According to this
book it seems Stalin's main concern was less the actual zone and more that France would have a seat at the allied control commission.
Ultimately, it might well be that even if Churchill and Stalin disagree with a French occupation zone, the Americans might work out having a French sector within their own zone which could have covered the area of their original zone that they gave over to for the southern half of the OTL French zone. At that point the French were already in occupation of the area and it isn't as if other powers weren't allowed to participate in the occupation (but not the administration) of the various occupation zones (in particular this was done
in the British zone, where there were at various times Norwegian, Danish, Canadian, Belgian and Dutch sectors; the OTL French zone also had a Luxembourgish sector and eventually the Belgian sector in the British zone got extended into the American zone itself).
So using some maps I had done some years back as a basis, this might be what things might have looked like in April 1946:
- The Allies probably cede Saar outright to French occupation as being separate from the occupation of Germany (with Luxembourg being permitted to occupy a small portion of the Saar region by the French.
- No French sector in Berlin
- The Americans allow the French a large sector in the southwestern portion of their zone
- The British have Canadian, Belgian and Luxembourgish sectors in their zone
- The Allied Control Commission only consists of the British, Americans and Soviets.
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