740.0011 Mutual Guarantee (Locarno)/939
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Wilson)66
The German Ambassador called this afternoon and after some personal conversation, brought up the matter of the reassurance given by the German Government to Belgium.
He asked me if I knew about it. I told him that Mr. Gibson had sent us a text,67 which I read to Doctor Dieckhoff. He said that this was correct. He went on to explain that Germany had been discussing this matter with the Belgian Government since May or June of this year, that there were a great many difficulties in the discussion, but it had finally been decided by the two parties that the most advantageous thing for all concerned was for Germany to give its assurance without any quid pro quo from Belgium. Of course, he continued, there was a certain compensation for Germany in the fact that such an assurance would strengthen the feeling of complete independence in the Belgian Government, and would make them less likely to feel that they had to lean on the armed forces of France and perhaps Great Britain.
The Ambassador said that the only reservation was in case of Belgium taking a step which would open its territories to the passage of troops or taking hostile action against Germany. I inquired whether [Page 146] the discussion had envisaged forms of action, particularly under the Covenant of the League, which were less than “hostile” action; for instance, if sanctions were applied against Germany, and Belgium participated by not allowing the passage of supplies, would the German Government, under the wording of this undertaking, believe that it was released from its obligations.
The Ambassador replied that he believed that he could answer this inquiry from his instructions. He pulled them from his pocket and read me the pertinent passage, by which the German Government explained to him that their interpretation of the undertaking was that the German Government would only be released therefrom in case Belgium took part in a “kriegerische konflickt”, and that no action short of this could release the German Government from its obligations.
I then said that Germany had arranged its relationship with Poland and now was giving assurance to Belgium, that such action would invite attention, at least from abroad, to the sore spot of the situation, which for the moment lay in Czechoslovakia. I inquired whether they contemplated any similar action with this nation. The Ambassador replied that his Government wished for such an agreement with Czechoslovakia, but that it was very difficult for two reasons to enter into negotiations with that country; first, there was Czechoslovakia’s intimate relationship with Soviet Russia, but perhaps more important, in the Ambassador’s opinion, was the case of the Sudeten Deutsche, who really were not given by the Czechoslovak Government those rights of autonomy and of simple possibility of living their own lives, which he felt they had a right to claim; the German Government, he said, had no Irredentist ideas for this territory; indeed historically speaking, Germany had no claim to it, but the ill feeling was kept alive between the two countries by a series of incidents of ill treatment even though those incidents may be highly exaggerated by the press. The Ambassador said he was afraid that it would be a long process before the Czechoslovak Government could work out such a situation for the Germans, analogous to that which the various sections of Switzerland enjoyed within their country as would satisfy the German people.