In October, 1943, Cordell Hull (U. S. Secretary of State), Anthony Eden (Foreign Minister for Great Britain), and V. Molotov (Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs), had a conference at Moscow. Eden suggested that they create a European Advisory Commission which would decide how Germany, after defeat, would be partitioned, occupied, and governed by the three victorious powers. Molotov approved. Hull did not like the idea, but agreed to it in deference to the wishes of the two others. Philip E. Mosely, of the CFR, was Hull's special adviser at this Moscow Conference.
The next month, November, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Tehran for his first conference with Stalin and Churchill. Aboard the U. S. S. Iowa en route to Tehran, Roosevelt had a conference with his Joint Chiefs of Staff. They discussed, among other things, the post-war division and occupation of Germany.
President Roosevelt predicted that Germany would collapse suddenly and that "there would definitely be a race for Berlin" by the three great powers. The President said: "We may have to put the United States divisions into Berlin as soon as possible, because the United States should have Berlin."
Harry Hopkins suggested that "we be ready to put an airborne division into Berlin two hours after the collapse of Germany."
Roosevelt wanted the United States to occupy Berlin and northwestern Germany; the British to occupy France, Belgium, and southern Germany; and the Soviets to have eastern Germany.
At the Tehran Conference (November 27-December 2, 1943), Stalin seemed singularly indifferent to the question of which power would occupy which zones of Germany after the war. Stalin revealed intense interest in only three topics:
(1) urging the western allies to make a frontal assault, across the English Channel, on Hitler's fortress Europe;
(2) finding out, immediately, the name of the man whom the western allies would designate to command such an operation (Eisenhower had not yet been selected); and
(3) reducing the whole of Europe to virtual impotence so that the Soviet Union would be the only major power on the continent after the war.