report that the conference would open today an then in a subsequent broadcast named Tuesday as the time.
There is hardly a German in Berlin who does not know the exact spot where the historic meeting will convene – in fact one Berliner even described the place for me. Two correspondents, one British and one American, already have been punished for venturing into the forbidden zone, which lies outside Berlin. They were suspended for seventy-two hours, during which they were denied transmission privileges.

Newsman barred from airport

The airport has been declared off limits to all correspondents. Photographers, nevertheless, have ben taken on an escorted tour of the grounds and building where the conference will take place, although reporters and radio commentators have been barred.
A report from the Augusta, published in the United States this morning, that President Truman is opposed to secret agreements aroused considerable interest among the correspondents here. Another report that correspondents now in Berlin, many of them men who covered the war since it began, would not be allowed to cover the tripartite meeting and that the privilege would be restricted to those accompanying the President, while hardly credible, aroused interest of a different nature.
Without venturing any prediction regarding the time for the opening of the conference, there are some interesting manifestations worth reporting objectively. The guard around the forbidden zone, which lies in the Russian area of occupation, has been increased. Airplane traffic into the airport has increased in the past twenty-four hours. And some American officers were heard complaining today that right at the moment when they had their hands full rounding up trucks to cart food around the American sector of the capital they had been called upon to provide trucks to move furniture, rugs and wines and liquor for important visitors.[95]

Auf S. 37 der NYT ist das Potsdam Meeting, auf S. 1 der Wochenendbeilage, Thema.

Potsdam Meeting

Big Three confer

Berliners seemed last week indifferent to the approaching Big Three meeting, of such vital concern for their future. Among the women standing in long queues in front of food stores or among men doing their five-hour daily stint of clearing away debris there was no talk of the conference soon to be held in the suburb of Potsdam. Instead, they were interested in two things – eating and sleeping.
Berliners, cables Raymond Daniell, correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES, „have come to regard themselves as objects of political discussions with no voice in them and therefore it is of small moment to them when or where the conference to decide their fate is held. Whatever is decided about their future, they know they`ll have to accept. Besides, the life of the average Berliner is such that he has neither time nor energy for contemplation of abstract political principles or concrete political facts beyond the immediate problems of food, shelter and transportation.“
This meeting, scheduled to begin within forty-eight hours, marks the hird time in twenty months that the heads of the Anglo-American-Russian coalition have gathered to map a grand strategy. The first at Teheran in November and December, 1943, came against a background of mounting military triumphs, coordinated the plans for invasion and final blows against Germany. Decisions were predominantly military. The second, at Yalta in February, 1945, came on the eve of Germany`s doom and blueprinted the peace and „unconditional surrender.“
Now quite another picture confronts the Big Three. V-E Days has come and gone. Some decisions made at Yalta are historic facts – the world peace Charter, a new Polish Provisional Government, the occupation of the Reich. Others, such as a common policy on liberated countries, have produced diplomatic rifts and raised questions on whether the wartime coalition can survive reawakened national rivalries and ambitions.

Problem of Germany

One paramount problem confronting this meeting is – what to do with Germany? Agreement on this central issue – which involves questions of German frontiers, future government, de-industrialization and reparations – seems likely to bear on the success of all other joint plans for international security.
Another problem concerns the whole future of Europe. Since liberation, Europe has seen little economic rebuilding. In France, the Netherlands, Italy, the pressing need has long been to get mines, mills and factories operating again. The big powers have jockeyed for influence in the Balkans, the Middle East, along the Mediterranean, causing concern to those who fear resumption of the old „balance of power“ blocs, which failed to stop war.
Finally, despite Russia`s technical neutrality toward Japan, it seems likely that the question of Russia`s important interests in Asia and her future course toward the enemy of her two chief Allies will be discussed. Those interests, pointed up by Premier T. V. Soong`s discussions in Moscow during the past two weeks, involve cooperation between Russia and China on Manchuria and probably the fate of the Communist armies in China.

Role of the Three

Although the triumvirate of negotiators includes a new member, President Truman, the traditional „give-and-take“ of previous meetings will probably prevail. The old triumvirate was notable for its free statement of ideas, vigorously expressed. As seen by the world, Prime Minister Churchill was the bluntest of the three; Premier Stalin preferred the rebuttal method – waiting, listening, then sudden shrewd questioning; President Roosevelt, with his bland personality and abiding faith that all difficulties yield to face-to-face discussions, was the canny bargainer resolving the impasses.
President Truman before the meeting declared that „the all-important thing which confronts us is that *** unity, mutual confidence and respect *** should be continued.“ Last week on his way to the meeting he was represented as believing that his role should be to prepare the groundwork for permanent peace by offering „reasonable“ cooperation toward reconstruction in Europe and, secondly, to mediate when America`s Allies disagree among themselves. These objectives, it was reported, were second only to victory over Japan. He was firmly against any secret commitments in the coming meeting.
This is the first time the President has gone to Europe since he was an artillery captain in World War I. Nine days ago he sailed from Newport News, VA, aboard the U. S. S. Augusta, the battle-tested cruiser in whose Admiral`s cabin the Atlantic Charter was drawn by Roosevelt and Churchill in 1941. With him went James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State; Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy; Charles E. Bohlen, State Department veteran of other Big Three meetings, where he served as Roosevelt`s Russian interpreter; the White House staff. In another cruiser, the U. S. S. Philadelphia, went more military and naval aides. About one hundred diplomatic, economic and military experts were to follow to Berlin by air.

