Canada and the Early Cold War, 1943 - 1957

The Cold War's Cradle: Canada, The Great Powers, and Germany 1943 - 1948

Angelica Sauer

Résumé : L'article conteste la conception conventionnelle suivant laquelle la vision canadienne de l'Allemagne - tout comme sa politique à l'égard de l'ancien ennemi s'est modifiée radicalement à un moment quelconque entre la Seconde Guerre mondiale et la guerre froide. L'auteur soutient au contraire qu'il n'y a pas eu de rupture radicale avec le passé et que c'est la continuité, et non le changement , qui caractérisait la politique canadienne. Les décideurs canadiens n'ont jamais considéré le problème allemand isolément, mais en fonction des rapports entre les grandes puissances. à mesure que ceux-ci évoluaient , les perceptions canadiennes du problème allemand et des solutions envisagées évoluaient elles aussi. Nonobstant l'influence grandissante qu'e xerçait la guerre froide, il y avait une certaine continuité entre les thèses reconstructionnistes issues des années de planification durant la guerre et la réintégration éventuelle de l'Allemagne de l'Ouest dans l'alliance occidentale. Les mises en garde relativement à la possibilité que l'Allemagne puisse troubler l'ordre mondial représentaient une seconde facette de la politique canadienne à cette époque. C'est ainsi qu'entre 1943 et 1948, la naissance de la guerre froide devait amener les décideurs canadiens non pas à modifier leurs vues de façon radicale,mais plutôt à les ajuster en fonction des circonstances.

In his most recent book, The Big Chill: Canada and the Cold War, Canadian historian Robert Bothwell describes the East-West conflict as simply "a succession of episodes, of phases." ¹ For almost half a century, an icy kaleidoscope of international relations shifted and changed constantly without breaking its basic parameters, creating a sequence that found a clear and cathartic end in the jubilant celebrations atop the breached Berlin Wall. Historians search in vain for an equally dramatic or even clearly delineated starting point. It may seem fitting, though admittedly clichéd, to use the Berlin blockade and airlift as an appropriate bracket. This leaves the time between the first sure signs that the Allies would win the war in late 1943 and the negotiation of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1948-49 as an "in between time," a twilight zone easing the world from one type of hostility into another.

The idea of a transitional period of uncertain peace after a major war is not new.The task of cleaning up after the ravages of warring armies requires unusual measures. So too does the challenge of crafting a peace settlement that satisfies both the morally justifiable as well as the purely opportunistic demands of the victors.Popular attitudes,coarsened by wartime, need some time to be purged and channelled into more genteel peacetime sensibilities. Above all,the notion of a transitional period implies acquiescence in a degree of unpleasantness that would be unacceptable in a period of "normalcy". It explains, for example, why certain types of international behaviour, though clearly repugnant,may be tolerated among allies of a recently concluded war.

In discussing any transitional period,the question of continuity quickly arises. In the Canadian context, it has been posed by Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, who examine the many threads tying together Canadian political history during the Second World War with developments in the 1940s and 1950s. ² Their approach is not entirely new. Some historians have argued that Wilsonian universalism fundamentally changed the rules of an international system based on regional balances of power and thereby date the origins of Soviet-American antagonism to the First World War. They conceded long ago that Western countries never fully trusted the Soviet Union, even at the height of their alliance during the Second World War. Similarly, there is increasingly clear evidence that the Soviet Union never abandoned its plans for world revolution , though the focus shifted from class struggle to territorial expansion to suit Stalin's paranoid security needs . ³ Thus , it has been demonstrated that the pre - history of the Cold War already contained the basic ingredients of the polarization that came to characterize the postwar world. It remains necessary, however, for historians to explore the question of continuity in individual national policies , especially in those actions that were central to a country's international position.

Despite the historiographical emphasis on atomic energy, the Western alliance, Canadian - American relations , or even the evolving Commonwealth, it is hard to overlook the centrality of the German problem in Canada's for-eign policy during the mid-1940s. Both well reminds us that in 1946 and 1947 the main field of contention between the former allies was defeated Germany. This point is argued even more strongly by American historian Carolyn Eisenberg for whom "the division of Germany was not only the most dramatic embodiment of the collapse of Great Power cooperation; it was also a fundamental cause of global polarization." ⁴ Historians generally agree that both sides in the emerging Cold War were haunted by the German ghost of battles past and the lessons learned from two world wars. The German problem shaped the postwar world in more ways than one.

