III. Potsdam Heads of Government Meeting and the Paris Reparations Conference

A. German External Assets and Allied Control Council Law No. 5

In the weeks after V-E Day, the United States and its Allies explored measures to gain control over the German assets abroad in neutral countries. By late July 1945, State Department revised estimates of the totals of German assets located in neutral nations and resulting only from direct business investments totaled at least $737 million, broken down as follows: Switzerland¾ $600 million, Portugal¾ $35 million, Sweden¾ $51 million, and Turkey¾ $51 million. Totals for Spain and other neutral nations had not yet been computed. Embassy reports to the State Department from Madrid and Lisbon indicated that non-governmental German assets were in danger of being taken over by the Spanish and Portuguese. A similar situation appeared to be occurring in Turkey. The State Department proposed to persuade the British to join the United States in seeking the cooperation of neutrals to measures whereby the Allied Control Authority in Germany, then just establishing itself, would assume legal authority over all external German assets on behalf of the Allies. In June 1945 the British objected to such a policy on the grounds that it could not be founded solidly on international law and would in fact push the neutrals away from cooperation with the Allies on German assets in their countries. The State Department expressed surprise at the negative tone of the British response. At this time the proposed policies and diplomatic moves toward the neutrals were aimed entirely at "eliminating spearheads of German aggression." No consideration was being given to the property of victims of Nazism, whether looted or moved abroad voluntarily to escape despoliation.

By the time of the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the British Foreign Office had agreed to go along with the U.S.-proposed démarche to inform neutral governments of the intent of the Allies to assume, through the Allied Control Authority in Germany, control over external German assets and warning the neutral governments, particularly Spain and Portugal, but also the other West European neutrals. At the outset the Swiss Mission in Washington was inclined to recognize the Allied assumption of control over German assets in Switzerland provided the United States agreed to delete a particular German-owned corporation, Scintalla A.G., from the list of wartime blocked assets.

During the first days of the Potsdam Conference, which lasted from July 16 to August 1, Presidential Adviser on Reparations Edwin Pauley and Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William Clayton led the U.S. delegation to introduce a proposal that the United States, the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France would declare external German assets to come under the control of the Allied Control Council in Germany. Delegation members Seymour Rubin, Acting Chief of the Office of Financial and Development Policy (OFD) of the State Department, and Josiah E. DuBois, Jr., an Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, drafted the U.S. working papers on such a declaration. In its earliest form the declaration emphasized that immediate action be taken to obtain control and power of disposition over all German assets in neutral countries, and that this was necessary "not only from a standpoint of security but also to preserve such assets for Allied objectives." What such objectives might be was not explicitly defined, but it seems clear that this was the first consideration given to using external German assets to provide assistance to the victims of Nazism, the enormity of whose suffering was beginning to be more widely recognized at least within the U.S. Government.

The proposed Four-Power declaration on German external assets was intended for the neutral nations who were to be asked to place German assets in their control at the disposition of the Allied Control Council. In its subsequent iterations throughout the remainder of the Potsdam Conference, the distinction between security interests and other objectives originally formulated by the U.S. delegation was eliminated. The external assets issue became part of a larger reparations package in Allied-Swiss discussions. Eventually the declaration was not agreed upon and instead the Big Four decided on a paragraph 18 of the Communiqué and the Report that stated: "Appropriate steps will be taken by the Control Council to exercise control and the power of disposition over German owned external assets not already under the control of the United Nations which have taken part in the war against Germany." For their part, the Soviets agreed to waive in favor of the Western Allies all claims to German external assets in West Europe.

