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Speech by Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev at a Soviet-Polish Meeting in Moscow (November 10, 1958)

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If one were to speak of the four powers' undertakings with regard to Germany, one should speak of undertakings springing from the Potsdam Agreement.

Let us recall what were the main undertakings that the parties to the Potsdam Agreement assumed with regard to their policy in Germany, what was the way that Potsdam indicated for the development of Germany.

At that time, the members of the anti-Hitler coalition assumed clear-cut and definite undertakings: To extirpate German militarism, to prevent its resurgence once and for all, to do everything to prevent Germany from ever again threatening her neighbors or world peace.

The parties to the Potsdam Agreement also found it necessary to put an end to German fascism, to block its revival in Germany, to curb all fascist activities and propaganda.

Another important component of the Potsdam Agreement was an undertaking to liquidate the rule of cartels, syndicates and other monopolies in the German economy, that is, forces that had brought Hitler to power and had encouraged and financed his military gambles. Such was the substances of the agreements concluded in Potsdam in 1945.

And what do we have today, more than 13 years after the Potsdam Conference?

No one can deny that the Soviet Union, for its part, has scrupulously observed these agreements and that they have been carried out in full in the eastern part of Germany, the German Democratic Republic. Let us see how the Potsdam agreement is being carried out in the western part of Germany, in the Federal Republic of Germany, the responsibility for whose development rests with the three western powers – the United States, Britain and France.

It should be openly said that militarism, far from having been eradicated, is rearing its head ever higher in Western Germany. The powers which should have fought against the resurgence of German militarism have drawn Western Germany into the aggressive military bloc, N.A.T.O., that they have created. They are doing everything to promote the growth of German militarism and the establishment in Western Germany of a mass army supplied with the latest military equipment.

By decision of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, and naturally, with the approval of the N.A.T.O. powers, Western Germany is building an army which the German militarists envisage as stronger than the armies of Britain and France. It is perhaps, already stronger than the French army, considering that a substantial part of the French army is kept outside the country, in the colonies, where the liberation movement against the French colonialists is at boiling point.

The armed forces that are being recreated in Western Germany are again headed by Nazi generals and admirals. The West German army is being trained in the spirit of the predatory aspirations of the Nazi Wehrmacht, in the spirit of revenge and hatred for the Soviet Union and other peaceable states.

Moreover, the German militarists – with the blessing of the western powers, and primarily the United States – are receiving nuclear weapons. The Federal Republic already has American rockets which can be fitted with nuclear warheads.

Economically, Western Germany is literally taking its West European allies by the throat. It is enough to note, for the sake of comparison, that in 1957, for instance, the Federal Republic produced 24,500,000 tons of steel, as opposed to 22 million in Britain and little more than 14 million in France.

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