President`s routine

Last week as the Augusta churned through both calm and choppy Atlantic waters, the President, looking fit and tanned in sport clothes, kept to a round-the-clock schedule. In the flag admiral`s suite he rose at 6 A. M. each morning, held day and night conferences with aides, followed the drastic new blows against Japan through detailed sea charts. Between times he toured the ship, played shuffleboard, joined the crew for mess, had a „family chat“ with a third cousin, Fire Controlman 2/c Lawrence Truman.
Meanwhile, high diplomats arriving last week at Templehof airdrome, Berlin, were being shuttled by American limousines to Potsdam. Marshal Stalin and his staff were reported en route from Russia. Prime Minister Churchill traveled to the meeting from Hendaye, France, where he was vacationing, his visit there being „of a purely private character.“ The one-time seat of the Hohenzollern dynasty and cradle of Prussian militarism is heavily guarded by the thousands of Russian, British and American troops, including men of the 137th Regiment of the Thirty-fifth Infantry Division with whose World War I outfit the President served in France. From the port of debarkation it was planned to fly the Truman party to Berlin in the C-54 luxury plane which carried the President to the Pacific Coast for the San Francisco Conference.[96]

Auf fast einer ganzen Seite (S. 39) der Wochenendbeilage äußert sich Herbert L. Matthews zu grundlegenden inhaltlichen Fragen, die auf der Konferenz in Potsdam zu behandeln wären.

16. Juli 1945, Montag

Die Schlagzeile der NYT vom 16. Juli 1945 suggerierte der Leserschaft, dass die Konferenz der Großen Drei an diesem Tag beginnen würde. Der dazu gehörende Beitrag begann auf S. 1und wurde auf S. 2 fortgesetzt.

Truman sees war`s havoc with Eisenhower as guide

By David Anderson
By Wireless to The New York Times.

Brussels, Belgium, July 15 – President Truman stepped on the soil of Europe an hour before noon today at the great port of Antwerp. He was met by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who accompanied him on a thirty-five-mile and a peaceful countryside to a military airfield outside Brussels, whence they took off in a silver C-54 plane for Berlin.
The President`s first words when he came ashore were addressed to Jean van den Bosch who welcomed him on behalf of Prince Regent Charles. M. van den Bosch expressed the deep appreciation of his countrymen for their deliverance from the enemy and Mr. Truman replied:
„I have always been a great admirer of your country and it was a pleasure to be to assistance.“
The President was obviously happy and keenly interested in what he saw. He woke early, as usual, and was pacing the communications deck of the United States cruiser Augusta by 7 o`clock as she rode slowly up the estuary of the Schelde River. Messages of welcome from the Burgomasters of Flushing in the Netherlands and Terneuzen in Belgium, Schelde ports, were handed to the President.
When the Augusta entered the narrowing approaches to the port, which played a vital role in the final moves toward the crushing of Germany, Mr. Truman passed within a few hundred yards of a large pen where thousands of Germans behind barbed wire gazed at the flotilla, which included the U. S. S. Philadelphia and three British destroyers.
The quay selected for the landing lay on the rim of the ancient city. It was once used by Canadian Pacific liners und was familiar to countless tourists between the wars. Small craft in the harbor did their best to imitate a New York recption with whistling and flagwaving. Some produced the Stars and Stripes for the occasion.
The Augusta docked at 10 A. M. United States Ambassador Charles Sawyer went aboard soon after General Eisenhower. They were followed by high-ranking American and British officers. It was a little more than an hour before the President came ashore, to be cheered by a crowd of at least 5,000 Belgians.
The President drove in an open car. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes sat with him. Their passage trough Antwerp was a dusty one, for Antwerp suffered great damage from flying bombs and V-2 rockets, and a light wind, stirring dust in the ruins frequently shrouded the party in yellow clouds.
It was not until the procession of thirty odd vehicles had moved clear of the city into the countryside that the party could enjoy the fullness of the brillant sunshine and pay heed to the little knots of people who stood at every farm gate, road intersection and village street. For the most part they marked the passage of the procession in silence.
Standing along the Presidential route were men of Mr. Truman`s World War I infantry division, the Thirty-fifth. The entire 137th Regiment was on duty in full battle regalia, posted at each road, lane or even path over most of the distance from Antwerp to Brussels.
The President skirted Brussels, passing through the suburb of Schaerbeck, where Scottish and English troops lined the streets. The Belgians here were somewhat more effusive, responding gaily to the impressive sight of a score of motor cycle troopers in the vanguard and a flag-bedecked convoy of limousines and jeeps.
Security precautions for Mr. Truman`s visit dictated the use of a military airport hidden in a fold of land near Melsbroeck on the road to Louvain, a satellite of the capital`s main landing ground. Tucked in a corner of it were five four-engined C-54`s in one of which Mr. Truman left for Berlin with General Eisenhower.
At the airfield Mr. Truman inspected a guard of honor of 400 men from his division under the command of Lieut. Col. George T. O`Connell of Emporia, Kan. The striking feature of the guard was the blue and white shoulder flash symbolizing the Santa Fè Trail, a cross set in a wagon wheel. While not the same as that worn by Mr. Truman when he served as a captain in France in the last war, it was recognizably the same pattern.
Mr. Truman had already entered his plane, the flags of the forty-four nations visited by its crew painted on the nose, when Premier Achille van Acker drove up. The President at once returned to the runway to exchange a word with the head of the Belgian Government.
M. van Acker spoke a few sentences of welcome, whereupon the President shook his head to show that he did not understand French and the Premier smilingly repeated in halting English.
The original plans did not include M. van Acker, perhaps because of the uncertain political state of the nation. Mr. Sawyer explained to Mr. Truman that M. von Ackers`s presence would be a gesture of good-will, fully appreciated by the Belgians, and subsequently a message went forth to the Premier.[97]

