740.0011 European War 1939/12220: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany (Morris) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:40 p.m.]
2430. It was announced last night that a 10-year Pact of Friendship has been signed at Ankara between Germany and Turkey in which after reserving their existing obligations the two Governments undertake to respect each other’s integrity and territorial inviolability and to take no measures directly or indirectly against each other. They further agree to consult each other in a friendly manner on all questions affecting their common interests. Simultaneously notes were exchanged over negotiations to be initiated for a new economic agreement and a joint declaration was issued to the effect that the press and radio of the two countries would give due consideration to the regulation of friendship and mutual confidence now established.
The German press this morning devoted unusual prominence to this news and describes the pact in lengthy editorials as a victory of both German and Turkish diplomacy over Anglo-Saxon machinations. The newspapers recall the traditional friendship of Turkey and Germany culminating in their brotherhood in arms in the last war and declare that both the lively trade and the high mutual respect which were built up in the Kemalist era, especially after 1933, were “temporarily interrupted” by high pressure propaganda and diplomatic and economic inducements on the part of Great Britain. The pact it is asserted marks the end of this estrangement and shows that Turkish realistic statesmanship and German forbearance have reestablished [Page 862] the natural comradeship between the “forger of the new order and the guardian of the Straits.”
There is an obvious effort to impress on the German public that this development is a great diplomatic victory which will round out the military successes in the southeast and to present it to the outside world as marking a major stage in the history of the political prosecution of the war. Both the timing of the pact and the extraordinary publicity given to it appear to be designed in part to give nourishment to the speculation current in Germany and abroad regarding the present state of German-Soviet relations.
Repeated to Moscow and Ankara.