As the notion of an Allied declaration faded, it was replaced by the U.S. proposal for a decree from the Allied Control Council assuming responsibility for the control of external German assets. Toward the end of the Potsdam Conference, a draft "vesting decree" was referred to the U.S. Element of the Allied Control Council with the request that the other Allied members be persuaded to agree to it. The decree would give the ACC the right to all German external assets in neutral countries and would give the Allies more legal leverage to complete their census of enemy holdings in neutral countries in order to underwrite a more credible policy of reparations and restitution. The U.S. representatives in the various neutral capitals were also informed of the proposed vesting decree as the means whereby Allied claim and control over German assets would be asserted. The British were reported at this time to be reluctant to endorse such a vesting decree because it would tend to discourage the neutrals from cooperating in tracing and disclosing German asserts. Seymour Rubin was told as much by his State Department colleagues back in Washington as they assessed possible Swiss reaction to the U.S. démarche. The importance of this issue was emphasized in the report of Otto Fletcher, Safehaven FEA expert detailed to the State Department, who estimated that total German assets in Switzerland amounted to $600 million (direct investments only), in Portugal $35 million, in Sweden $51 million, and in Turkey $51 million.

Near the conclusion of the Potsdam Conference, President Truman instructed Lieutenant General Lucius Clay, Deputy U.S. Military Governor in Germany, to propose the vesting decree to the Allied Control Council. The proposed decree worked its way up the Allied Control Authority bureaucracy during August and September, and it was finally considered by the Council at its meeting on September 20. General Eisenhower argued strongly for the decree and was supported by his French and Soviet colleagues, but British Field Marshal Montgomery argued that such a law would be unenforceable and that British diplomats were currently negotiating with the neutrals on these assets issues and would be impeded by such a decree. The State Department raised the question with British Foreign Secretary Bevin at the London Foreign Ministers Meeting a few days later without result. When the Allied Control Council for Germany met again on October 1, the British continued to object to the implementation of the vesting decree because the neutrals had questioned its basis in international law. British General Brian Robertson argued that the neutrals were more likely to be swayed by the idea that such assets offered some small compensation to the United Nations for the sacrifices they had made for the cause of freedom. He noted that the proposed decree would encourage the neutrals to conceal external German assets. For his part, General Eisenhower had already set an international legal precedent with the prosecution of the German war criminals and he asserted that the holders of German assets were the "big shots" who deserved "severe punishment."

The Treasury Department viewed passage of the Vesting Decree as the ultimate legal document that entitled the Allies and the Allied Control Commission to vest or claim title over all German property outside the territorial boundaries of the former Reich. In order to enforce the vesting authority of the ACC, Treasury suggested that the neutral countries should be asked to recognize the legal authority of the ACC to take control of German assets in their respective territories. If the neutral countries rejected the authority of the ACC, Treasury proposed a continuation of wartime economic warfare measures¾ such as freezing their assets in the United States and maintaining the lists of companies and individuals barred from trading with their Allied counterparts¾ in order to persuade them to adhere to Allied policies as a precondition for resuming normal trade relations with the Allies.

The vesting issue also encroached on possible claims by neutral countries against wartime commercial and financial debts that Germany had incurred in the course of purchasing supplies and other commodities from them to sustain its military campaigns. Treasury feared, as Coe explained to White on June 12, 1945, that unless the Allies adopted a Vesting Decree very soon, the neutral countries would arrogate to themselves the right to seize German assets for their own use. Treasury’s concern was that, in this eventuality, the neutrals might not eliminate all German assets, due to the special commercial and financial relationships that had developed before and during the war between the Axis and the neutral countries.

The Allied Control Council would administer the Vesting Decree and take title through a German External Property Commission (GEPC) to all property owned by Germany or German citizens outside Germany which would then dispose of this property in any way that it saw fit. The State Department suggested that the Council’s enforcement authority be limited to the control and disposition of so-called "spearhead" firms—the 20 largest German companies and banks—for fear that, upon passage of the decree, countries like Spain would try to embarrass the Allies by shifting overnight all responsibility regarding German assets. Treasury responded that the Council was more than capable of taking charge of that task. In Treasury’s view, the rights of the Allies far outweighed those of the neutrals. With the support of President Truman, General Eisenhower, and General Clay, the Council approved the Vesting Decree on October 22, 1945, but the British delegate objected to its issuance until he received instructions from London. The Council refused to wait and on October 30, 1945, the Vesting and Marshalling Decree became Law No. 5 of the Allied Control Council. Law No. 5 began: "Whereas the Control Council is determined to assume control of all German assets abroad and to divest the said assets of their German ownership."

The State and Treasury Departments discussed how best to approach the neutral countries about the ACC Vesting Decree. The international law community was conflicted on how to view the confiscation of property of enemy nationals and offered U.S. officials no unambiguous guide. As with earlier Safehaven negotiations, Seymour Rubin, a State Department veteran of Safehaven talks who had argued the case for the confiscation of the private property of enemy nationals abroad in American professional journals, wished to emphasize the moral and ethical foundations of the Allied claims on the question of reparations and enemy property. Consistent with its theory of the legal right of the ACC over German assets, Treasury wanted the ACC to invite the neutral countries to hold talks on the future of German external assets in Berlin under the aegis of the German External Property Commission. Meeting with the ACC’s refusal to allow these discussions to be held in Berlin, State and Treasury agreed that future approaches to the neutral governments would be conducted on behalf of the Council, a modest acknowledgment of Treasury’s stance that the Council was the legal body responsible for enemy property in neutral countries.

Should the neutrals refuse to comply with the Allies, Rubin supported the principle of sanctions, as long as the French and British agreed to them, a position echoed by Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in his reply to Treasury Secretary Fred Vinson in late November 1945. Joseph Friedman, Treasury Assistant General Counsel, insisted, however, that the United States should be ready to apply sanctions unilaterally, without British or French consent, in order to gain satisfaction from the neutrals, knowing that the British and the French would not agree to the use of economic sanctions. It would remain to be seen whether these sanctions would and could be used to convince neutral governments to sign an accord with the Allies.

During the 18-nation Allied Reparations Conference in Paris between November and December 1945, the Potsdam Conference decision on German external assets was worked out in greater detail. Article 6 of the Reparations Agreement reads in part as follows:

"German assets in those countries which remained neutral in the war against Germany shall be removed from German ownership or control and liquidated or disposed of in accordance with the authority of France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, pursuant to arrangements to be negotiated with the neutrals by those countries."

In early January 1946, on the eve of the invitation by the United States, Britain, and France to Switzerland to come to Washington to begin negotiations over German looted gold and external assets, State Department economic security expert Otto Fletcher acknowledged that the reason for this paragraph in the Reparations Agreement was to confirm the Potsdam Agreement which excluded the Soviet Union from any claim to German external assets in the neutral countries and left to the Western Allies the responsibility for their disposition. Fletcher warned his superiors in the Department of State that this paragraph was inconsistent with Allied Control Council Law No. 5, which assigned to the Allied Control Council for Germany control over all German assets abroad. He predicted that conflict between the two would greatly weaken the "already shaky legal position vis-à-vis the neutrals with respect to getting title to German assets."

B. Development of U.S. and Allied Policies Regarding Looted Gold, July-December 1945

Even as the war was drawing to a close, the Department of State, with the assistance of other government agencies, was reformulating its initial policy on disposition of gold that was coming under the control of the occupying forces. In late April 1945 the State Department informed the U.S. representatives on the European Advisory Commission in London, which was in the last stage of formulating Allied occupation policy for a defeated Germany, that it was reversing policy regarding looted gold. Initially, in 1944, the State Department proposed that gold found in defeated Germany would be returned directly to those nations which had gold reserves looted by Germany. Such returns were to be prorated by Allied occupation authorities on the basis of the various claims made by the liberated nations. In April the State Department was prepared to adhere to the principle that gold, like other property, should be subject to restitution. However, the Department was still not willing to depart far from a "gold pot" procedure and explained to the U.S. representatives in London that since the application of restitution principles to gold could result in one country recovering all of its gold while another got nothing, gold found in Germany ought to be presumed to be unidentifiable unless convincing evidence to the contrary was presented. Despite the affirmation of such policies by the Department, the leadership of the U.S. forces in defeated Germany initially considered using gold found in the U.S. zone of occupation to pay for supplies imported into Germany for the use of the armies.

