Is a Peace Treaty with Germany Legally Possible and Politically Desirable?

By its complete defeat, the surrender of its armed force, and the abolishment of its national government, Germany has ceased to exist as a sovereign state and subject of international law. By the Declaration of Berlin, June 5, 1945, the four Powers occupying the country—the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the French Republic—assumed “supreme authority with respect to Germany including all powers possessed by the German Government, the High Command, and any state, municipal, or local government or authority.” This meant that the four occupant Powers have assumed sovereignty over the former German territory and its population, though the term “sovereignty” was not used in the text of the Declaration. The four occupant Powers exercise their joint sovereignty through the Control Council, established at Berlin as the legitimate successor of the last national government of Germany. All this is in complete conformity with general international law, which authorizes a victorious state, after so-called debellatio of its opponent, to establish its own sovereignty over the territory and population of the subjugated state. Debellatio implies automatic termination of the state of war. Hence, a peace treaty with Germany is legally not possible. For a peace treaty presupposes the continued existence of the opponent belligerents as subjects of international law and a legal state of war in their mutual relations. The opposite doctrine, advocated by some authorities and governments, that Germany, in spite of the fact that there exists no independent national government, not even a “government in exile,” still exists as a sovereign state, that the four occupant Powers are not the sovereigns in relation to the German territory and its population, that they only exercise Germany's sovereignty just as a warden exercises the rights of his ward, is manifestly based on a legal fiction. According to international law, a community is a state if, and as long as, a certain population is living on a definite territory under an independent government. If one of these three essential elements of a state in the sense of international law is missing, the state as a subject of international law disappears, or, in other words, the community ceases to exist as a sovereign state. No state can exercise the sovereignty of another state. State sovereignty does not permit representation or substitution.