To discuss Canada's view of and policy toward Germany, then, casts light on the country's position in the period of transition that marked the second half of the 1940s. Canadian policy-makers never saw the German problem in isolation but always as a function of the relationship between the Great Powers. As this relationship evolved - both as a cause and as a consequence of events in Germany - Canadian understanding of the German problem and how it could be solved changed. One might suggest that a Cold War lens began to refract the Canadian image of Europe at some point during the postwar years,leading to a redefinition of the problem and a new policy toward the former enemy.Yet was this shift in focus really a radical break with the past? Were universalist hopes of lasting peace under the United Nations (UN) suddenly abandoned for the vision of a Western preponderance of power, with Germany as the keystone in a Western alliance? Was there a clear turning point on the road from war to Cold War or does the Canadian evidence support the notion of a transitional phase dominated by continuities?

This paper argues that there were two strong elements of continuity in Canadian policy toward defeated Germany. A degree of continuity existed between the reconstructionist views of wartime planners in Ottawa and their later decision to support the integration of a reconstructed Germany into the West European economy. Canadian policy was also shaped by a constant chorus of cautionary voices that warned of Germany's potential to disturb world peace. Thus , Canadians (both policy-makers and the attentive public) did not so much radically alter their thinking about Germany as fine-tune it. In the five years from 1943 to 1948, Canadian views evolved in three stages, each providing a different context for definitions , solutions , and practical implications of the German problem .The first stage assumed Great Power cooperation after the war; the second dealt with evidence of Great Power dissension; and the third had to cope with Germany as one of the first open battle grounds of the Cold War.

During the war years , hopes were high that the grand alliance of great and smaller powers united to defeat Hitler would continue to deal with the world's problems together once peace had been won. One of the most immediate of these problems concerned the fate of post-surrender Germany. Lively discussions within and outside official circles in Canada tried to define the nature of the German problem and the best approach to solving it. In their search for an explanation, Canadians relied on one of three interpretations . For instance, George Glazebrook , a special wartime assistant in the Department of External Affairs , defined the problem as a phenomenon rooted in the inherent aggressiveness of the German character and the logical outcome of the philosophies of Johann Fichte and Johann von Herder with their unabashed espousal of superiority and Germany's right to dominate its neighbours. ⁵ A second view, espoused by Escott Reid, a rising second secretary in the department , rejected this static and collectivist view of German national pathology for a left-liberal interpretation based on systemic short comings .He argued "that the Germans did not succumb to a peculiarly German disease but to a disease which is endemic in modern society."The Western powers ought to " take steps not only to eradicate the roots of fascism from Germany but also to eradicate them from our own countries ." ⁶ While the first interp retation equated Germans and Nazis, and the second stressed the difference between progressive forces and fascist leaders , a third perspective (part of the institutional mindset of the Canadian military) defined the culprit as the same Prussian Junker class that had instigated the First World War. Surveys of First World War veterans and non-commissioned soldiers fighting in Europe in 1945 demonstrated the popularity of this thesis, a typical cartoon depicting the scissors of the United Nations cutting the strings of a German soldier puppet led by the hands of the Junker generals. ⁷

The application of the lessons of the First World War to the Second was common among the rest of the Canadian public as well:a majority of survey respondents suggested a causal link between the failures of Versailles and the outbreak of the war. ⁸ And as the war progressed,Canadians on the whole were increasingly unwilling to draw a distinction between Germans and Nazis,tacitly accepting that aggression was an intrinsic German characteristic unrelated to the form of government. ⁹ During the final year of the war, editorials displayed "no leanings towards a 'soft'peace." ¹⁰

Demands for justice and retribution, however popular, were generally subordinated in expert opinion to another overarching objective: preventing another major war. Everyone agreed that the treatment of Germany was a cornerstone in the postwar order. "On the wisdom of Allied policy toward Germany may well depend the peace of Europe after the war," one memorandum stated,while another added that the "hope of lasting peace depends, more than on any other single factor, on the solution of the German problem." How best to approach such a solution was not clear, but proposals tended to include measures to weaken Germany's military potential and to control it permanently with constructive measures such as reeducation (especially of Germany's youth),political reform, and reintegration into the European community of nations. ¹¹

The view that Germany represented a continuing threat to European security was reflected in demands for full military occupation, Allied administration, and an international police force under the joint authority of UN representatives. This was considered a long-term commitment as only 28 percent of Canadians believed that Germany could become a good nation within 20 years,while the rest thought that this would never happen or would take much longer than two decades.In September 1945, the Quebec paper, Le Jour, summed up the sentiment: "L'Allemagne n'est nullement en voie de réhabilitation. La population ne montre aucun regret des atrocités commises et ne regrette que d'avoir raté la victoire. Ce qui indique une mentalité dangereuse. Il faudra des longues anneés avant de désintoxiquer, même partiellement, le Reich."

