File No. 763.72113/530
The Swiss Minister (
Sulzer) to the
Secretary of State
Department of German
Interests
IV–14–B
Washington,
April 15, 1918.
[Received April 22.]
Sir: With reference to Your Excellency’s note
dated April 9, 1918,3 and
in confirmation of my note dated March 19, 1918,3 wherewith I advised Your
Excellency of the contents of a cablegram received from the Swiss
Foreign Office, relative to the attitude of the German Government with
respect to the measures taken by the Government of the United States
concerning private German property.
I now have the honor to enclose copy of a note
verbale of the German Foreign Office, dated March 10, 1918,
upon which the above-mentioned cablegram was based.
Accept [etc.]
[Page 296]
[Enclosure—Translation]
The German Foreign
Office to the Swiss Legation at
Berlin
No. IIIa–4532/38940
Note Verbale
The Foreign Office has the honor to answer the Swiss Legation’s note verbale of the 23d of last month
relative to the measures taken by the United States of America
against German private property as follows:
The Imperial German Government enters an emphatic protest against the
United States of America’s invasion of German private property in
United States territory. This invasion, which is not prompted by any
military necessity but merely bears the odious character of an
attempt to do away with peaceable German competition by violent
measures, clashes in the highest degree with the spirit of the
treaties which were concluded in 1785, 1799, and 1828 between
Prussia, the lawful predecessor of the German Empire, and the United
States, for articles 23 and 24 of the treaty of 1799, which were
revived by article 12 of the treaty of 1828, were intended to
relieve, in the very contingency of war, the peaceful citizens from
the burdens thereof, as far as possible. The German Government has
found itself constrained to retaliate by extending to the United
States the orders relative to the registration and sequestration of
enemy property and to the compulsory administration and liquidation
of enemy business enterprises. In the enforcement of those orders
the extent to which the Government of the United States invades
German property in America will be kept in view.
The Foreign Office would be thankful to the Swiss Legation if it
would make the foregoing known to its Government with a request that
it notify this protest of the German Government to the Government of
the United States of America by telegraph through the Swiss Legation
at Washington.
