Moscow Declaration

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Moscow Declaration (also Moscow Declaration ) was the result of the Moscow Conference of Allied Foreign Ministers during World War II, 1943. At the Moscow Conference from October 19 to November 1, 1943, the foreign ministers of the three leading Allied powers, the USA, Great Britain and the USSR ( Hull , Eden and Molotov ). The declaration was adopted in Moscow on October 30, 1943 and published on November 1, 1943.

Content of the declaration

The aim was to clarify the conditions under which the alliance of the USA , Great Britain and the Soviet Union could be maintained in the final phase of the war and in the immediate post-war period despite the existing political differences.

Form and structure

The closing text of the Moscow conference names China as a further signatory partner in addition to the three allies of the USA, the USSR and Great Britain represented by their foreign ministers . The three-power conference thus followed by a Joint Four-Nation Declaration ( Joint Four-Nation Declaration ).

With reference to the United Nations Declaration of 1942, the Allies committed themselves to continuing joint action against the Axis powers . In addition to these basic provisions, the Moscow Declaration already contained approaches as to which post-war order would be sought after the Allied victory. Specifically, Italy ( Declaration Regarding Italy ) and Austria ( Declaration on Austria ) are dealt with.

The final part of the statement deals with the Statement of Atrocities by the Axis Powers and was signed by Churchill , Roosevelt and Stalin speaking on behalf of the United Nations . The main war criminals should be punished by a joint judgment of the Allied governments. With this declaration they were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the United Nations War Crimes Commission , and the Allies, i.e. Great Britain, the USA, the Soviet Union and perhaps France, should decide on their punishment. The declaration formed the basis for the London Statute , which laid down the legal basis and procedural rules of the international and American military courts and thus created the basis for the Nuremberg trials .

Germany

All three powers agreed by Germany , the unconditional surrender to require negotiating a ceasefire with smaller allies of the axis as Hungary , Romania and Bulgaria to carry only together and inform each other about peace Requests the war opponents. The United States and Britain renewed their commitment to the Soviet Union to open a Second Front in Western Europe . On November 16, 1943, the French Committee for the National Liberation joined this declaration.

A key issue was the question of what shape the German Reich should take after the war . The question of the treatment of the Nazi criminals was therefore at the beginning of the Moscow Declaration. It was agreed to demand the complete disarmament of Germany, to bring the leaders of the Nazi state to an international military tribunal, and to bring war criminals to justice in the countries in which they were accused of committing their crimes . Every ceasefire agreement should contain the provision to transfer National Socialist criminals to the scene of their crimes. The murder of Jews , stateless persons and civilians , which was committed not only in the occupied countries, but also in Germany, Austria and Hungary themselves, was not mentioned in the declaration. The question of how the National Socialists could be tried for crimes against the civilian population in the Axis states was not the subject of the Moscow conference.

Austria

In the Moscow Declaration, the foreign ministers of the allied states Great Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union declared Austria's annexation to the German Reich in March 1938 to be invalid and declared that they wanted to restore the state of Austria after the end of the war.

The wording in the declaration was:

"The governments of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States of America are of the same opinion that Austria, the first free country to fall victim to Hitler's typical aggressive policy, should be liberated from German rule."

In Austria, at the end of the war, the social consensus quickly emerged that “Austria was actually the first victim” of National Socialist aggression. Official policy tried to support this “ victim myth ” by referring to the declaration text, although it was also formulated here:

"Austria is also reminded that it bears a responsibility for participating in the war on the side of Hitler-Germany, from which it cannot escape, and that on the occasion of the final settlement, consideration must be given to how much it will have contributed to its liberation, will be inevitable. "

As a result, the declaration offered two perspectives from the Allied perspective. On the one hand, an offer was made to the regime-loyal and the more passive part of the Austrian population: renewed state sovereignty was in prospect, and collective punishment for involvement in Nazi war crimes would not materialize. It would be unnecessary to persevere to the extreme that the Nazi propaganda tried to generate. On the other hand, potential officials are called upon to change sides following the example of Italy under Badoglio and to accelerate the German defeat by overthrowing.

The Allies were divided over the treatment of Austria after the surrender. The western powers, especially the British government, demanded that the population as a whole be held accountable and that re- education be carried out. In contrast, the Soviet Union was primarily interested in economic reparations and therefore saw the state of Austria as an obligation.

The prospect of restoring Austria was linked to the idea of liberation , while Germany was to be forced to unconditional surrender .

In 1945 Austria was actually restored within the 1924–38 borders. Like Germany, Austria was divided into four zones of occupation . The Moscow Declaration became one of the foundations in the negotiations on the withdrawal of the occupation troops, which on April 15, 1955 led to the Moscow Memorandum , on which the Austrian State Treaty of May 15, 1955 is based. The State Treaty gave the country back its full sovereignty after seven years of “Anschluss” ( Austria under National Socialism ) and ten years of occupation .

Punishment of war criminals

The (English) Statement on Atrocities laid the foundation for the later war crimes trials , for which the German perpetrators were to be extradited to the countries in which they had committed crimes. Examples are the extradition of the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss to Poland or the war crimes trial in Riga . For the trials of offenders whose crimes were not connected to a specific location, an agreement should be made on a joint punishment by the three allies. The London Statute of August 8, 1945 was the basis for the Nuremberg Trials , in particular the Nuremberg Trial of the major war criminals .

literature

  • Stefan Karner, Alexander O. Tschubarjan (ed.): The Moscow Declaration 1943: "Restore Austria" . 1st edition, Böhlau, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-20579-689-3 .
  • Bernd Boll : Wehrmacht in court. War crimes trials of the four powers after 1945. History and Society , No. 4, 1998, pp. 570–594.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Telford Taylor : The Nuremberg Trials. Background, analyzes and findings from today's perspective , Munich 1994, ISBN 3-453-08021-1 , p. 42 f.