On the eve of the Potsdam Conference, the State Department formulated its gold policy in a July 14 U.S. delegation working paper in the following manner:

"We have repeatedly stated our position that monetary gold found in Germany is all looted and should be returned. Our present position is that such gold, together with any ‘tainted’ gold which we may induce neutral countries to surrender, should be pro-rated among Allied countries from which gold was looted in proportion to their actual losses of gold from this source. This is an adaptation of the admiralty principle of general average. Gold returned to the Allied countries on the above basis would be credited to reparations."

The U.S. delegation to the Conference was also aware that the more than $250 million in gold found in the American zone of occupation of Germany by July 1945 could be a bargaining counter for other U.S. reparations objectives. A delegation working paper used in briefing President Truman at Potsdam on July 18 acknowledged U.S. commitment to the restoration of gold to the banks in liberated nations. But it also noted that the gold held in Germany could help in furthering American views regarding war booty and restitution principles in general, and that France would probably assert the largest claim for the restitution of gold. Edwin Pauley, the U.S. Representative to the Allied Reparations Commission, had been assured by one of his delegation lawyers that international law confirmed that captured gold in Germany could be regarded as war booty.

Truman, Churchill (and Attlee), and Stalin did not get into the details of the restitution of gold during their deliberations about reparations and restitution at the Potsdam Conference. At the plenary meeting on August 1, Stalin did abandon all Soviet claims to gold that the Allies found in Germany. Agreement to this effect was included in section III, paragraph 10 of the Protocol of the Proceedings of the Potsdam Conference: "The Soviet Government makes no claims to gold captured by the Allied troops in Germany." U.S. officials like Assistant Secretary of State William Clayton were not certain at the time how broad or limited this Soviet waiver was, but it did prove to assign to the United States almost exclusive control over looted gold found in Germany inasmuch as the $250 million identified by July was in the U.S. zone of occupation.

The concept of a "gold pot" of looted gold recovered from the Germans developed quickly after the Potsdam Conference. Edwin Pauley informed President Truman on August 4 that the United States had custody in Frankfurt of over $200 million in captured gold, and he offered two alternatives for its use: restitution to the specific countries from which it was removed or combining the gold into a "common pot" or distributing it equitably among the liberated countries whose gold was looted by the Germans. Pauley argued that even if gold were returned to the liberated nations, the return should be done in such a manner as to ensure that American claims against those nations (pre-war and those arising from importation of food and other supplies) would first be met.

The Department of State provided Ambassador Pauley on August 18 with detailed instructions and justifications, approved by President Truman, Secretary of the Treasury Vinson, and other government leaders, for an Allied policy for a "gold pot" of captured gold. Pauley was informed that the United States had no moral or legal basis for laying claim to or attaching any of the gold belonging to foreign governments and any attempted attachment would prejudice relations with those governments. The U.S. position in negotiations with the Allies should be that gold captured by Allied forces be restored to the countries from which it was looted, but that the general impossibility of identifying the origin of much of the captured gold necessitated the pooling of all gold found by Allied troops into a common pot. This pot then could be divided among countries in proportion to their established losses. The State Department also wanted Pauley to follow a policy of restitution of securities looted by Germany from the European nations that they occupied, and, to the extent that the jurisdiction of such securities could not be determined, divide up the securities equitably among the countries from which they had been looted. The State Department also authorized Pauley to propose to the other Allies on the Allied Reparations Commission the formulation of such restitution and gold pot policies. The State Department had not, at the time of its instructions to Ambassador Pauley, come to decisions on three important issues: 1) whether SS accumulations of precious metals from the concentration camps should be lumped with the monetary gold in the gold pot, 2) whether Austria, Italy, and the governments of Germany’s former wartime Eastern European satellites should be claimants to any gold pot, and 3) how the looted gold Germany sold abroad should be recovered and whether such gold should be added to a central gold pot.