At the same time, it was taken for granted that European reconstruction would depend on the participation of the German economy and that the German people should be allowed, even forced,to play a constructive role in rebuilding the continent. Europe, according to Winnipeg international relations expert Edgar Tarr, needed Germany's industrial capacity. It would be "foolishly shortsighted to reduce her to an agricultural country." ¹² US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau's plan to turn Germany into a "pastoral country" was dismissed by many Canadian observers as "extreme," "wild," "devoid of any constructive features," and "clouds of hot air." ¹³

Did this emphasis on maintaining an economically strong Germany amount to a move inherently hostile toward the Soviet Union? Were Canadians planning for a Soviet threat when they considered the future of Germany? The evidence suggests that this was not the case.There was, no doubt, a general awareness that the German problem had the potential to cause friction between the allies. The Department of External Affairs' Russian specialists,Dana Wilgress and Arnold Smith,predicted that "a serious clash of views between the Soviet Union and the Western powers is more likely to arise over the German problem than over any other of the peace problems." ¹⁴ Whether the potential for friction was realized would depend, according to historian Arthur Lower "on the estimate formed by English and American Conservatives of the degree to which Russia is to be regarded a threat." ¹⁵

Detailed studies have shown that both the British Foreign Office and the United States State Department based their postwar plans mainly "on fears of a resurgence of German aggression"and on the need for long-term cooperation with the Soviet Union.Gladwyn Jebb, a Foreign Office counsellor, called the idea of "building up our enemies to defeat our allies... some kind of suicidal mania." His colleague, the deputy under-secretary of state, Sir Orme Sargent, labelled it "a most disastrous heresy." ¹⁶ Similarly, a study of State Department thinking indicates that American proposals were "not based on returning [Germany] to the balance as a possible counter to the Soviets,but rather on a combination of policies that all the major powers could agree on." ¹⁷ There was some concern about Poland and the effect of pushing the territory of that country westward at the expense of Germany. George Kennan warned in late 1944 that "the farther the western frontier of Poland is advanced into Germany, the g reater will be the dependence of the Poles, economically and militarily, on the Soviet Union... It makes unrealistic the idea of a free and independent Poland." ¹⁸ On the whole, however, the United States and Britain were aware that they could not challenge the Soviet Union on the issue of the Polish-German frontier without being willing and able to counter the factual power of the Red Army in Eastern Europe. They hoped instead for continued Great Power cooperation in seeking an overall peace settlement in Europe.

Based on its own observations, the attitude in the Department of External Affairs toward the Soviet factor closely resembled the views adopted in Washington and London.Wilgress predicted in the fall of 1944, two months before Kennan, that incorporating German territory into Poland "would make the Poles still more dependent on the Soviet Union." Moreover, Glazebrook's important memorandum on the future of Germany dismissed any idea of keeping Germany strong as a counterweight to the Soviet Union:"it may be expected to be remembered that Germany has been the aggressor."Wilgress called any thoughts of maintaining Germany as a counterweight potentially "fatal to the whole prospect of cooperation for peace among the three powers." In his judgement, the Soviet Union was "never likely to be so prone to disturb the peace of the world as a hemmed-in Germany." However,Wilgress continued, a future Soviet-German combination was to be avoided, ideally by maintaining Allied unity. Charles Ritchie, a first secretary in the department, agreed. If there was a common allied policy toward Germany for a period of years,none of the Great Powers would feel the need for unilateral action,denying Germany the room to manoeuvre. ¹⁹ For Canada, then, the most important elements in its wartime approach to the German problem were the need for Allied unity and the future containment of Germany. Soviet power in Eastern Europe was a factor to be reckoned with, but not yet to be feared.

An unidentified trooper of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion shakes hands with a Soviet officer at the end of the war in Wismar, Germany.The friendship was short lived. Charles H. Richer/National Archives of Canada/PA-150930

---

In concrete terms,this emphasis on Great Power unity in the treatment of Germany forced Canada to accept less than ideal solutions in erecting the international institutions that would oversee the postwar world order. Most members of the department shared the view that preventing aggression in general and dealing specifically with the German problem were two different issues, but hoped that eventually, after an interim period, peace enforcement could be integrated into the new UN organization.However, the peace settlement in Europe quickly began to display all the signs of traditionalGreat Power bargaining, involving calculations of national policy and political advantage. It was, according to the Foreign Office, a way to clear up the past rather than a step into the future. American columnist Walter Lippmann agreed that the future, which car ried the promise of a universal society and a reign of law, would have to wait until a rational, power-based settlement was established. ²⁰ Article 107 of the UN Charter excluded the peace settlements from the mandate of the United Nations. It stipulated that no provision of the Charter should preclude action taken as a result of the war against former enemy states.When Canada's undersecretary of state for external affairs,Norman Robertson,asked for a clarification of this article at the UN's founding conference in San Francisco, he was told by a member of the American delegation to let sleeping dogs lie, "particularly when they are such very large dogs." ²¹

