I have analysed the matter raised in your letter of March 25, and find that the Soviet Government could not have given any other reply after its representatives were barred from the Berne negotiations with the Germans for a German surrender and opening the front to the Anglo-American troops in Northern Italy.

Far from being against, I am all for profiting from cases of disintegration in the German armies to hasten their surrender on one or another sector and encourage them to open the front to Allied forces. But I agree to such talks with the enemy only in cases where they do not lead to an easing of the enemy's position, if the opportunity for the Germans to manoeuvre and to use the talks for switching troops to other sectors, above all to the Soviet front, is precluded. And it was solely with an eye to providing this guarantee that the Soviet Government found it necessary to have representatives of its Military Command take part in such negotiations with the enemy wherever they might take place - whether in Berne or in Caserta. I cannot understand why the representatives of the Soviet Command have been excluded from the talks and in what way they could have handicapped the representatives of the Allied Command.

I must tell you for your information that the Germans have already taken advantage of the talks with the Allied Command to move three divisions from Northern Italy to the Soviet front.

The task of coordinated operations involving a blow at the Germans from the West, South and East, proclaimed at the Crimea Conference, is to hold the enemy on the spot and prevent him from manoeuvring, from moving his forces to the points where he needs them most. The Soviet Command is doing this. But Field Marshal Alexander is not. This circumstance irritates the Soviet Command and engenders distrust. "As a military man," you write to me, "you will understand the necessity for prompt action to avoid losing an opportunity. The sending of a flag of truce to your General at Königsberg or Danzig would be in the same category." I am afraid the analogy does not fit the case. The German troops at Danzig and at Königsberg are encircled. If they surrender they will do so to escape extermination, but they cannot open the front to Soviet troops because the front has shifted as far west as the Oder. The German troops in Northern Italy are in an entirely different position. They are not encircled and are not faced with extermination. If, nevertheless, the Germans in Northern Italy seek negotiations in order to surrender and to open the front to the Allied troops, then they must have some other, more far-reaching aims affecting the destiny of Germany.

I must tell you that if a similar situation had obtained on the Eastern Front, somewhere on the Oder, providing an opportunity for a German surrender and for the opening of the front to the Soviet troops, I should have immediately notified the Anglo-American Military Command and asked it to send its representatives to take part in the talks, for in a situation of this kind Allies should have nothing to conceal from
each other.

March 29, 1945