U. S., Soviet and Britain will redraw map in historic meetings

Top advisers with chiefs

President flies from Antwerp – Stalin believed in Berlin – Potsdam heavily guarded

By Ramond Daniell
By Wireless to The New York Times.

Berlin, July 15 – The tripartite conference to redraw the map of Europe and settle the fate of conquered Germany will open tomorrow, it was announced tonight after President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill and their retinues had arrived by plane. It was assumed that Premier Stalin als had arrived, although there was no official announcement from Russian quarters.
The President, the Prime Minister and their Foreign Secretaries and military, naval and air advisers arrived in a huge flotilla of big Yorks und C-47`s which landed at a Berlin airport between 2:30 P. M. and 6:15. Mr. Churchill and Mr. Truman drove to the villas they will occupy while the conference, which is expected to last ten days to three weeks, is in session. The route they traveled was heavily guarded by tanks, armored cars and machine guns to a depth of 700 yards on both sides.

Byrnes lands earlier

Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who arrived before the President, declined to take military honors from a guard consisting of the Second Battalion of the Forty-first Armored Infantry, Second Armored Division, drawn up on the airport with a band. They waited on the field, chatting with W. Averell Harriman, United States Ambassador tot he Soviet Union, and Joseph E. Davies, special adviser to the President, who arrived yesterday or the day before. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King also are here.
Mr. Truman, wearing a double-breasted gray suit and gray felt hat, descended from the plane smiling. He was followed by Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, his chief of staff. The President was greeted by Gen. Vassily D. Sokolovsky, deputy to Marshal Gregory K. Zhukoff, Soviet military administrator in Germany, and Col. Gen. Alexander V. Gorbatoff commander in Berlin.
Looking tan and fit, the President walked up and down the line of tghe honor guard in inspection and asked the veterans of fighting in Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany about their many medals and how they stood on points for discharge.

Generals step aside

Although his party included such military figures as Gens. George C. Marshall, Henry H. Arnold, who broke his journey at Berchtesgaden, and Brehon B. Somervell, all stepped aside in favor of the President when the military honors were offered.
Although press photographers and reporters were barred from the airport on War Department orders, about 500 or 600 officers and enlisted men were on the field when Mr. Truman`s plane landed. Military police were busy keeping amateur camera fans in order.
Mr. Churchill, a passenger in the thirteenth plane to land, brought with him for the settling of Germany`s account the team that helped him plan with President Roosevelt and Generalissimo Stalin the final donwfall of Adolf Hitler`s reich. It included Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, whose face was slightly drawn and pale after his recent illness, and the chiefs of Britain`s air, naval and land forces. The Prime Minister`s close friend, Lord Cherwell, who attended the San Francisco Conference, was in the British party.
Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, who has been here a few days, arrived in a car at the airport a few minutes before Mr. Churchill.
The Prime Minister, looking refreshed after his sojourn in southern France, was accompanied by his daughter Mary, a junior commander of the Ats. He wore the summer uniform of a colonel of Hussars and held a cigar as he debarked. Accompanied by „Monty,“ he inspected the guard made up the units of Canadians, Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force.
The service chiefs accompanying the Prime Minister were Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew B. Cunningham. Field Marshals Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander and Sir Henry Maitland Wilson were in the party. The military members of the group were greeted by Generals Sokolovsky and Gorbatoff. Andrei Y. Vishinsky, Soviet First Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs, welcomed Messrs. Stimson and Eden and Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
President Truman landed from the United States cruiser Augusta at Antwerp, motored to Brussels and flow over a prescribed corridor to the airport in the British sector of Berlin. He had a lunch of chicken and buttered carrots in the air and spent most of the time in flight in the co-pilot`s seat, commenting on the appearance of the farms and railroad lines he saw over Belgium, part of France and Germany. The steward who served him was T/Sgt. Roderick Fabitaille of Jamaica, Queens, N. Y. The pilot was Lieut. Col. Henry Myers.
Capt. Alphonse McMahon of the Navy, the President`s physician, said that the sea trip had given Mr. Truman the first chance to relax that he had had since taking office. The party on the Augusta had good weather all the way over, he said, and the rest did the President a world of good.
Mr. Stimson landed at Gibraltar and spent yesterday at Cannes, where he went bathing. The plane that brought him tot he conference made a long detour to give him a chance to see Langres, France, where he was stationed for a time in the last war.
The fourteen planes that brought the British and American delegates tot he nearest thing that there ever will be to a peace conference were escorted to the airport by a dozen fighters flying in formation.[98]

