811.00 Nazi/351
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State
The German Ambassador called upon his own request. After an exchange of a few brief preliminary remarks, he proceeded to say that he came on instructions of his Government to inform me that tomorrow morning his Government would release an official statement in Berlin and it would be distributed to other countries, to the effect that all German citizens resident in this country are notified to refrain from membership in any organization in the United States, which has the slightest plan or purpose to interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States. He named the principal organization in this country which has been accused of offending in this connection and said that the prohibition extended to it, and to all others disposed to interfere in the least in domestic affairs. I expressed gratification and remarked that, as the Ambassador was aware, we have had occasion to make complaint a number of times about unwarranted interference in our domestic affairs by some of these groups and by individual German citizens residing in this country. I said that this should relieve the irritation heretofore arising, at least to a substantial extent. I also added that it would be agreeable to me for the Ambassador [Page 464] himself to handle the publicity in this country. He expressed his appreciation of this and indicated that he would do so.
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