Reconciling idealism with the reality of power politics,the Department of External Affairs came to regard the peace settlement as the necessary period of transition, a step out of the chaos of the war and into the brave new world during which the Great Powers would be acting as trustees for the lesser powers.As Hume Wrong, assistant under-secretary of state for external affairs and the department's consummate realist, told journalist Bruce Hutchison, the Big Three had "to settle the mess of the war" in a way that all Great Powers could agree upon. Once that controversial task was completed "it might be possible to secure a better league agreement." ²² The desire to integrate the peace settlement and the UN was expressed in the department's decision to have one division responsible for both.Yet acceptance of a temporary Great Power alliance proved a slippery slope. It implied that if there was a lack of agreement on issues dealing with the German problem, Canada would have to choose sides, supporting one or more of the Great Powers against the other powers. Canada, instead of working for universalist principles of lasting peace, would end up helping the powers pursue their limited national interests in Germany and Central Europe.This became important as the assumption of Great Power cooperation gave way to evidence of Great Power dissension.

The " honeymoon period of collaboration" between the Western powers and the Soviet Union was quickly coming to an end in the smouldering ruins of post-hostilities Germany. ²³ In the day - to - day administration of the defeated country during late 1945 and 1946, the incompatibility of interests and the basic unwillingness of all participants to compromise were shown in a stark light. Ottawa soon drew conclusions about events in Germany which made British policy appear as the only reasonable and logical course. American policy was floundering ,drifting between the competing definitions of the national interest in Germany developed by the different government agencies involved .What was worse, it was not yet clear whether the United States was committed to remaining an active participant in European affairs . French policy was forcefully defended by the Canadian representative in Berlin, General Maurice Pope, who believed that it was guided only by security considerations; however, the Department of External Affairs was more aware of the commercial and economic motives behind French proposals for Germany and found them unnecessarily destructive. ²⁴ This left British initiatives, and in its broad support for London's policies the Canadian gove rnment showed itself clearly as a participant in the emerging division of Germany between East and West.

The worst scenario predicted during the war was a "competition between the Soviet Union and the democracies, each trying to build up an eventual friendly Germany as a possible ally." ²⁵ The collapse of allied harmony over the administration of Germany in 1945 and 1946 brought about a constellation that resembled this scenario to a dangerous extent. However, it can be argued that the redefinition of the German problem was not as abru t and complete as a Cold War interp retation might imply. This becomes obvious in the discussions about reparations and the economic disa rmament of Germany.

Although the Soviet government was widely recognized as having a strong moral claim to large indemnities,the United States,Britain,and also Canada were primarily concerned with what was economically practical. The Soviet Union could absorb forced labour and annual deliveries from current production, but the West had to worry about the distortions of the domestic market that would result from such a policy. ²⁶ More importantly, these governments feared that they would end up footing the reparations bill by having to carry the burden of relief. Douglas LePan, the economic specialist at the Canadian High Commission in London, made this point after a meeting with British financial experts in Cambridge:"[F]oodstuffs will be funnelled [into Germany] in at one end by the supply countries, chiefly the United States and Canada,and exports will be funnelled out at the other end to Russia as reparations." Canada, a British Treasury representative said bluntly,"will be left holding the bag." ²⁷ To prevent this, it was essential that imports for relief were the first charge on all Germany's fixed assets and its cur rent production.

Therefore, maintaining Germany's industrial capacity at a reasonable level was, first and foremost,a matter of Canadian self-interest,rather thana measure directed against the Soviet Union. During the Paris reparations conference in late 1945, Canada, Britain, and the United States argued against reparations from current production and supported the first-charge principle. The 12 nations opposing this line needed German industrial goods for postwar reconstruction and were not exporters of relief foodstuffs and raw material. ²⁸ This was not a Cold War issue but a matter of postwar economics; the fault lines did not coincide with political fissures.

In Ottawa's opinion, the crux of the economic treatment of Germany lay in reconciling the demands for security with the exigent requirements of Europe's peacetime economy. Germany had to be eliminated as a military power without destroying the country as an economic power. Glazebrook called it "a conflict between permitting Germany to prosper and the danger that such freedom of action may be but permission to beat ploughshares into swords." ²⁹ An impoverished Germany would radiate economic depression from the centre to adjoining economies, gravely disturbing the prospects for a multilateral trade system.Germany "stripped of her possessions" would become "a charnel-house and centre of infection for the rest of Europe." The restructuring and reorientation of German industry, not its destruction for the sake of security or reparations, seemed to be the right course. ³⁰