Eine weitere Nachricht auf S. 2 folgte auf diesen Text.

First meeting with Stalin

Berlin, July 15 (AP) – President Truman will sit down tomorrow in a former palace of Kaiser Wilhelm in Potsdam at his first meeting with Premier Stalin.
Mr. Truman has completed his draft of the American proposals he will make. Associates declared the President ready to offer American cooperation toward Europe`s rehabilitation so long as he received assurance that European contries would work together and adjust differences that might result in war.
The Pacific war is sure to figure prominently in the discussions, but Russia`s attitude may not become known for some time after the Potsdam conference ends.
Thirty-six Allied fighter planes patrolled the Berlin sky all afternoon, and outgoing traffic was suspended at the airport. The field was guarded by elite troops of the United States, Russian and British Armies.
There are increasing indications that if the Potsdam parley is unduly prolonged, the President may return immediately to Washington, which he left July 6. He has decided definitely against going to France, and associates say that his reported plans to visit London are tentative.
In Berlin a Soviet-approved pattern for Germany`s political rebirth was blazoned in newspapers today with the formation of a united front of four parties.
Contrasting with the British-American policy of stifling political activity in western Germany, the Soviet authorities gave the widest possible publicity to the coalition of the Communist-Socialist, Democratic Christian, Democratic Union and Liberal Democratic parties achieved her.
Wilhelm Pieck, a Moscow exile, headed the Communist central committee that powered the movement toward unity.
The five-point program adopted by the combined committees of the four parties was considered by some British-American observers as the smoothest-written document yet composed in post-war Germany. It offered nothing with which Allied authorities in the West could quarrel in principle if the Germans there followed Berlin`s example.
The points are:
(1) Cooperation in cleaning Germany of Hitlerism and imperialistic-militaristic thought.
(2) Energetic efforts for a quick rebuilding of economy to create work, bread, clothing and housing.
(3) Restitution of justice and the basis of a democratic state.
(4) Insuring of freedom of spirit and thought, including religious convictions.
(5) Rewinning of the trust of other peoples and the elimination of racial frictions.
All British-American sectors of Berlin are included in the united front. Party subheadquarters in these areas are fully as active as those in the Soviet part of the city.[99]

Eine Nachricht auf S. 2 befasst sich mit der Beschlagnahme einer Fabrik für Eisblöcke, damit ausreichend Eis für die Getränke während der Konferenz zur Verfügung steht.

Ice plant requisitioned for Potsdam conferees
By Wireless to The New York Times

Berlin, July 15 – The delegates to the Big Three conference in Potsdam will have all the comforts occupying troops can provide.
A Berlin ice plant has been taken over to insure that they do not want for cold drinks and there are adequate stocks of bourbon gin, Scotch, vermouth, wines and liqueurs to please every taste.
For the first meal the mess officer, Maj. John E. Lennox of Boston, said that there would be melons, berries, lettuce hearts, tomatoes and all things GI`s dream of eating. Two ten-ton mobile refrigerators will hold choice meats for the official party.
Meals will be served in Old World silver, fine glassware and rich linens salvaged from Berlin`s ruins.[100]

4.000 G.I`s bereiteten die Stadt vor

Potsdam, Deutschland, Juli 15 (AP) – Fast 4.000 amerikanische Soldaten helfen, Potsdam für die Großen Drei vorzubereiten und wandeln, neben anderen Tätigkeiten, deutsche Wohnhäuser in alles Mögliche um, von Restaurants bis zu Radiostationen. Angeführt (Drawn from) von Generalmajor Floyd L. Parks Besatzungstruppen, stellten die Amerikaner Gebäude auf, hüllten sie in 4.000 Tücher ein und errichteten luxuriöse Installationen für Speisen und Getränke.[101]

Einen Höhepunkt der Berichterstattung von Hintergründen bildet die ebenfalls auf S. 2 veröffentlichte Beschreibung von Schloss Cecilienhof als Tagungsort durch Tania Long.

Leaders will meet in bleak room.
In Potsdam to settle Reich`s fate.

Truman, Stalin and Churchill will enterb y separate doors – Russians daub in star for cloud in painting as symbol.

By Tania Long.
By Wireless to The New York Times.

