If however the Department desires to make some observations in regard
to the German propaganda in the United States it seems to me that
portions of this memorandum would afford a convenient pretext; I do
not in any sense wish to recommend that the Department make a reply,
merely to mention the possibilities.
[Enclosure—Translation]
The German Foreign
Office to the American
Embassy
The Reich Government is aware that the liberalistic principle of
free expression of opinion is held in particularly high esteem
in the United States of America and that the American Federal
Government therefore usually rejects complaints about public
vilification of a foreign country in America, giving as its
reason the fact that it possesses no legal handle (Handhabe) for interfering.
There is no intention of questioning the legal correctness of
this standpoint in the least. However, it is a well-known fact
that the American Government has nevertheless found ways and
means repeatedly to oppose, in an effective manner, machinations
intended to incite public sentiment against another country if
there was danger that such public agitation might endanger or
frustrate important political aims of the American
Government.
In view of a far more malicious demonstration which is being
planned by the American Jewish Congress and the American
Federation of Labor in the form of a mock trial to take place in
New York on the 7th of this month, the Reich Government
considers it appropriate to point out that the efforts on both
sides to maintain good relations are being most seriously
impeded by the agitation against the New Germany and its leaders
which has been carried on for a year in the United States.
What has been done in this connection in the course of one year
in the way of malicious and insulting expressions in public
assemblies, in the press, in the moving pictures, in the
theaters, and, indeed, from the pulpit, would fill many
volumes.
Suffice it to mention a few of the most glaring facts here:
- 1.
- Based on press reports of monstrous atrocities alleged
to have been perpetrated in Germany, which later proved
to be quite unfounded or grossly exaggerated, large
meetings of protest were held in numerous cities in the
United States at which the vilest abuse
[Page 514]
against members of the
Reich Government was voiced by prominent persons,
including members of the Federal Congress, mayors,
judges, and even from the church pulpits. These sources
of abuse combine together to combat the new German
system of government—a combat tantamount to direct
interference in the internal affairs of another country
which has been carried on ever since in the most
unrestrained manner.
- 2.
- One of the weapons of this combat is the boycott of
German goods and German shipping which has been preached
in the United States for the past year and which is
brought up again from time to time in public meetings;
such boycott has most seriously compromised the efforts
of both Governments to promote an interchange of goods
between the two countries and, at any rate, has reduced
Germany’s balance of payments with regard to the United
States that the fulfillment of the obligations of German
companies to their American creditors has only been
partially possible.
- 3.
- Based on lying press reports, members of the Reich
Government have for almost a year, in the filthiest
manner, been branded as the instigators of the Reichstag
fire in the American newspapers, and in spite of the
regular settlement of the trial in question, the entire
course of which was accompanied by the most spiteful
commentaries of the American press, public sentiment is
still being roused in favor of dangerous characters like
Dimitroff as if they were martyrs of a cause approved by
public opinion in that country.
- 4.
- On the pretext of proceedings against Heinz
Spanknoebel, a Reich citizen who was residing in New
York without orders from the Reich Government or an
official German department (Stelle), dozens of persons were heard before
the Grand Jury in New York as well as before a
commission of inquiry in Washington, illegally appointed
by Congressman Samuel Dickstein, for the obvious purpose
of suggesting to American public opinion the belief that
a whole army of “Nazi agents” was secretly working in
the United States to undermine the Constitution of the
United States and to bring about a National Socialist
revolution.
- 5.
- For a year it has been drummed into the American
public by numerous American newspapers and magazines as
well as by public speakers that the taking over of power
in Germany by the National Socialists meant a new
European war. Regardless of the fact that the official
statements and the acts of the Reich Chancellor prove
the contrary, not only is public opinion in the United
States being systematically poisoned against Germany in
that way, but, in addition, the feeling of general
insecurity, which is one of the most powerful causes of
the economic crisis, is fostered thereby in the most
serious manner.
- 6.
- For a year the German Ambassador in Washington has
been publicly insulted in the most improper manner and
accused of illegal machinations against the United
States. Furthermore, several German consuls have been
publicly insulted, and public demonstrations have taken
place in front of various German consulates.
- 7.
- Foreign propagandists of the category of the British
citizen, Lord Marley, editor of the lampoon “The Brown
Book of the Hitler Terror,” have been allowed in recent
times to give public lectures in the United States and
to continue inciting public opinion against Germany in a
most dangerous way.
[Page 515]
In the opinion of the Reich Government it is not in the least the
right of American citizens to free expression of opinion which
is involved in most of the cases cited here, but rather an
inexcusable abuse thereof in numberless cases, practiced under
the pretext of that right for the express purpose of undermining
the relations of the United States with the New Germany.
No one will be able to say that the Reich Government, the German
people, the National Socialist Party, or the German press showed
excessive susceptibility with regard to these defamations which
occurred practically every day. In the hope that the American
public would eventually come to understand the New Germany and
its leaders better and that then the defamations in question
would automatically stop, the Reich Government has shown what
may well be termed unexampled patience and restrained the German
press from repaying insulting utterances of the American press
in its own coin.
Since there is not the least sign, however, after a year’s time,
that the said agitation against Germany is abating, but, on the
contrary, since the mock trial planned for the 7th of March in
New York specifically proves that this agitation is expected to
go on in an even more malicious form, the Reich Government feels
it is its duty to point out to the American Government that, in
the long run, maintenance of friendly relations, sincerely
desired by both Governments, is rendered extremely difficult
thereby. In the interest of the cooperation which would seem
urgently desirable to combat the economic world crisis, the
German Government appeals to the American Government to use
every means at its disposal to the end that the above-mentioned
abuses of the right of free expression of opinion be
discontinued.