Canadian economic interests, a suspicion that reparations provided an ineffective way to prevent future German aggression , and a broad definition of security that incorporated the economic pacification of Europe placed Canada in the camp of the advocates of a moderate reparations policy and in direct opposition to Soviet intentions in Germany. A similar line-up occurred at the Paris peace conference which was convened in the summer of 1946. Early on, conference participants revealed a tendency to bloc voting. This phenomenon first emerged during the meeting of the General Assembly where Wrong , detecting Latin American, Arab, and Slav voting blocs, warned that the "outside" world spoke of a Commonwealth bloc as well . ³¹ In the New York Times, columnist James Reston suggested that loyalty to one of the sponsoring powers would most likely determine the voting behaviour of the smaller powers, including the Dominions:"Despite the vigorous individualism that prevails within the British Commonwealth , we shall probably not see... Canada... vigorously opposing Great Britain on an essential issue." ³² Reston's guess turned out to be prophetic. Almost apologetically, the Canadian delegation's conference report admitted that the Commonwealth had voted together as frequently as the Soviet bloc (in fact ,on final tally they had voted as a bloc more frequently than the group led by the Soviet Union). ³³ More importantly, the Commonwealth had become part of a larger entity: with no Latin Americans and Arabs present, a "Western" bloc was the only counterpart to the so-called " Slav group."The votes at the final plenary were counted out 15 to 6,"with the mechanical regularity of a cash register." ³⁴

It can therefore be argued that Canada consciously contributed to the East-West split out of old habits.After all,according to Ritchie, this was "a tussle of power politics"and Canada was "part of an Anglo-Saxon team." ³⁵ The Canadian delegation would not dream of voting with the Soviet bloc, no matter what the issue, and as a result, Ottawa had become part of the Anglo-Soviet cold war in the heart of Europe. Canada's observer in Berlin was one of the first to notice the chilling of the atmosphere, reporting a "sensation of g rim opposition of conflicting forces, glacier-like one might almost say."A struggle had begun "between the East and the West over the prostrate body of Germany." ³⁶

In early May 1946,Reid,now head of the department's division responsible for relations with Europe, argued that the German problem was no longer a question of preventing future German aggression, but "how to get a settlement which will lessen the chances of war between the Soviet world and the Western world." In a memorandum given to Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King in preparation for the 1946 Commonwealth prime ministers' meeting in London,Ritchie was even less sanguine.Where Moscow and the Western countries had once shared a concern for eliminating the German menace, he noted,they now suspected each other of planning to use Germany as part of their respective opposing blocs. ³⁷ The British foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, spelled out these fears:"Up till recent months we have thought of the German problem solely in Germany itself, our purpose having been to devise the best means of preventing the revival of a strong, aggressive Germany... This can no longer be regarded as our sole purpose, or, indeed,perhaps as our primary one. For the danger of Russia has become certainly as great as, and possibly even g reater than, that of a revived Germany." ³⁸ In a second memorandum prepared in early June 1946, Ritchie explained that "United Kingdom policy towards Germany is now at the parting of the ways." Handing Ritchie's work to King, Wrong spoke of the "very grave importance of the decisions which must be taken before long." ³⁹

By the end of 1946,Canadian officials conceded the necessity of firmly containing Soviet influence behind the Elbe, but they were less sure in their corresponding attitude toward the role of Germany and the Germans in this new policy. Reid seemed prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt,suggesting an approach that would combine a minimum of control with a maximum of constructive political and economic measures. ⁴⁰ Pope, however, repeated time and again that the control of Germany's military potential should remain a priority of Western policy.The general believed most Germans to be "aggressors at heart"who were "either at our throats or at our feet." ⁴¹ Ritchie agreed, and cautioned that there was a "danger that in their anxiety about Soviet expansion the United Kingdom Government may underestimate the danger of the revival of German military power." Firm safeguards against future German aggression had to remain a part of any policy in Germany. An all too obvious wooing of the Germans would open the door to political blackmail; any attempt to rebuild the western part as a bulwark against the Soviet Union would render the occupying powers overly dependent on the cooperation of the former enemy. ⁴²

Photograph taken during the closing days of the 1946 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting in London. L to r: British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, and his Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin; Canada's High Commissioner to the UK,Vincent Massey and Prime Minister W.L.Mackenzie King. On their right stand Walter Nash, Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, and H.V. Evatt ,Australia's Foreign Minister.National Archives of Canada/C-45193

---

In 1947,a further shift in emphasis occur red as officials became increasingly preoccupied with the future of Soviet-American,rather than Soviet-British, relations. Within the new bipolar framework, the question of Germany's role in future world peace still elicited traditional concerns. However, some officials suggested that Germany's aggressive potential was under control and had become, in any case, secondary in importance to the Soviet threat. In this line of reasoning,the German problem had certainly emerged as a function of the East-West conflict and possibly even represented the root cause of it."Both sides fear that the other wishes to make use of the Germans against them, and as long as this fear exists the only solutions of the German question... are either the splitting of Germany into two or the giving in byWestern powers to Soviet desires, "Wilgress speculated.The acceptance of a Soviet-dominated united Germany was obviously not an option. ⁴³ As Gerry Riddell, head of the department's first political division that was charged with post-hostilities problems, told the Toronto branch of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs,the "central problem is no longer that of Germany but of the balance that must now be established amongst the victors." ⁴⁴

