740.00112 European War 1939/72: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany (Kirk) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:46 p.m.]
1252. Embassy’s 1226, September 12, 1 p.m.28 Although fully impressed with the extremely difficult positions in which their countries are placed as a result of the state of war existing between England and Germany the Danish, Dutch, and Belgian representatives in Berlin appear to attach no immediate importance to the warning contained in the Foreign Office’s D. D. P. K.28a of September 12 that Germany would regard as unneutral conduct any submission by a neutral state to actual limitations or formal controls on its commerce by a third state which would affect the normal transit and export trade of a neutral state with Germany.
They regard it as natural that Germany by such a warning should endeavor to stiffen the resistance of the Oslo powers to British blockade restrictions. The members of the staffs of the three missions above referred to do not believe that the warning means that Germany is planning to take any early aggressive action against them if they accept British blockade restrictions which they state they are powerless effectively to resist. At the moment they think that Germany’s economic interests are best served by the neutrality of the Oslo powers but admit that the situation might change as the war progressed and that later the independence and neutrality of the northern countries particularly Denmark, Holland, and Belgium might no longer be advantageous to Germany.
At the Dutch and Belgian missions it was indicated that their Governments had already informed Germany that they would endeavor to maintain “normal” trade with the Reich but that they could do nothing if France and Britain prevented them from obtaining raw materials normally entering into their trade with Central Europe.
The mention in the D. D. P. K. of the treaty between Denmark and Germany cited as an example of the German conception of the rights and duties of neutral states referred according to the Danish Legation to the protocol attached to the German-Danish nonaggression pact signed May 31, 193929 recognizing the right of one contracting party to conduct “normal” trade with an enemy of the other party.
- Not printed. The telegram contained a translation of a German Foreign Office statement appearing in the press to the effect that Germany would continue its normal trade with neutral states and did not object to their continuing their normal trade with states at war with Germany; it was implied that encroachment by England on the economic activities of neutrals might compel Germany to revise this attitude. (740.00112 European War 1939/132)↩
- Deutsche Diplomatisch-Politische Korrespondenz.↩
- League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. cxcvii, p. 37.↩