711.62/18: Telegram

The Commissioner at Berlin ( Dresel ) to the Secretary of State

[Paraphrase]

932. My telegrams 911 of July 31 and 915 of August 2. After my reported conversation with Simons he made statement August 2 substantially as follows to German press representative[s]:

Our relations with America are not unpleasantly [omission]. American commercial people satisfied to reestablish intensive business relations. Germany must, however, insist on restoration of state of peace before initiation of any kind of official negotiations. I have left unofficial American representative, whom I can as yet regard only as a private person, in no doubt on this point. [Although we are] fortunately on friendly terms with American people, crystallization [sic] is possible only with reestablishment of normal conditions.

I took the first opportunity to ask Simons what he meant by “official negotiations”, saying I could not imagine to what this referred and could not understand why such a warning was thought [Page 261] necessary. Thereupon he denied that the statement was authentic and said his words had been distorted. I referred then to the subject of our talk transmitted in my 911 of July 31 whereupon he acknowledged frankly that his entire difficulty was refusal of reciprocity regarding unofficial representation of Germany in the United States. I replied that decision regarding continuance of this Commission rested of course entirely with his Government and that I could not properly suggest again to Washington establishment there of a German Commission. If the German Government considered the advantages of this Commission’s existence were more than counterbalanced by the embarrassment he had mentioned, he had only to say so and I should recommend at once the withdrawal from Germany of all Americans except private persons. He answered that the principle involved was important and that Germany’s dignity might be at stake. Therefore he desired to consider the matter over night but emphatically assured me that there had been raised no intrinsic [sic] question or criticism whatever by this Commission’s activities which he said were acceptable entirely to the German Government. An hour afterward he told me that no further deliberation was necessary and that he was willing to have the Commission continue as previously.

I believe the incident is closed for the present. No further representations are likely if the present Government continues. It is quite likely that Simons’ statements were inspired by pressure from the Right and that the subject might well be reopened if a reactionary government should come in.

Dresel