This view gained more adherents in the spring of 1947 when the Moscow meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers failed, marking Germany as the epicentre of East-West tension. It was reinforced by the collapse of the London meeting of foreign ministers at the end of the year, a final failure which sealed the fate of that four-power body.The interests of the main players in Germany had now been publicly acknowledged as conflicting and contradictory, too vital to be considered in isolation and the stakes of each of the occupying powers too high to permit an easy compromise. A speedy solution of the German pro blem was now highly improbable, but without it there would be no peace and security in Europe. F rom London, Canadian High Commissioner Norman Robertson warned that the "division of Europe and the world has deepened, and the fissure now cuts right across both geographical Germany and the political problem of the German settlement." ⁴⁵ The emerging facet of the German problem now was clearly the renewed political importance of Germany and its geostrategic position between the Soviet Union and the West. The occupied and partitioned country had, a departmental memorandum concluded, "a significance greater than its reduced strength would otherwise suggest. As a counterweight and a strategic are a in relation to the rival groups of powers, Germany will have an important element in the balance of power long before its internal recovery would allow it to be as a unit acting alone." ⁴⁶

However, the usual element of caution prevailed with respect to Germany's future role. The most immediate lesson of the Second World War and perhaps even the First World War was not forgotten: "As a country... with a long history of agg ression,Germany cannot fail to be regarded as a source of a possible future threat to the peace of the world, "Glazebrook reminded his colleagues. ⁴⁷ Wrong agreed that policy "must be squarely aimed at assuring the safety of the Western democracies from renewed German aggression." ⁴⁸ The natural fears of Germany's neighbours had to be taken seriously, and the last war must not be forgotten.The assistant under-secretary of state for external affairs warned that "[t]hose who are attempting to conceive a strong western Germany as a barrier to Communism might do well to remember that western Germany is not a gun with a traverse of 90 degrees only, facing east." The Western powers, Pope admitted, needed the industrial and human potential of West Germany for their safety against the Soviet Union.At the same time it was dangerous to use 50 million Germans as a spearhead pointed at Moscow. ⁴⁹

The elements of continuity in Canadian thinking survived even as Germany emerged as one of the first open Cold War battlegrounds by 1948 and the German problem had to be placed in its new context. The main issue, which had crystallized throughout the previous year, was that the lack of progress in the German settlement worked to the advantage of the Soviet Union. A whole range of economic and political problems was growing out of "the unsettled conditions in Germany." ⁵⁰ As Robertson complained in April 1948, the Russians " are still calling the tune in Germany and taking every opportunity to create mischief and difficulties." ⁵¹

The British government, bolstered by US Secretary of State George Marshall's offer of economic assistance for Europe and heartened by Canadian support, took the initiative to coordinate the economic and political consolidation of the western part of Europe. It took the lead in organizing Europe's response to the Marshall offer and then in announcing its intention to create a Western Union, a system of mutual security. To Canadians, this new emphasis on Western Europe represented the squaring of the circle. The emergence of a British-led West European bloc allowed Canadian policy-makers to integrate two continuous elements in their view of the German problem - the importance of the German economy to European recovery and the danger posed by German militarism - with the new, unsettled context.

This constellation, it was readily acknowledged, cut across the old lines of the 1939-45 belligerency :" Europe has undergone profound changes since the defeat of Germany." However, the Canadian government pointed out, it had always worked on the assumption of the unity of European economic life and recognized "that the general European recovery requires a healthy German economy."This did not mean that, for the sake of economic expediency, Germany's industrial recovery was to be accorded first priority or that the German economy should be allowed to expand in an uncontrolled manner; in fact, "there appears to be the danger that the pendulum may now swing too far from the days of the Morgenthau plan." In Canadian thinking, building a bastion against the Soviet Union with Germany, or parts of it, remained a mistake. ⁵²

The element of caution about Germany as a threat to peace also remained a part of Canada's view of the German problem. First, it was assumed that West Germany would remain under indefinite military occupation. More importantly, the Canadian government argued strongly for the creation of West European organs like the Organization for European Economic Cooperation and a consultative council under the Brussels Treaty. These could take on the function of creating a viable West German community and bringing it back into the comity of European nations without the help of a strong German government.The dilemma of having to reconcile German economic reconstruction and German containment "might be avoided if the problem of Western Germany were to be treated consistently as a part of the problem of Western Europe." ⁵³

Throughout 1948, even at the height of the Berlin crisis, the Canadian government held steadfast to the view that a restoration of the four-power system of reaching a German settlement was desirable under certain terms and conditions. This hypothetical, perhaps even theoretical, link to the wartime alliance and the structures created at Yalta and Potsdam to deal with Germany demonstrates how much Canadian thinking avoided radical departures and turning points.There was no blind stampede into irreconcilable East-West antagonism and no sudden transformation of a former enemy into a future ally. The descent into the Cold War was not a free fall.

