362.1121 Hirsch, Helmut/19: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Dodd) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 27—1:10 p.m.]
89. Our 85, April 26, 3 p.m., and Department’s 38, April 26, 5 p.m. Following up our note to the Foreign Office we discussed the matter with them again this morning bringing to their attention Hirsch’s excellent past record, the fact that he was not a Communist and that there was every indication of his being strongly influenced by agitators in Praha to the point of being their tool. Meanwhile the Consulate General at our instance is taking similar steps with the Ministry of Justice.
The Foreign Office as always evidences a sympathetic and helpful attitude. We noted, however, a pessimistic impression this morning on their learning from the German Embassy at Washington that [Page 399] Simpson7 had been lecturing in the United States in a fashion derogatory to the German Government. Simpson’s action may prevent an exercise of clemency of which in our opinion there was otherwise a fair chance. It would be helpful for us to learn that Simpson had abandoned any such activities.
Both the Consulate General and ourselves doubt the desirability of suggesting an examination of Simpson [Hirsch?] to determine whether he is in a normal state of mind. Geist,8 who saw the prisoner, felt there was no foundation for such action. Both he and ourselves also believe that it would not be wise as we feel that the general humanitarian plea is the only one which could have a chance of success. Furthermore, the Department may observe in our note to the Foreign Office (Embassy’s telegram 85, April 26), that we did not mention Simpson’s [Hirsch’s?] own plea for clemency. This was done purposely on what we consider the best advice, the idea being that the American Government should take action entirely on its own.
- For correspondence on the Simpson case, see Foreign Relations, 1936, vol. ii, pp. 291 ff.↩
- Raymond Geist, Consul at Berlin.↩