On November 1, 1945, James W. Angell, U.S. representative to the Allied Commission on Reparations, reported that agreement had been reached with the British and the French to adopt a gold pot policy. Both remained doubtful that the United States had been entirely forthcoming about the quantity of looted gold being held by the American authorities in Germany, and Angell assured them that all information was being passed on. Agreement could not be reached, however, on whether Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Albania should receive a portion of the gold pot, but agreement was reached that Poland and Danzig should not be recipients inasmuch as the Soviet Union had renounced any claim to such gold. France also wanted an immediate three-power approach to Switzerland to obtain return of the Belgian monetary gold stolen by the Germans in 1940. The fate of $25 million in Italian gold found by the Allied armies also was not decided.

C. Establishment of a Gold Pool for Looted Monetary Gold

On November 23, 1945, the conferees agreed on an Allied policy on monetary gold. All monetary gold would be pooled for distribution in proportion to losses suffered, such distribution would be accepted as full satisfaction and liquidation of claims against Germany for the restitution of monetary gold, the nations that suffered looting by the Nazis would provide verifiable data regarding their losses, and the powers occupying Germany would act to implement the distribution as agreed upon. The fate of the Hungarian gold could not be resolved at the conference and its ultimate disposition was reserved.

Another important element of the agenda involved establishing principles for the restitution of monetary gold looted by Germany. Under a so-called "gold pot" principle of restitution, all monetary gold found in Germany by the Allied forces, or recovered from a third country to which it was transferred by Germany, was to be pooled for distribution among the countries participating in the pool in proportion to their respective losses of gold through looting. The monetary gold thus accruing to a country would be accepted in full satisfaction of all its claims against Germany for restitution of monetary gold. This method of distribution was chosen because the losses of monetary gold, amounting to over a half billion dollars, were far in excess of the gold recovered, and because the gold recovered was for the most part not identifiable. The negotiators agreed that the gold pool would comprise monetary gold found in Germany and in third countries to which Germany might have transferred monetary gold obtained through looting. The United States, France, and Great Britain were made responsible for the distribution of the monetary gold, and they subsequently discharged the function through the creation of the Tripartite Gold Commission in September 1946. Part III of the Reparations Agreement reads:

"RESTITUTION OF MONETARY GOLD

"Single Article

"A. All the monetary gold found in Germany by the Allied Forces and that referred to in paragraph G below (including gold coins, except those of numismatic or historical value, which shall be restored directly if identifiable) shall be pooled for distribution as restitution among the countries participating in the pool in proportion to their respective losses of gold through looting or by wrongful removal to Germany.

"B. Without prejudice to claims by way of reparation for unrestored gold, the portion of monetary gold thus accruing to each country participating in the pool shall be accepted by that country in full satisfaction of all claims against Germany for restitution of monetary gold.

"C. A proportional share of the gold shall be allocated to each country concerned which adheres to this arrangement for the restitution of monetary gold and which can establish that a definite amount of monetary gold belonging to it was looted by Germany or, at any time after March 12th, 1938, was wrongfully removed into German territory.

"D. The question of the eventual participation of countries not represented at the Conference (other than Germany but including Austria and Italy) in the above mentioned distribution shall be reserved, and the equivalent of the total shares which these countries would receive, if they were eventually admitted to participate, shall be set aside to be disposed of at a later date in such manner as may be decided by the Allied Governments concerned.

"E. The various countries participating in the pool shall supply to the Governments of the United States of America, France and the United Kingdom, as the occupying Powers concerned, detailed and verifiable data regarding the gold losses suffered through looting by, or removal to, Germany.

"F. The Governments of the United States of America, France and the United Kingdom shall take appropriate steps within the Zones of Germany occupied by them respectively to implement distribution in accordance with the foregoing provisions.

"G. Any monetary gold which may be recovered from a third country to which it was transferred from Germany shall be distributed in accordance with this arrangement for the restitution of monetary gold."