Canada's gradual adjustment of the definition of the German problem to the changing context of Great Power relations showed a surprising degree of continuity and stability, as the key elements of containment and reconstruction assumed new meaning in the emerging postwar order. Canada did not hesitate to take sides:officials had predicted the possibility of a falling out of the Great Powers over Germany and when the division occurred in 1945-46, Canada followed Britain into acknowledging it and dealing with it.When the Americans entered the fray with the Marshall Plan and schemes to restore Germany's industrial potential, Canada sounded the voice of caution and compromise.The definition of German aggression as a problem per se was anchored in Canadian thinking firmly enough to create common ground with Germany's immediate neighbours, especially France. However, this concern was not allowed to rule out the prospect of Germany's eventual reintegration - economically, politically, and even militarily - into Europe and the larger North Atlantic community. That the areas were reduced from Europe to Western Europe and from Germany to Western Germany seemed to make little difference. In the emerging Cold War, Canadian universalist principles for world peace and prosperity had assumed more modest proportions.

---

^1. Robert Bothwell, The Big Chill: Canada and the Cold War, (Toronto, 1997),p.xi.

^2. Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada:The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945-1957 (Toronto, 1994).

^3. John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know:Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford, 1997),pp. 13-14,28-33.

^4. Carolyn Eisenberg, Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944-1949 (Cambridge, 1996), p. 8.

^5. National Archives of Canada (NAC), Records of the (DEA), George Glazebrook memorandum, 23 February 1944, file AR405/1/8; Pierre Dupuy to (SSEA) (48),30 March 1944, file 7-E-2(s).

^6. NAC, Escott Reid papers, Vol. 6, file 10, Reid memorandum, 14 September 1943.

^7. Winnipeg Free Press,"Fate of Germany"series,3,5,and 6 January 1945.

^8. Wartime Information Board, Survey, No. 51,2 December 1944.

^9. Wartime Information Board, Survey, No. 37,20 May 1944.

^10. Wartime Information Board, Survey, No. 47,7 October 1944,and No. 57, 10 February 1945.

^11. NAC, DEA Records, file AR405/1/8, George Glazebrook, "Policy toward Germany," 20 August 1943 and "The Future of Germany," 23 February 1944.Leslie Bishop,"Fate of Germany," Winnipeg Free Press, 26 December 1944.

^12. "Fate of Germany," Winnipeg Free Press, 2 January 1945.

^13. Angelika E. Sauer, "The Respectable Course: Canada's Department of External Affairs, the Great Powers, and the 'German Problem', 1943-1947," (Unpublished PhD thesis:University of Waterloo, 1994), p. 231.

^14. John Hilliker, ed., Documents on Canadian External Relations (DCER), Volume 11:1944-45, Part II (Ottawa,1990),pp. 1924-30.

^15. Winnipeg Free Press, 1 January 1945.

^16. Victor Rothwell, Britain and the Cold War, 1941-1947 (London,1982),pp. 4 and 120.

^17. Stephen John Schwark,"The State Department Plans for Peace, 1941-1945," (Unpublished PhD thesis,Harvard University, 1985),pp. 227-29.

^18. NAC, DEA163(s),Dana Wilgress to SSEA,25 October 1944;George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950 (Boston,1967),pp. 213-15.

^19. NAC, DEA (CH) file AR405/1/8,George Glazebrook memorandum,23 February 1944; DEA file 7-E-2(s), Charles Ritchie memorandum, 28 March 1944,Dana Wilgress to SSEA (117),13 April 1944.

^20. Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (Boston, 1980) ,p.411; Josef Foschepoth, ed., Kalter Krieg und Deutsche Frage: Deutschland im Widerstreit der Mächte, 1945-1952 (Göttingen,1985), p. 72.

^21. Escott Reid, On Duty:A Canadian at the Making of the United Nations, 1945-1946 (Toronto, 1983), p. 47.

^22. Queen's University Archives (QUA),Grant Dexter Papers,TC3 file 1944, Hutchison memorandum,6 October 1944.

^23. Hilliker, DCER,Volume 11, p. 1966.

^24. NAC, DEA file 8376-M-40,Canadian Military Mission (CMM) to SSEA (38), 23 March 1946. DEA file 8508-40, Heads of Divisions meeting, 9 April 1946. For French motivations,see John Gillingham, Coal,Steel and the Birth of Europe:The Germans and French from Ruhr Conflict to Economic Community, 1918-1955 (Cambridge, 1991).

