859B.01/388
The Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the American Legation in Denmark 30
P. J. I. A. Journal Nr. 84 B. 2. a.
Note Verbale
The American Chargé d’Affaires in Copenhagen has been good enough to leave with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs a copy of the note30a which the State Department in Washington recently transmitted to the former Danish Minister there, M. Kauffmann, concerning his status and authority particularly with regard to Greenland.
The Royal Danish Government has taken notice of this document with the greatest anxiety as it appears to indicate that M. Kauffmann has now obtained recognition in relation to the United States of America as an organ competing with the lawful Danish Government having been invested with all the Danish Government’s authority with regard to Greenland and Danish property in the United States of America and in Greenland.
This is the regrettable result of a development in which M. Kauffmann himself appears to have been the impelling force; for according to the information available here there is nothing to indicate that the Government of the United States of America would itself have taken the initiative to bring about the status which M. Kauffmann has gradually succeeded in obtaining, if he himself on April the 9th, 1940,30b had loyally followed the lawful Danish Government like Denmark’s other Ministers in foreign countries.
M. Kauffmann has achieved this status after an usurpation in explanation of which he merely states that the Danish Government is acting under duress as a result of the occupation and that it is therefore incompetent. In this respect, however, he has evidently acted as early as on April 9th, 1940, in the expectation of developments in Denmark under the occupation of an entirely different nature to those which actually ensued. His attitude is based on illogical reasoning; Denmark is certainly under the occupation of German troops, but this does not prevent the lawful Danish Government, which is composed of representatives of all the great political parties from directing all affairs in the country. In all essential respects Danish social life is continued normally, the powers of State—legislative, judiciary [Page 71] and executive—carrying on their functions independently and without interference from the occupying power.
M. Kauffmann was Denmark’s Minister in Washington and had no function beyond that. A diplomatic agent cannot be or become anything different or more than what his Government has entrusted him to be, and neither under international Law nor under Danish constitutional Law can he acquire any independent political authority without a special mandate. The Danish people is represented by its King, Government and Parliament, and how can the authority of these lawful instances with any justification be transferred to a chance diplomatic agent by a mere act of usurpation?
To the extent to which M. Kauffmann is in a position to act on the basis of his being recognized by the Government of the United States of America the anomalous situation is now in fact established that there are so to speak two Danish “Governments”, one being the lawful Government appointed by the King, recognized by the people, and domiciled in Denmark, at which foreign powers (including the United States of America) maintain legations, the other being the “Kauffmann usurper Government” which on the basis of certain ideas of duress and negotiorum gestio has obtained the authority which the lawful Government in Copenhagen would normally be able to exercise through its (law-abiding) Minister in Washington.
It should be remembered that the position of Denmark is quite different to that of States whose Governments after the failure of their resistance against German military power have left their country and established themselves abroad. In Denmark the King and Government remained in the country on April the 9th, 1940, and resolved by constitutional means “to direct the affairs of the country in view of the occupation which has taken place”. From the outset the King and Government have thus had and still have the direction of all the affairs of the country, and the conditions, as far as Denmark is concerned, for establishing anything analogous with the exile Governments of the aforesaid countries are therefore entirely missing.
M. Kauffmann has undoubtedly himself felt the weakness of having no mandate from the people whose interests he claims to defend. He has therefore endeavoured to obtain the adherence of Danes living abroad, but even if this adherence may be felt as a moral support by M. Kauffmann personally it is evident that it is of no significance from the point of view of constitutional Law; for how can the attribution to M. Kauffmann of Government authority, the exercise of which presupposes all the elements which according to universally recognized opinion enters into the conception of a State, be based on the mere presence of a strictly limited number of partisans or adherents? [Page 72] These adherents are, moreover, largely persons who have acquired another nationality and who are not only under a formal obligation to their new country, but may also be presumed to share the sympathies prevalent there.
The fact that M. Kauffmann has felt the weakness of acting without any mandate from the King of Denmark appears clearly from the surreptitious inclusion, on his initiative, in the preamble of the so-called Greenland Agreement of April 9th, 1941, of a passage to the effect that he acted “on behalf of His Majesty the King of Denmark in His quality of Sovereign over Greenland”. This passage was inserted by M. Kauffmann not only without the existence of any trace of authorization, but even directly against his better knowledge of being guilty of an abuse of the King’s name. By this action it became clear that M. Kauffmann from the occupation of Denmark on April the 9th, 1940, had adopted an attitude directly contrary to the policy laid down by the King and Government.
M. Kauffmann having no other authority than that which he had received from the State Department, it was a fiction to speak of “negotiations” in connection with the conclusion of the Greenland Agreement. Article 10 in particular of the Agreement concerning its duration has evidently been drafted in such a way that the Government of the United States of America will be in a position unilaterally to decide, and therefore indefinitely postpone, the date of an eventual conference for the amendment or termination of the Agreement.
The Agreement having thus been concluded without the participation of the Danish Government it has been a reassurance to this Government to receive—directly irrespective of the Agreement—the promise of the American Government that Greenland will be restored, but the fact that Denmark has to see its policy and its interests, in so far as the United States of America and Greenland are concerned, placed in the hands of a man whose only title is based on his own act of usurpation, fills the Danish Government with profound anxiety as to future developments.
The Danish Government fails to understand that the American Government, in spite of all that has taken place, not only does not refuse its recognition of M. Kauffmann but even considerably extends that recognition.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs requests the American Chargé d’Affaires in Copenhagen to communicate the above to the State Department in Washington.
- Transmitted to the Department by the Swiss Legation in Washington in charge of Danish interests, as an enclosure to a Swiss note dated July 31, 1942.↩
- Supra.↩
- The date of the occupation of Norway and Denmark by Germany; for correspondence, see Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. i, pp. 136 ff.↩