Berlin, July 15 – The Big Three leaders will begin their series of historic conferences tomorrow in a large oak-paneled room in a building that the Russians have specially outfitted for the occasion in the Potsdam area, west of Berlin. (Press services said that the meetings would be held in a palace of the former Kaiser.)
The room, measuring about fifty by forty feet, contains little furniture beyond a big, round table, covered in dark red cloth, and the chairs required to seat the three chiefs and members of their staffs. There are fifteen chairs around the table and the three in which President Truman, Premier Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill will sit stand out by their greater size and by carved cupids perched on their backs.
The somberness of the room – its color scheme is dark red, black and gold – is unrelieved by groups of American, British and Russian flags placed at the top of the paneling and by two immense chandeliers of wrought iron and glass eight feet in diameter and six feet in height, each with thirty light bulbs.
The room has a vaulted roof with oak beams built between beams painted white. At one end a window thirty by forty feet looks out on a landscaped garden.
The conference room has three entrances. Each of the leaders will enter by a different door for the first meeting. They will be followed by members of their staffs. Only the three Chiefs of State will be driven up the driveway to the terrace of the house, passing the main gates.

Each has consulting room

At one end of the conference room is a door leading to Mr. Churchill`s private consulting room and office, where he can meet with his assistants and discuss with them problems from the British viewpoint.
Beyond this, but not connected with it, is Mr. Truman`s consulting room furnished with a desk, tables and comfortable chairs. Mr. Truman`s office contains a number of books in English. Among the books are Mahan`s „The Influence of Sea Power Upon History,“ which has several uncut pages; Homer Lee`s „The Valor of Ignorance,“ several copies of Will Livingston Comfort`s novels and an assortment of „Westerns“ and novels of the Nineteen Hundreds. Also among them is Martha Dodd`s book on Berlin, „Through Embassy Eyes.“
Each of the three leaders has his own suite of rooms in the building in addition to his office. Mr. Churchill`s is separated from his consulting room. He lives in another wing turned over to the British. Mr. Truman`s is directly above his office and is reached by a small, narrow staircase. Each suite consists of a bedroom, sitting room and bath and has a small private dining room near by. President Truman`s dining room is next to his consulting room and has only four chairs and a small table.
Mr. Truman`s rooms are furnished in a nondescript mahogany.
In another part of the building that can be reached through a long narrow corridor is a huge dining room in which the other participants in the meetings will eat. The room is big enough to seat fifty and is decorated with light wallpaper with a pattern of flowers and pheasants.

Russians switch symbols

A painting in the room showed a dark cloud over a vessel, and the Russians thought that this was not right at a time like this, so they removed the cloud and substituted a large, shining star, which they say is symbolic of Russian-American unity, since a star appears prominently in each nation`s heraldry.
On the third floor of the building are twelve rooms outfitted as offices and one, the largest of all, is a message center. Here are teletypes and telephone switchboards which will connect the Big Three with the rest of the world.
Although private suites have been placed at the disposal of Mr. Truman, Generalissimo Stalin and Mr. Churchill in the conference building, the leaders live in separate villas, as closely guarded as the meeting place. Mr. Churchill and Premier Stalin live about a third of a mile apart. Mr. Truman has a drive of three or four miles to the conference, although is only one-half to three-quarters of a mile away as the crow flies.[102]

 

17. Juli 1945, Dienstag

Die Verschiebung der Eröffnung der Konferenz um einen Tag war eine der Schlagzeilen auf S. 1 der Ausgabe der NYT v. 17. Juli 1945. Der dazu gehörende Beitrag wurde auf Seite 5 fortgesetzt.

Silence on Stalin

Premier`s whereabouts shrouded – Churchill and Truman confer

The view Berlin debris

President blames Germans for „terrible“ ruin – Briton grim at site of „Hitler pyre“

By The Associated Press.