^25. NAC, DEA file 7-CA-9(s),Arnold Smith to SSEA (250),26 May 1945.

^26. NAC, DEA file 7-H(s),Hume Wrong to Dana Wilgress,21 April 1944.

^27. NAC, DEA file 7-D(s), Douglas LePan to SSEA (A.198), 30 May 1945. See also Douglas V. LePan, Bright Glass of Memory:A Set of Four Memoirs (Toronto, 1979),pp. 72-96,101-01.

^28. Wolfgang Krieger, General Lucius Clay und die amerikanisce Deutschlandpolitik, 1945-1949 (Stuttgart,1987), p. 141.

^29. NAC, DEA file 7-E-2(s), George Glazebrook memorandum, 20 August 1943.

^30. John Hilliker, ed., Documents on Canadian External Relations, Volume 10: 1944-45, Part I (Ottawa, 1987), pp. 1076-80; NAC, DEA file 7-CA(s), R.B. Bryce to Hume Wrong,31 October 1945.

^31. Donald Page, ed., Documents on Canadian External Relations, Volume 12: 1946 (Ottawa ,1977) ,pp. 673 - 80 .While " Slav Bloc"was the politically correct term , this memorandum actually used the expression " Soviet voting bloc."

^32. NAC, DEA file 7-DE(s),Washington to SSEA, 22 July 1946. See also, James Reston, Deadline:A Memoir (NewYork,1991).

^33. Page, DCER,Volume 12, pp. 144-48.Bertrand Fox Jarvis,"The Role of the Small Powers in the Development of the Western Bloc at the 1946 Paris Peace Conference : A Study into the Origins of the Cold War," (Unpublished PhD thesis,University of Alabama,1973), p. 220.

^34. James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Peacemaking and Deterrence (Toronto, 1972), p. 180.Canada was part of a core group, along with Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Jarvis, "The Role of the Small Powers," pp. 223 and 233.

^35. NAC, DEA file 7-DG(s),Charles Ritchie memorandum,19 March 1946.

^36. NAC, Privy Council Office (PCO) Records, CMM to SSEA (12), 19 February 1946,Vol. 118, file W-22-5-G. Maurice Pope diary, 11 March 1946.NAC DEA file 8376-M-40,CMM to SSEA (38),23 March 1946.

^37. NAC, DEA file 7-CA-14(s), Escott Reid memorandum, 7 May 1946, Charles Ritchie memorandum,11 May 1946.

^38. Public Record Office (United Kingdom), CAB129/9, Bevin memorandum, 3 May 1946.

^39. NAC, DEA file 7-CA-14(s),Charles Ritchie memorandum,6 June 1946 and Hume Wrong note to prime minister, 20 June 1946.

^40. NAC, DEA file 7-CA-14(s),Escott Reid memorandum,7 May 1946.

^41. NAC, DEA file 8376-M-40, Maurice Pope to Hume Wrong, 24 May 1946, CMM to SSEA (112), 12 June 1946, Maurice Pope to Norman Robertson,17 July 1946 and 23 July 1946.

^42. NAC, DEA file 7-CA-14(s),Charles Ritchie memoranda, 11 May and 6 June 1946.

^43. Norman Hillmer and Donald Page, eds., Documents on Canadian External Relations,Volume 13:1947 (Ottawa,1993),pp. 417-20.

^44. NAC, DEA file 9770-B-40, Gerry Riddell, Address to the Canadian Institute of International Affairs,12 May 1947.

^45. Hector Mackenzie, ed., Documents on Canadian External Relations,Volume 14:1948 (Ottawa,1994), p. 39.

^46. NAC, DEA file 50130-40, George Glazebrook memorandum, 12 June 1947.See also Don Page and Don Munton,"Canadian Images of the Cold War 1946-7," International Journal XXXII,(Summer 1977).

^47. NAC, DEA file 50130-40, George Glazebrook memorandum, 12 June 1947.

^48. Hillmer and Page, DCER,Volume 13, p. 448.

^49. Ibid, p.448;NAC, Pearson Papers,Vol.11,Maurice Pope to Lester Pearson, 31 July 1947; NAC, DEA file 7-CA-14(s),CMM to SSEA (784),29 July 1947;and NAC, DEA file 8376-M-40, CMM to SSEA (999),29 August 1947.

^50. Mackenzie, DCER,Volume 14, pp. 32-34.

^51. Mackenzie, DCER,Volume 14, pp. 40-41.

^52. Mackenzie, DCER,Volume 14, pp. 43-46 and 408-10.

^53. Mackenzie, DCER,Volume 14, pp. 34-38.

Previous

Table of Contents

Next