862.51/3625: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany (Gordon) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received June 15—10:35 a.m.]
102. Department’s 70, June 13, noon. Bülow84 refused to see me yesterday alleging great pressure of business both day and night chiefly in connection with the difficulties with Austria. I have now delivered your aide-mémoire and Bülow’s answer is as follows:
While not denying that Schacht spoke the sentence quoted, Bülow contended that the report that Schacht was considering discrimination in the treatment of creditors in different countries was a fallacious conclusion from the quoted sentence which he believed was only meant to point the axiom that international debts can only be discharged by means of export of goods and services. If it were otherwise any statement concerning contemplated discrimination would be quite contrary to Schacht’s well-known views that discrimination between creditors was an improper principle, views which coincide with the policy of the German Government. Bülow said he would secure the text of the speech from the Reichsbank to see if his views of it were not correct.
I replied that I had the text of speech given me by one who had it delivered and who informed me that the text was correct; that I had carefully studied this text and that I regretted that it seemed clearly guided by the interpretation of the reports referred to in the aide-mémoire. However, I was glad to hear him say that he did not believe that Schacht harbored such ideas. In any event in view of his (Bülow’s) statement that the German Government did not approve of the principle of discrimination between creditors of different countries in accordance with the German balance of payments vis-à-vis each particular country, I took it that whatever that correct logical interpretation of Schacht’s remarks might be this statement constituted a definite answer to our aide-mémoire. In this Bülow concurred.
Copy to London.
- Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow, German Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