711.62/189: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany (Gilbert) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 31—10:40 a.m.]
768. A DNB17 communiqué was given over the radio last night and reproduced in all Berlin papers this morning announcing a strong German protest in Washington against Secretary Ickes’ Cleveland address. The communiqué continues by stating “the American Foreign Office did not, which is customary as a matter of course in international relations, dissociate itself from the statements made by the Secretary of the Interior but endeavored rather to shield them. It is now clear that as long as such a procedure, obviously serving Jewish purposes but ignoring real German-American interests, continues in the relations of the United States to Germany, the hope expressed by the American Foreign Office to the German Chargé d’Affaires for an improvement of mutual relations lacks any foundation.”
This communiqué is supplemented by a further press attack against the Administration in general and Secretary Ickes in particular. The latter is described as being animated by “blind hatred” against the German people. The German people who desire to live in peace with the American people cannot believe that the majority of Americans support the “hysterical provocative and catastrophic policy” of the Administration which is the tool of the Jews. The whole world knows that these attacks are only a screen to enable Roosevelt to expose a war hysteria and thereby to push through a huge rearmament program which otherwise would have little chance of being approved by Congress.
The press continues by emphasizing the breakdown of the Administration’s internal policies and describes the Lima Conference18 as a complete failure. The entire helium incident19 is rehashed and Ickes is quoted as having stated that Germany would use helium in an attack against the United States. Even the President’s telegram in September to Hitler20 is recalled with the comment that the President might well have saved the “telegraph expenses” as in those critical days Europe had men who knew how to preserve peace. The world today now sees that United States as it is, namely, “An enemy of conciliation, peace and good relations between peoples, a country burdened with unemployed, its public affairs agitated and disturbed by corruption and scandals and its foreign policy guided by persons [Page 457] who go from one failure to another; a President who gives free rein to international trouble makers and who is backed by Jewish influence seeking to profit from a colossal rearmament”.
Many recent speeches of American public men which might in any way be construed as opposed to the Administration are emphasized.
No mention is made in the press of breaking off diplomatic relations.
- Deutsches Nachrichten Büro.↩
- See vol. v, pp. 1 ff.↩
- See pp. 457 ff.↩
- For President Roosevelt’s message of September 26, 1938, see vol. i, p. 657.↩