811.91262/157: Telegram

The Ambassador in Germany (Wilson) to the Secretary of State

110. My 107, March 11, noon,91 concerning press situation was just being sent when Dr. Boehmer, detached from the Press Section of the Foreign Office to Dr. Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry, called with an urgent message from Dr. Goebbels to me.

The message ran approximately as follows: that two American newspapermen of the International News Service and Tolischus of the New York Times are accused of distortion of fact to the point of jeopardizing relations between the United States and Germany and that the Foreign Office had demanded their peremptory dismissal. Under normal circumstances Goebbels would have acquiesced but in view of my very recent arrival he was unwilling to start any action which would jeopardize the success of my mission by embittering relations between the Ministries and the Embassy. He had therefore ruled that the two journalists should be given letters of warning and the matter should rest there.

I replied I think I remember the words as follows:

“Please tell Dr. Goebbels that I thank him for his courtesy and appreciate his attempt to collaborate with my mission. Will you please further tell Dr. Goebbels that I know nothing of the case of Tolischus, but I happen to know something of that of Huss. Say that I am convinced that if Dr. Goebbels himself would take the trouble to go deeply into the case of Huss he would find that it was at the most a mistake but an honest mistake” (for the story of Huss see telegram referred to above).

Boehmer then showed me the Tolischus article published New York Times March 6 concerning German censorship of internal news but since he escaped with a warning it is unnecessary to enter into detail.

I then told Boehmer that I had read of course what Hitler had said and what Dr. Dietrich92 had said in respect to the press (my despatch number 8, March 9, 193891) but that it would be helpful for me to hear from him exactly their conception of what a foreign correspondent might and might not do.

[Page 433]

Boehmer replied that he could best explain this by citing an example. He cited Deuel, the correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, as an American who had written criticism and sometimes sharp criticism of Germany and its institutions. Nevertheless he had always fairly presented the German case. He had never distorted facts. He had written as a citizen of a democracy looking upon an autocratic government. In German eyes his criticism was permissible. In an endeavor to sum up what was permissible Boehmer stated a correspondent may print criticism; when he is unable to obtain facts from government sources he may print facts from any sources he can get them even if they subsequently prove to be erroneous. He can remain a good American and write with an American viewpoint of what he sees. What to the German Government is inadmissible is the following: distortion of fact, the repeated shading of truth for the deliberate purpose of provoking ill feeling, and the publication of matter known to be false.

I replied that I could not contest that writing of the sort last described was deplorable but even on the set of principles Boehmer had laid down the German Government and I would frequently differ on interpretation. Boehmer said that it was his fullest intention to discuss in advance with me any case of this kind that arose and to discuss it in advance as well with the president of the Press Association.

I then told Boehmer that it had to be remembered that error and misstatements were not a one sided matter. Errors were frequently published in the German press in respect to my country. For instance there was the case of an article in the Angriff respecting the shipment of arms to the Barcelona Government. To this end I wanted him to read a telegram from Mr. Hull (No. 21, March 5, 3 p.m.93) which I then showed him. Boehmer said he very much regretted this, that he realized that their papers were sometimes at fault and that he hoped in episodes of this kind we would not hesitate to inform him of inaccuracies so that he could have retraction made. I did not take advantage of his offer in this instance as I did not wish to create a possible reciprocal obligation.

I told him that occasionally from an unpleasant incident good might arise. Mr. Hoover had been much upset by the misrepresentation in respect to his conversation with the Chancellor.94 Mr. Hoover had found in many conversations here that there was an element of reason in the protest against malicious misrepresentation and that he [Page 434] intended on his return to America to say so in public. (In this I was revealing no confidence as I had heard Mr. Hoover say exactly this to Wiedemann, the Chancellor’s adjutant.)

I said there was another element in this matter to which Dr. Goebbels should give I thought full consideration. The German Government might feel that it had to get rid of a correspondent who repeatedly and maliciously misinterpreted Germany. In the final analysis this was a decision of the German Government and every state had the right in the exercise of its sovereignty to banish any foreigner it saw fit. Nevertheless, I pointed out that in each case the banishment gave the most widespread advertisement abroad both to the articles in question and to the writer thereof. I told him that I had no doubt that banishment of an American correspondent by the German Government would guarantee to that correspondent an extraordinarily successful lecture tour throughout the United States. Propaganda was after all the weighing of measures to bring about a certain result and if the result in sight was the maintenance of better relations between the United States and Germany then the German Government should exercise extreme care before banishing an American newspaperman when the whole newspaper brotherhood would instinctively take the side of the journalist. Boehmer replied that this was exactly the contention he had been making to Goebbels and that he was glad that I had brought up the argument as it would reenforce his position.

I then asked Boehmer to be good enough to tell Dr. Goebbels that I should like to call upon him both to thank him for his courteous message and to discuss these and kindred types of affairs with him, that I had no specific message for discussion but that inasmuch as these press matters were now to the fore it would be well if Dr. Goebbels and I could understand each other as far as our respective points of view on press matters would permit us.

Wilson
  1. Not printed.
  2. Otto Dietrich, State Secretary and Head of the Press Division in the Reich Ministry of Propaganda.
  3. Not printed.
  4. Vol. i, p. 347.
  5. Ex-President Herbert Hoover, visiting a number of European countries in the early part of 1938 was alleged by an American press agency to have denounced Fascism in his conversation with Chancellor Hitler on March 8, 1938.