The written record indicates that President Truman was involved in a very limited way in overseeing the implementation of policies for gaining control of German assets in neutral countries and distributing them to the victims of the Germans. However, his sentiments on the issue of providing assistance to Jewish victims of the Nazis were made vividly clear in a message he sent to the Secretary of State probably in 1947 but possibly earlier:

"I have been giving serious consideration to the question of finding some way to do justice to those people who were robbed and murdered by the Nazis. It is my convinced opinion that some provision should be made for these people through the Allied Reparations Commission.

"I have sent the attached letter to Mr. Edwin W. Pauley for his personal and confidential information. I should appreciate it if you would see to it that the responsible officials in the State Department are acquainted with my aims in this respect so that everything may be done to facilitate the implementation of this policy in our negotiations with other Allied countries."

 

D. Allied Decision at the Paris Reparations Conference To Provide Assistance for the Non-Repatriable Victims of Nazism

The representatives of 18 Allied nations met in Paris on November 9, 1945, to develop the governing principles and mechanisms for the distribution of the reparations from Germany agreed at the Potsdam Conference. In the opening days of the Paris Reparations Conference, U.S. delegate James Angell presented, on the basis of instructions from the State Department, a proposal to his French and British colleagues for providing a share of reparations to the victims of the Nazis. Initially the American proposal aimed at "German nationals" who had fled Germany not intending to return and had not gained citizenship elsewhere, nationals of other countries who had been transported by the Nazis or forced to flee and were now homeless, and pre-war stateless persons who had suffered personal or property loss. The United States proposed that two percent of the total reparations be set aside for the support of these persons. Non-monetary gold seized in Germany as well as other assets would be entrusted to an international agency such as the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees.

The discussions in the following days revealed that while the British generally agreed with some aspects of the American plan, they had objections to its scope and implementing machinery and, Angell felt, were "fundamentally opposed to plan on general ground that it may discourage voluntary repatriation and commit British to general aid for non-repatriables with attendant difficulties for British Palestine policy." In late November Angell also explained the plan to representatives of the American Jewish Congress who objected to the breadth of the original scheme and recommended it be confined to non-repatriable persons who had been victims of Nazi concentrations camps, narrowing the number of persons eligible to perhaps 100,000 to 200,000. Angell supported and adopted the proposal of the AJC and also proposed adopting a fixed sum. Angell moved away from the notion of providing support for the non-repatriable persons from a percentage of reparations and proposed instead a separate sum of funds initially envisaged as being made up of all non-monetary gold found in Germany plus $15 million from German external assets in neutral countries. By the time the proposal was circulated to the whole Paris Reparations Conference on December 8, this had been worked out as a fixed, total sum of $25 million composed of all the non-monetary gold found in Germany together with contributions of the external German assets in the neutral countries.

The U.S. proposal was introduced to the Paris Reparations Conference on December 8, and the debate continued until the end of the month. The plan initially called for a fund of at least $25 million for the non-repatriables composed of all of the non-monetary gold retrieved in Germany and some portion of the German assets in neutral nations. The State Department was not willing to go below the $25 million figure and was willing to expand the sum to $40 million or more, even though it found the $25 million to be the maximum possible. Later in December the Department of State instructed Angell to proposal a formula, essentially incorporated into the final Conference agreement, that would provide (a) all of the non-monetary gold found in Germany, (b) an additional $25million in German external assets in the neutral states, and (c) the funds deposited in neutral nations by Nazi victims who had died without heirs. The distribution of this fund would be the responsibility of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees and its successors within the United Nations system. During the negotiations aimed at achieving American aims, U.S. officials consulted with the representatives of Jewish philanthropic organizations and pressured other delegations to make concessions on behalf of Nazi victims.

