Restatement of Policy On Germany - Polish Response

Polish Response

The Polish responded to the speech with loud rhetoric, with claims that the US was supporting remnants of the Hitler regime and officially claimed that the border set at Potsdam was final. In a speech, Władysław Gomułka condemned Byrne's speech and its implication of a border revision in favor of Germany as reactionary. It made Gomulka see it as further need for a strong Polish-Soviet Union alliance.

Many years, later Polish leader Wojciech Jaruzelski would reflect on the implications of the speech:

"It was a shocking statement. It made us think that our western border was being questioned by the Germans and by other Western countries. It was one of the most important things that strengthened our ties with the Soviet Union."

Olszewski asked the US ambassador to Poland for an explanation, claiming that the speech would have a negative impact on the Poles from beyond Curzon Line that were moving into western territories. Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane reassured Byrne's speech should not be interpreted as US's desire to avoid its obligations made at Potsdam. He underlined that Poland was given provisional control over the area, and if the Polish settlers believed that their presence was permanent, it was due to work of Polish government and press itself

Lane later continued to reassure Poles of US friendship and was disturbed by distortion of Byrnes speech. Eventually, he learned, after discussing the issue with members of Department of State, that the speech was intended to "smoke out Molotov's attitude on the eve of elections in Germany"

From November 1946, onward the US military government in Germany prepared a number of new alternative border plans. U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall insisted during the 1947 Council of Foreign Ministers meetings in Moscow and London that a border revision be done that would return agricultural areas Pomerania and Silesia to Germany while leaving Poland large part of eastern Pomernia and Upper Silesia, as well as Gdańsk and East Prussia. With backing from the UK and from France, he also advocated the establishment of a four-power commission that would be given the task of deciding the extent of the new border revisions in favor of Germany. The American change of tactic was motivated by two things: winning over German loyalties and embarrassing the Soviet Union; in private, American policy makers like Marshall admitted that chances of changing the border were "very slender"

The speech had negative impact on US relations with Poland but made the Germans more positive to the US, and the Soviet Union was forced to commit itself to the Oder-Neisse line. As a consequence of this commitment, the Soviet Union had to give up any hope of gaining influence over West Germany.