Potsdam, Germany, Tuesday, July 17 – President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill awaited today the opening session of the momentous Big Three conference, but there still was no direct word well after midnight of the arrival of Premier Stalin. (It was announced Sunday that the conference would open the next day.)
Messrs. Truman and Churchill, both of whom came here Sunday, talked informally with each other yesterday and made separate, unheralded tours of ruined Berlin while waiting for the Soviet Generalissimo.
It had been generally believed that Premier Stalin and the Soviet Foreign Commissar, Vyacheslaff M. Molotoff, reached the German capital late yesterday and there was speculation in some quarters that the Big Three might have chosen to gather last night. Evening meetings are customary at the Kremlin in Moscow.
Soviet officials and German Communist party representatives retired, however after midnight without official word of the arrival of the Russian leaders.
The Communist party newspaper Deutsche Volkszeitung went to press at 1:30 A. M. after holding open its forms in expectation of important news from Tass, official Soviet news agency.
The secrecy that shrouded the movements of the Soviet Premier was in line with the traditional precautions that the plainclothes police of the Interior Commissariat take to protect State leaders. Traveling by train, Premier Stalin was venturing into a country whose population still was drugged by anti-Russian propaganda and intense hatred.
The United States and British leaders, at any rate, were awaiting the first session of the momentous conference, which is believed to have the war with Japan high on the agenda and the peace of Europe definitely on the list of talks.
(President Truman urgently summoned Vice Admiral Emory S. Land, chairman of the War Shipping Administration, and a staff of experts to Potsdam from Washington, The United Press reported.)
Emerging separately from behind the wall of secrecy and the thousands of crack American, British and Russian troops guarding the Kaiser Wilhelm Palace, Messrs. Truman and Churchill, each with his retinue of advisers and high military chiefs, traveled through the wreckage of Berlin yesterday.
Earlier, within the spacious conference area around the palace, with its aura of shattered German militarism, Mr. Churchill called on the President. He was driven there at 11:50 A. M. by his daughter, Mary Churchill. It was their first meeting.
The Prime Minister left Mr. Truman`s luxuriously furnished Little White House at 12:30 P. M., walking away while his daughter, a junior commander in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, drove. In their own Quarters the American and British Joint Chiefs of Staff held preliminary meetings.
Mr. Churchill was accompanied by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. They were greeted by Admiral William D. Leahy, President Truman`s personel chief of staff.
What Messrs. Truman and Churchill talked about was not known. All that was told to the more than 200 correspondents quartered in the press camp in the adjacent suburb of Zehlendorf was that it was a „courtesy“ call.
Mr. Truman`s tour was urged on him by Fred Canfil, a sergeant in the President`s World War I outfit, who arrived at the Little White House at about 1 P. M. By 2:30 Mr. Truman had decided to make a quick trip and by 3:30 P. M. the Presidential car was pulling out of the restricted area.

Inspects noted division

The President, who retired early Sunday night and slept until 8 A. M., more than an hour past his usual rising time, was out of Potsdam two hours. He saw Berlin and inspected the famous Second Armored (Hell on Wheels) Division, drawn up along the wide Avus super-highway between Potsdam and Berlin.
After taking the salute, Mr. Truman, natty in a blue suit and gray hat, sped into Berlin and passed under the Brandenburg Gate, where he was saluted by Col. Gen. Alexander V. Gorbatoff, Soviet commander of Berlin, and his deputy, Maj. Gen. Nikolai Barinoff.
Berliners paid little notice as the procession drove past the wreckage of the Reichstag, past breadlines and under giant photographs of the President, Mr. Churchill and Generalissimo Stalin, put up in the Russian section of the capital.
Mr. Truman`s limousine stopped outside the war-wrecked Reich Chancellery, where Adolf Hitler whipped up the spirit of nazism and reportedly met his death. The President, shaking his head, told accompanying reporters:
„It (the destruction) is a terrible thing, but they brought it upon themselves. It just demonstrates what man can do when he overreaches himself.“
Ten minutes after the President had left, Messrs. Churchill and Eden and other members of the British leader`s personal party arrived at the Chancellery. Grimly biting his cigar, the Prime Minister, obviously dour, got out of his car, unlike the President, and spent about half an hour stalking through the building which housed Hitler`s greatest hopes and became the shattered monument to his failure.
On his inspection tour President Truman left Potsdam accompanied by Admiral Leahy, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and his military and naval aides. Greeted by the Second Armored Division`s band as he moved on to the superhighway, he bared his head, acknowledged the salutes and then awarded a citation. Standing in a half-track personnel carrier, he made the award to Company E of the Seventeenth Armored Engineering Battalion, which spanned the Rhine under fire and said: „I am only sorry that I didn`t get a chance to participate in some phase of this war myself.“
Mr. Churchill was almost belligerent at the Chancellery. He stood aside defiantly near the spot where Hitler`s body was supposedly burned and asked Russian escorts how the Nazis had died there. He inspected Hitler`s office, visited older parts of the Chancellery and descended through the stench into the underground shelter where Hitler and his sweetheart, Eva Braun, were said to have spent the last days of the siege of Berlin.[103]

Churchill twits Eden on bill for dining Hitler

By The United Press.

Berlin, July 16 – While the others in his party explored the water-soaked depths of Adolf Hitler`s final retreat today, Prime Minister Churchill took off his hat and sat down on a battered rock in the shade of Hitler`s personal radio station. There he puffed his cigar.
When his daughter, Mary, emerged from the Reich Chancellery, where Hitler purportedly died, she told her father: „I can readily believe that someone died there.“
Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was particulary interested in the Chancellery. He pointed to a bomb-shattered room and said, „I had dinner with Hitler right over there in 1935.“
„You certainly paid for that dinner, Anthony,“, Mr. Churchill said.[104]

Auf der Kommentarseite der NYT, S. 12, ist die Potsdamer Konferenz ebenfalls Thema.

Unter der Überschrift „Potsdam Secrecy“ (Potsdamer Geheimniskrämerei) berichtete sie über die Beschränkungen für die Arbeit der Medienvertreter und über die Bedeutung einer durch die Öffentlichkeit nachvollziehbaren Diplomatie aber auch die Notwendigkeit einer gewissen Geheimhaltung.

