340.1115A/1017: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany (Heath) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 27—7:08 p.m.]
2124. From the Hague.
“241, June 22, 11 a.m. For the Secretary and Under Secretary. The Department in its telegram No. 77 of May 11, referred to the paramount consideration of the welfare and safety of American citizens. Since then I have sent various telegrams (notably my 204 of May 14, 6 p.m.,8 233, May 29, 4 p.m.,9 234, June 810 and 238, June 1410) bearing exclusively on this point and requesting answers giving an indication for the Department’s views—at least some information which can be presented to American citizens in this country evidencing their Government’s concern with their welfare.
No answer referring to the cables above listed has been received.
As predicted in my 239 for June 15,10 we have again been entirely incommunicado throughout the week until the arrival this morning by mail from Berlin of numerous welfare inquiries accompanied by the Department’s 1590, June 12, to the Berlin Embassy. While I see that this instruction refuses to authorize repatriation loans until further notice I trust that it is not to be taken as an answer to my specific cables above referred to concerning assistance from the American Government with respect to evacuation of American citizens anxious to return home and able to pay for their transportation—in fact I do not see how this instruction can be taken as answering my cables dealing with this specific point.
After long discussions the local German authorities now state that Berlin is willing in principle to permit the evacuation of American citizens from Holland. They request detailed information concerning such eventual evacuation but until I get some reply from the Department to my suggestions concerning evacuation by boat from a northern continental or a Scandinavian port, or possibly eventually from a western Atlantic port, I can make no answer to these authorities. Incidentally I am still refused permission by the Germans to go to Brussels—primarily to confer on joint evacuation possibilities—or to Berlin (see my 238, June 14).
In connection with Berlin’s stated willingness in principle to let Americans leave Holland it is of course to be borne in mind that all requests by the Legation for permission for individual Americans to leave the country are being refused and the Germans state that they will continue to be refused until evacuation en bloc is arranged for.
If the Department is under the impression that the situation here is perfectly normal and gives no cause for concern it is under a misapprehension. In the short time since the occupation of Holland the Germans have absorbed such an amount of Dutch stocks that bread, meat, butter, sugar, fuel and many other necessities of life have already been severely rationed and of course the scope and extent of this rationing will rapidly increase. The situation in this respect is already bad for children and all but the most robust women, and soon [Page 135] it will be definitely precarious. I feel it my duty to urge upon the Department a realization of the fact that even a message saying only that the Department has in mind the situation of the American citizens in this country and is endeavoring to work out a solution thereof would be of great assistance. Many of the Americans in this colony are upstanding citizens representing bona fide American interests; they did not get caught here as a result of vacillation, inertia or failure to heed warnings to leave, but were ordered by their various principals to remain here on duty. The consistent lack of any word from their Government—when it is public knowledge that such word could have been sent to our Berlin Embassy prior to June 13 and brought here by Kennan11 (let alone the receipt of no word since that date)—creates a very unfortunate situation.
I again request an immediate answer of some kind to this cable. Gordon.”