June 26, 2013

FINEST HOUR 132, AUTUMN 2006

BY DAVID DRUCKMAN

ABSTRACT
Mr. Druckman and his wife Arlyne, of Tucson and Chicago, travel the world in search of Churchill. His previous articles are in FH A7 (South Africa), FH 90 (Gallipoli), and FH 129 (Brooklyn).

IF YOU weren’t with us in Potsdam last May, something important can always be seen on your own…

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July 1945. The war in Europe was over. Japan was defending her home islands and the lands she occupied with tenacity and suicidal determination. How could Japan’s defeat be accelerated? Now that Germany was crushed, what would be her fate? Could a long-term peace be established? On the agenda were Polish elections, Polish-German borders, the atomic bomb, disposal of the German navy and merchant marine, Italian peace terms, Russia’s war declaration on Japan, and the division of Germany.

The most effective way to answer these questions was another meeting of the “Big Three”: Stalin, Churchill, and Truman, the latter having replaced Roosevelt after FDR’s death on 12 April 1945. The Free French government (de Gaulle) was not invited—again.

Churchill gave his view of the conference in his last volume of The Second World War, and Sir Martin Gilbert gives a more even view in “Never Despair,” his final volume of the official biography. Great is the literature on Potsdam, and this is not the place to examine the issues. Rather we look at what is to be seen there by visitors, such as this writer and the Churchill Centre party assembled in May (previous article).

Potsdam, which contains the San Souci Gardens, is just south of Berlin, and was not devastated by allied bombing. By prior agreement, eastern Germany was occupied by the Soviets, who acted as conference hosts. Plenary sessions were at the last Hohenzollern building, Schloss Cecilienhof, built between 1914 and 1917 in the style of an English manor house, not dissimilar to Chartwell. A sprawling, asymmetrical, timber-frame structure with two inner courtyards, it was originally the residence of Crown Prince Wilhelm, but was named after Crown Princess Cecilie, who lived there until 1945 when she fled west. The house is still
used for political meetings. Members of the German federal government gather regularly.

The narrow, milelong road to the northern entrance contains mansions occupied by Soviet officials during the communist era. Some of the buildings are deteriorating because nowadays the buildings’ ownership cannot be determined. German courts have been debating the ownership for sixteen years, and many buildings are abandoned.

The back of the somewhat rectangular two-storey house faces east to the Jungfernsee (Maiden Lake), and beyond the lake is Berlin. Cecilienhof Palace was built between 1914 and 1917. The north section has rooms and an inner courtyard presently used as a beer garden; the center section is a museum, where the Big Three met; the south section is primarily rooms and is now a forty-room hotel where Arlyne and I stayed overnight. The conference used thirty-six of the 176 rooms. The rooms in the upper storey of the central section give one an insight into the royal home decor of the early 1920s.

Many Potsdamers under thirty were unaware of the Maiden Lake behind the building because the ten-meter Berlin Wall, abutting the lake, blocked its view. The wall and its foundation are now gone and the beautiful lake can be viewed from the palace. In the middle of the central garden is a large planting of red roses in the shape of a star surrounded by blue hydrangeas, planted in 1945 by the Russian hosts.

The entire palace and sleeping rooms are in superior condition, and the 180-acre grounds are equally immaculate, where a walk provides a pleasant hour. A gift shop sells pictures, books, and souvenirs.

At the Museum Arlyne presented the director, Ms. T. Harte, with The Story of the Malakand Field Force and a condensed version of A History of the English Speaking Peoples. Impressed, she kindly arranged for a personal tour of the conference rooms and offices, of which the largest and most impressive is the well-lit Tudor style conference room. Fourteen chairs, three with high backs, surround the circular table, which was made in Moscow. It reminded me of the table and chairs at the Yalta Meeting, five months prior in February 1945. The walls of the offices of the three delegations contained libraries, with books for Churchill and Truman in English. There is a picture of a bulldog on the wall of Churchill’s office; when told the dog bore a resemblance to him, he said, “No! It’s missing a cigar.”

Stalin displayed his usual suspicions and idiosyncrasies. His office had two exits. He arrived two days after Truman and Churchill, by train from Moscow, with fifteen soldiers every kilometer along his route. Stalin must have felt superior because he was eventually negotiating with two new world leaders: during the meeting, Churchill’s Conservatives lost the election and the Labour leader, Clement Attlee, who was present earlier, replaced Churchill. Our guide said that Stalin preferred having an honest debate with Churchill than with Attlee, whom Stalin felt was a cold fish.

Although Churchill left the conference on 25 July, in nine days of meetings he obtained three agreements: withdrawal of American, British, and Soviet troops from Persia; occupation of Vienna by British and American forces; and stability of Turkey’s eastern border. The Polish question was his greatest failure, but the one he tried hardest to resolve. Some other final agreements included occupation zones, demilitarization and monitoring of Germany, punishment of war criminals, reparations, and new German and Polish borders. Potsdam established the political balance of power in Europe for forty-five years.

When we left on a Sunday morning, a crowd of 100 mostly German visitors waiting for the start of a new tour. Schloss Cecilienhof is popular—an asset to Potsdam. If you find yourself in the vicinity of Berlin, take a cab to the palace. It will add to your knowledge of Churchill, his friends and adversaries.