Potsdam Secrecy

Like all its predecessors, the conference of the Big Three at Potsdam is surrounded by secrecy and a strict censorship which bars the press and severely censors whatever press representatives may learn at its fringes. President Truman has expressed himself in favor of brief and generalized reports on the progress of the meeting. But it is evident that such reports will be issued only by common agreement and that they will tell little about the actual negotiations. Since the conference is expected to last three weeks, the world`s patience is likely to be tried as never before.
Yet, however much the world in general and the press representatives in particular may chafe under this secretiveness, it must be regarded as inevitable for this kind of meeting, and as part of the price for its success. For this is no San Francisco conference called upon to put the finishing touches to a blueprint already drafted. This conference, though it has a solid basis of commonly accepted principles to work upon, will involve some fundamental decisions out of which the blueprint for the new world is to emerge. These decisions will pertain to both war and peace.
They will pertain to war because it is now evident that the war against Japan will be one of the main topics on the agenda. The presence of President Truman`s and Prime Minister Churchill`s top military, naval and air advisers is proof of that. And any decision made regarding that war would automatically fall into the category of military secrets, to be disclosed only in future military action. Nobody except the enemy would want them announced in advance.
But to a large extent secrecy at this stage is also justified in respect to the decisions regarding the future peace. For these decisions, even if they involve nothing more than the practical application of principles previously agreed upon, involve all the many difficult problems which have set Europe aflame for centuries. They involve the issue of borders over which any nations is ready to fight at the drop of a hat; they involve the heart-breaking problems of restoration and reconstruction, of millions of displaced persons and projected new expulsions, of staving off hunger and disease which must lead to chaos and anarchy. It is inevitable that the three countries should have differing views on many of these problems. But it is also evident that if these differences are to be reconciled, as they must be, it is far better to talk them over first in a confidential exchange of views than to blare them forth in a public meeting where any nation, once it has proclaimed its stand, can change it only with great difficulty, if it all. And since the discussions are likely to affect the interests of many other nations, any premature publication would precipitate a storm of rival pressure propaganda which might make any agreement utterly impossible.
To some this will seem to smack of „secret diplomacy“, contrary to the „shirt-sleeve diplomacy“ of President Wilson and its motto of „open covenants openly arrived at“. But even President Wilson never contemplated, as his own practice at Versailles showed, that every development at every phase of every conference should be immediatly trumpeted to the world. Real secret diplomacy is based on secret agreements secretly arrived at and kept secret from the world. There is nothing secret about the fact that the Big Three are meeting to reach agreements, and President Truman has specifically announced that he will make no secret commitments and will report to Congress immediatly upon his return. With that America will be satisfied.[105]

Tania Longs Beitrag über die Ausstattung von Schloss Cecilienhof zur Durchführung der Konferenz in der Ausgabe der NYT vom 16. Juli ist Gegenstand eines weiteren Kommentars auf Seite 12.

A Room Looking On A Garden

A reportarial preview of the Potsdam palace which will be the Big Three`s meeting place enables Tania Long, writing for this newspaper, to bring out some details that aid the imagination. The conference room, done in the imperial red, black and gold, is gloomy, as from the German point of view it should be. The chairs intended for President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill ans Premier Stalin have „carved cupids perched on their backs“. There are three entrance doors, one for each head of state. Each head of state has an office and a small suite in which he can dine and, if he wishes, sleep. Each also has a villa.
There will be some interest in the books which have been placed in Mr. Truman`s office, in case he has time to read for information or relaxation. These include a number of „Westerns“ and „novels of the early Nineteen Hundreds“, some novels by Will Levington Comfort and Homer Lea`s „Valor of Ignorance“. Mr. Comfort`s novels have been forgotten by the present generation, but there is a curios link between him and Mr. Lea. Lea was the cripple with the vast ambition who aspired to lead the armies of China and who was in fact a valuable adviser of the Chinese liberator, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Comfort, before he took to writing fiction, served as a war correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Maybe these two men, the one predicting long ago a Japanes attack on the United States, the other reporting Japan at war, have a certain symbolism as represented in Mr. Truman`s temporary library.
National leaders attending a history-making conference are even as other men in various small ways. They have to eat, they are likely to lie awake for a while after an exciting day, they have to get up in the morning and shave or be shaved. There may be days when they would rather take a stroll by the river than sit around a table in a musty palace and talk business. Responsibility sits on their shoulders like the old man of the sea. Somehow they have to balance the world`s dreadful books, so that the red entries can stop and some profit shown in human life and human happiness.
We scarcely know what memories Mr. Churchill and Mr. Stalin will take away from Potsdam. We are pretty sure that Mr. Truman will remember the appearance of those strayed American books on his desk and the July sunlight or maybe rain splashing on the formal garden seen through the ornate window of that old, old conference room. We are sure too that Mr. Truman will remain American and Missourian, honest, open, intelligent, conscious always of his duties toward the humblest citizen at home, toward the private soldier and the ordinary seaman and toward the children that go on being born while the statesmen confer.[106]

Die ersten Bilder vom Konferenzort selbst veröffentlichte die NYT auf S. 5 dieser Ausgabe.