One debate centered on defining the non-repatriables to be assisted and the scope of the assets to be applied. The United States first proposed that the category be restricted to the former inmates of concentration camps; however, the proposal was rejected by the Conference. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and France sought either to narrow the scope of persons to be supported or to increase it to provide assistance to other national groups outside of Germany. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were opposed to giving aid to their nationals who had fled because they were opponents of the present "democratic" governments, and these two nations plus France wanted to expand the definition of non-repatriable persons to include refugees from Fascist countries other than Germany, a step that would increase eligible persons by 200,000 Spanish refugees. Some of the Allies sought to gain vetoes over the particular groups or persons to be benefited, a proposal that the United States vigorously opposed and which almost caused U.S. withdrawal from the whole proposal. The French, Czechs, and Yugoslavs also suggested that the assets of heirless accounts in neutral nations be added to the pot for the support of non-repatriables. The United States at first objected on the grounds that it would be legally difficult to gain access to the assets in neutral countries of deceased persons without heirs, but the Conference finally adopted the proposal regarding heirless accounts.

The entire package for the non-repatriables thus comprised $25 million, plus the proceeds of German assets in neutral countries, all non-monetary gold found in Germany, i.e., the boxes of SS loot collected from Nazi crematories and composed primarily of tooth-fillings, rings, and other such objects, as well as the assets of heirless accounts held in the neutral countries. The Conference further decided that none of the resources recovered for non-repatriables would be for the compensation of individuals and that individual refugees would retain their right to lodge claims against any future German Government. Article 8 of Part I of the Reparations Agreement reads:

"ALLOCATION OF A REPARATION SHARE TO NONREPATRIABLE VICTIMS OF GERMAN ACTION

"In recognition of the fact that large numbers of persons have suffered heavily at the hands of the Nazis and now stand in dire need of aid to promote their rehabilitation but will be unable to claim the assistance of any Government receiving reparations from Germany, the Governments of the United States of America, France, the United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, in consultation with the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees, shall as soon as possible work out in common agreement a plan on the following general lines:

"A. A share of reparation consisting of all the non-monetary gold found by the Allied Armed Forces in Germany and in addition a sum not exceeding 25 million dollars shall be allocated for the rehabilitation and resettlement of non-repatriable victims of German action.

"B. The sum of 25 million dollars shall be met from a portion of the proceeds of German assets in neutral countries which are available for reparation.

"C. Governments of neutral countries shall be requested to make available for this purpose (in addition to the sum of 25 million dollars) assets in such countries of victims of Nazi action who have since died and left no heirs.

"D. The persons eligible for aid under the plan in question shall be restricted to true victims of Nazi persecution and to their immediate families and dependents, in the following classes:

"(i) Refugees from Nazi Germany or Austria who require aid and cannot be returned to their countries within a reasonable time because of prevailing conditions;

"(ii) German and Austrian nationals now resident in Germany or Austria in exceptional cases in which it is reasonable on grounds of humanity to assist such persons to emigrate and providing they emigrate to other countries within a reasonable period;

"(iii) Nationals of countries formerly occupied by the Germans who cannot be repatriated or are not in a position to be repatriated within a reasonable time. In order to concentrate aid on the most needy and deserving refugees and to exclude persons whose loyalty to the United Nations is or was doubtful, aid shall be restricted to nationals or former nationals of previously occupied countries who were victims of German concentration camps or of concentration camps established by regimes under Nazi influence but not including persons who have been confined only in prisoners of war camps.

"E. The sums made available under paragraphs A and B above shall be administered by the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees or by a United Nations Agency to which appropriate functions of the Inter-Governmental Committee may in the future be transferred. The sums made available under paragraph C above shall be administered for the general purposes referred to in this Article under a program of administration to be formulated by the five Governments named above.

"F. The non-monetary gold found in Germany shall be placed at the disposal of the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees as soon as a plan has been worked out as provided above.

"G. The Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees shall have power to carry out the purposes of the fund through appropriate public and private field organisations.

"H. The fund shall be used, not for the compensation of individual victims, but to further the rehabilitation or resettlement of persons in the eligible classes.

"I. Nothing in this Article shall be considered to prejudice the claims which individual refugees may have against a future German Government, except to the amount of the benefits that such refugees may have received from the sources referred to in paragraph A and C above."

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