Office of the Historian

462.11D831/263

The German Embassy to the Department of State39

undated

In an exchange of notes of May 7, 193440 both Governments agreed to leave to the Commission the decision in the petition for a rehearing filed in the Drier case. Thereupon the Commission through the Umpire rejected said petition as well as two further motions for a reopening of the case.

The Foreign Office transmitted to the American Embassy in Berlin with a Note Verbale of May 16, 193641 various items of documentary evidence from which it appears that in the proceedings before the Commission the claimant had availed herself of objectionable methods. The German Government therefore regrets that it is not in a position to agree to a further award to be rendered by the Commission in favor of Mrs. Drier.

As regards Mrs. Drier’s precarious financial situation which has been emphasized by the American Embassy42 it seems appropriate to point out the hardships resulting to German claimants out of the Harrison Act43 against which the German Embassy had at the time protested in vain. The German Government is of the opinion that the situation in the case of the Deutsche Bank and Disconto Gesellschaft is particularly unfortunate. As will be remembered said funds were first withheld from being returned under the War Claims Settlement Act44 through an injunction by the firm of Sprunt. In order to bring about the withdrawal of said injunction which the Disconto-Gesellschaft considered as entirely unjustified, the German Government assumed considerable sacrifices in the agreement in the Sprunt cases before the Commission. These sacrifices were of no avail because shortly thereafter the return of the funds of the Deutsche Bank & Disconto-Gesellschaft was barred by the Harrison Act.

  1. Left at the Department April 12, by the Counselor of the German Embassy.↩
  2. Foreign Relations, 1934, vol. ii, pp. 492–493.↩
  3. Not printed; see telegram No. 153, May 19, 1936, 6 p.m., ibid., 1936, vol. ii, p. 266.↩
  4. In telegram No. 16, March 12, 3 p.m., the Secretary of State had instructed the Ambassador in Germany to advise the Foreign Office that favorable instructions on this case would be very much appreciated in view of the claimant’s precarious condition both physically and financially (462.11D831/249).↩
  5. Joint Resolution approved June 27, 1934; 48 Stat. 1267.↩
  6. Approved March 10, 1928; 45 Stat. 254.↩