[107]

Anmerkungen

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times

[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press

[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Press_International

[4] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuters

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Free_Press

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Worth_Star-Telegram

[7] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Times

[8] https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/20/archives/william-l-chenery-90-dead-headed-colliers-for-25-years-doubled.html

[9] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Sun-Times

[10] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst

[11] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saturday_Evening_Post

[12] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader%E2%80%99s_Digest

[13] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Star

[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Week_(magazine)

[15] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times-Picayune

[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Post-Dispatch

[17] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Tribune

[18] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kansas_City_Star

[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Magazine

[20] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._W._Scripps_Company

[21] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Chronicle

[22] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadcasting_Company

[23] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Headquarters_Allied_Expeditionary_Force

[24] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower

[25] http://www.tmchistory.org/PressWireless/Prewi_company_history.htm

[26] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Kennedy_(journalist)

[27] https://www.welt.de/kultur/history/gallery106261876/Der-Kennedy-der-zu-frueh-das-Kriegsende-verkuendete.html

[28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Irwin

[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tully

[30] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Evening_Traveller

[31] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Freidin

[32] https://prabook.com/web/john.groth/766665

[33] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanson_W._Baldwin

[34] The New York Times v. 25. April 1945, S. 4.

[35] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Thomas

[36] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadcasting_Company

[37] The New York Times vom 25. April 1945, S. 4.

[38] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press

[39] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Herriot

[40] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Nachrichtenb%C3%BCro

[41] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._L._Sulzberger

[42] The New York Times v. 26. April 1945, S. 1 u. 9.

[43] The New York Times v. 28. April 1945, S. 1.

[44] https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/23/archives/robert-e-reuben-45-dies-correspondent-during-war.html

[45] http://ourtx.com/archives/11772

[46] The New York Times v. 10. Mai 1945, S. 6.

[47] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chudschand

[48] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/09/nyregion/sydney-gruson-81-correspondent-editor-and-executive-for-the-new-york-times-dies.html

[49] https://www.abaa.org/book/776731397

[50] The New York Times v. 16. Mai 1945, S. 1.

[51] Ebenda, S. 6.

[52] The New York Times v. 02. Juni 1945, S. 1.

[53] The New York Times v. 07. Juni 1945, S. 4.

[54] The New York Times v. 08. Juni 1945, S. 1 u. 5.

[55] The New York Times v. 14. Juni 1945, S. 1 u. 8.

[56] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_Daniel

[57] The New York Times v. 16. Juni 1945, S. 1 u. 5.

[58] Ebenda, S. 5.

[59] The New York v. 17. Juni 1945, S. 42.

[60] https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1945-original-artwork-free-press-1753686514

[61] The New York Times v. 18. Juni 1945, S. 5.

[62] The New York Times v. 01. Juli 1945, S. 4.

[63] The New York Times v. 03. Juli 1945, S. 2.

[64] Ebenda.

[65] https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/13/90090174.html?pageNumber=89

[66] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tania_Long

[67] The New York Times v. 05. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 5.

[68] Ebenda, S. 5.

[69] Ebenda.

[70] The New York Times v. 06. Jujli 1945, S. 5.

[71] Ebenda.

[72] The New York Times v. 07. Juli 1945, S. 5.

[73] Ebenda.

[74] The New York Times v. 08. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 5.

[75] The New York Times v. 09. Juli 1945, S. 4.

[76] Ebenda, S. 1 u. 4.

[77] The New York Times v. 11. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 4.

[78] Ebenda, S. 4.

[79] Ebenda.

[80] Ebenda.

[81] The New York Times v. 12. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 4.

[82] The New York Times v. 13. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 10.

[83] Ebenda, S. 10.

[84] Ebenda.

[85] Ebenda.

[86] The New York Times v. 14. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 9.

[87] Ebenda, S. 9.

[88] Ebenda.

[89] Ebenda, S. 4.

[90] The New York Times v. 15. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 11.

[91] Ebenda S. 11.

[92] Ebenda.

[93] Ebenda

[94] Ebenda.

[95] Ebenda.

[96] Ebenda, S. 37.

[97] The New York Times v. 16. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 2.

[98] Ebenda.

[99] Ebenda, S. 2.

[100] Ebenda.

[101] Ebenda.
Die englische Version des Textes lautet:
4,000 G. I.`s made city ready.
Potsdam, Germany, July 15 (AP) – Almost 4,000 American soldiers helped to get Potsdam ready for the Big Three and, among other jobs, converted German homes into everything from restaurants to radio stations.
Drawn from Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Parks`occupation troops, the Americans put up new buildings, hauled in 4,000 blankets and set up luxury installations for food and drink.

[102] Ebenda.

[103] The New York Times v. 17. Juli 1945, S. 1 u. 5.

[104] Ebenda, S. 5.

[105] The New York Times v. 17. Juli 1945, S. 12.

[106] Ebenda.

[107] The New York Times v. 17. Juli 1945, S. 5.

© Dr. Volker Punzel, GeschichtsManufaktur Potsdam (09.11.2020)