File No. 763.72113/696
The Alien Property Custodian ( Palmer) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 20.]
My Dear Mr. Secretary: In re your file No. 763.72113/679, transmitting a communication from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Spanish Ambassador in Berlin,1 I beg to say that all of the German decrees on the private property of citizens of the United States referred to in the verbal note attached to your communication bear date before the Congress had given the Alien Property Custodian the power to sell German-owned property in this country. While the verbal note states that these decrees were issued solely by way of reprisal, they were in fact issued before this Government had given to the Alien Property Custodian the power to sell enemy properties (except to prevent waste).
The verbal note further states that no differences were made in German legislation in regard to the treatment of property of American citizens domiciled in or outside of Germany.
In this respect the action of the German Government is very different from ours. The Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, makes residence the sole test of enemy character and we have taken over only the property of such German subjects as are resident within enemy territory, or territory occupied by the armed forces of the enemy. We do not treat German subjects domiciled in the United States as enemies, and we do not disturb their property unless they have been interned and are under the jurisdiction of the War Department, when by presidential proclamation they come within the enemy class.
Respectfully yours,
- Communication from the Secretary of State to the Alien Property Custodian not printed; communication from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Spanish Ambassador at Berlin printed supra. ↩