Probably the most consistent feature of the policy of the three Western powers—the United States, Great Britain, and France—towards the defeated Germany, from the time of Potsdam until a few months ago, was the emphasis on the need for the disarmament and demilitarization of the Germany of the future; and when it was decided, in 1949, to establish the Federal Republic of Western Germany, this policy was endorsed once more.

In June 1949, the Foreign Ministers of the three powers met in Paris, and on the twentieth of that month the High Commission charter was signed. At a second meeting held early in November of the same year, also in Paris, it was agreed that certain wider powers should be granted to the Federal Republic through the High Commissioners. Nevertheless when, on November 22, the definitive Occupation Statute, sometimes known as the Petersberg agreement, came to be signed by Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the new Republic, and by the three High Commissioners at the Petersberg Hotel in Bonn, the headquarters of the High Commission, it contained the following significant clause: