711.62/150
Memorandum by the Ambassador in Germany (Wilson) of a Conversation With the German Minister for Foreign Affairs (Ribbentrop)1
When we had disposed of the matter of American citizens in Vienna, concerning which I reported to the Department in my telegram No. 209, April 29, 1938, 7:00 p.m.,2 the Minister said he was glad I had called as he had been turning over in his mind whether he would not ask me to come in any case. He said that he wanted to establish between us the practice of talking in the most complete frankness. I acquiesced and said that nothing would give me greater satisfaction, both in the positive and negative sense, that I hoped to be able to say my fullest thought to him and hoped he would do the same to me.
After this preamble he said he had received from his Press Section innumerable clippings from the United States dealing with Germany. [Page 439] All of these showed a depth of hostility which had startled and shocked him. There was a lack of comprehension of everything that Germany had done and an immense proportion of complete misstatement of fact. He said that those reports which emanated from accredited correspondents in Berlin were usually reasonable, and even where critical they criticized on facts which were incontestable; but a lot of information about Germany was published in the American press without question when it emanated from sources outside of Germany, particularly from correspondents in London. These reports could only be based on gossip and rumor and usually originated from those who by race or politics were hostile to the régime, and therefore inclined to distort facts.
The Minister added that he had spent a long and happy time in the United States as a boy, as well as in Canada; that he had numerous American friends with some of whom he still corresponded; that no one could spend a portion of his youth in a country without leaving a bit of his heart there; that he had always regarded the ordinary American as a likable fellow with very little interest in what happened outside his business and his family, hence it was doubly depressing to him that this outpouring of wrath should take place against his country.
He then said that when he had been in England he had seen evidences of how much control the Foreign Office had of the press when it chose to exert it, and he could not but feel that some measure of control could be exerted by our Government.
I interrupted here to say that I had also seen the control exerted by the British Foreign Office on the British press, but that I could further tell him that I had run the Bureau of Current Information for four years and I could assure him that there was no such analogous control of the American press. One only had to look at the venom with which in political campaigns our administration and administration leaders are attacked to see that control cannot be exercised, and wherever personal attacks are made against foreign statesmen, those attacks are usually equalled, if not surpassed, by attacks upon our own statesmen in our own press. I said that perhaps there were occasionally grounds for reproach due to undue license in attacking foreign statesmen, but that we were so deeply convinced, and our forefathers had struggled so hard to obtain liberty of speech and press, that we prefer to run the risks of an undue liberty to any measure of check upon freedom of speech and writing.
I then said that he had expressed his unawareness of why this hostility had arisen. I listed for him a number of factors that have contributed to this hostility: The Jewish question, German relationship [Page 440] with Japan3—(I added here that I of course made no complaint as to their policy with Japan, that was a thing for their own decision. I merely pointed out that Germany’s agreement at a time when Japan was waging what the American people thought was an unprovoked war in China, caused apprehension and dislike among my people.) I mentioned the discrimination in bond payments. I mentioned the church questions. I mentioned the complete contrast of our two philosophies as to individual liberty. I then said that I deplored, as he did, the bitterness of this outpouring, that I thought nothing useful was gained by giving way to such feeling, but that I wanted him to understand that my people felt they had grounds for it.
The Minister said that this feeling had been particularly bitter since the “anschluss,” and I replied that I had seen in a number of our papers the contention that if Austria was Germanic, all right, if it felt it had to join Germany, all right. What they reproached Germany for was the sending of armed forces across the frontier in a sudden and violent manner, which not only prevented any real decision from Austria, but was frightening to the nerves of the world. Von Ribbentrop then said that he could not understand this, that Germany had removed without bloodshed one of the danger points of Europe; that there was nobody in Europe who was not breathing easier that this point had been passed and passed so peacefully. As for the sending in of troops, the situation was such that unless this had taken place they risked seeing a bloody civil war among their own people of Austrian nationality. This was a dreadful thing to contemplate, and how could anybody expect that they would contemplate it when the means of preventing it were at hand?
He said another thing he could not understand was the violence of the criticism and the unobjective way in which we judged this matter. He pointed out that both in England and France, where the public was more directly concerned and where they might feel grounds for apprehension, nevertheless, among these peoples and among these newspapers, there was a higher degree of objectivity and real criticism with knowledge of fact. Certainly there was no such outpouring of hatred as had taken place in America. I remarked in this connection that it was obviously a dangerous thing to express one’s feelings too freely in the immediate neighborhood of a danger point. We were far enough off so that an immediate danger of conflict between our countries did not arise.
Von Ribbentrop said that he was convinced, and he believed he had convinced the British, that what Germany had in mind in throwing [Page 441] off the trammels of the Versailles Treaty and regaining its rightful place, was entirely compatible with the desires and aspirations of France and Great Britain. He believed that a period was coming in which the four great Western Powers would settle down in real relationship, and he thought it was supremely unfortunate that away across the water a great Power like the United States should be pouring out hatred, which would continue to embitter the situation, when their most ardent struggle and the Führer’s deepest desire was to bring about peaceful relations between these great Powers.
He said that the German writers were certainly controlled, but that they were human, even though controlled, and when they read these American attacks they pled for the right to reply to them in their press. So far the German Government had refused to permit it. He defied me, for instance, to find a personal criticism of President Roosevelt, and even pointed out how little hostile criticism or printing of hostile things appeared in the German press. (This was very carefully stated by Mr. von Ribbentrop and could not be denounced as a threat, although the presence of the threat was visible.)
In closing I said that if the relations of our countries were to get better a lot of time would have to pass, we couldn’t expect to see this done in weeks or even months. Years would probably have to supervene. In the meantime it was the part of those dealing in foreign affairs to try, so far as they could, to hold their countries in normal and friendly relationships; that this job was not easy between Germany and America, and that we could only hope that time would bring a better relationship.
- Transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in Germany in his despatch No. 125, May 2; received May 10.↩
- Post, p. 513.↩
- For agreements between Japan and Germany, signed November 25, 1936, and between Japan, Germany, and Italy, signed November 6, 1937, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, pp. 153 and 159.↩