462.11L5232/909

The German Ambassador ( Dieckhoff ) to the Counselor of the Department of State ( Moore )55

[Translation]

My Dear Judge Moore: I beg to refer to your letter of June 23 last, in which you asked, in a hypothetic form, the question whether the German Government would be prepared to enter into a compromise settlement of the so-called sabotage claims, if the American award holders and the so-called sabotage claimants should be willing to waive the remaining balance of their claims. Upon instruction from my Government I have the honor to advise you as follows:

A compromise settlement as contemplated by the American Government as well as by the award holders and the sabotage claimants involves that the German Government would have to give up in full the share of German nationals in the “German Special Deposit Account” notwithstanding the fact that this share is considerably larger than that of American nationals. The German Government is willing, however, to consider assuming these far-reaching sacrifices provided [Page 364] that the American Government is ready on its part to meet the desires of the German Government in a matter directly connected with the claims settled in the proceedings before the Commission.

In the case of a compromise settlement, the distribution of the funds available in the German Special Deposit Account would result in all claims of the award holders and sabotage claimants being satisfied and all private mixed claims being finally disposed of. To the German Government it is a fundamental condition, pre-requisite to a compromise, that said effect be brought about. At the same time, however, there would no longer remain any reason for the American Government to continue withholding those portions of the property of German nationals, the return of which has been prevented since June 1934 by the Harrison Act. The German Government, therefore, must make it a further condition, pre-requisite to a compromise settlement of the so-called sabotage claims, that the American Government declares its willingness to return unconditionally and immediately to the persons entitled thereto the balance of the amount of the seized property, and to undertake, under the Harrison Act, the steps necessary for this purpose. The German Government feels certain that this proposition will find the assent of the American Government which has recognized, by the War Claims Settlement Act of 1928, the principle of the inviolability of private property and which certainly cannot desire this principle to be disregarded in respect of a very small group of German nationals, whose property for technical reasons was not returned prior to 1934.

The German Government considers it as a matter of course that, should a compromise settlement be reached, the question of responsibility will be disposed of in a satisfactory manner; it should be clearly expressed therein that the agreement is in the nature of an amicable settlement which the German Government was prepared to enter into in the spirit of good-will and reconciliation, (aus dem Geiste … freundschaftlichen Entgegenkommens) by which it has always been motivated. Everything would, therefore, have to be averted that might be construed as an admission of responsibility for the destructions or as an admission of the charge that the Commission was misled.

The German Government believes that on the basic conditions set forth above it will be in a position to enter into a compromise settlement disposing of the so-called sabotage claims and also of the claim of Mrs. Katherine McNider Drier and resulting in the final termination of the proceedings of the Commission.

In view of the involved nature of the subject-matter and in view of certain characteristics of the proceedings through which a compromise settlement would have to be carried out, it would become [Page 365] necessary to clarify various points of technical nature. Furthermore, the suggestions contained in the agreement of the award holders and the sabotage claimants of May 19 last would require certain alterations in technical respects. The German Government is of the opinion, however, that it would be expedient to reserve for future discussions all of these questions which are not directly connected with its attitude on the basic issue.

Accept [etc.]

Dieckhoff
  1. The Department made no reply to this note. It took the position that the Drier claim was within the jurisdiction of the Mixed Claims Commission, United States and Germany, and that the Department could not judiciously take any action regarding the matter. (462.11D831/298,353)