125.0051/280a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland ( Harrison )

111. Your 294, January 145 and previous. Please request Swiss Government urgently to deliver to German Government in name of United States Government following verbatim communication: [Page 75]

“United States Government is informed by the Swiss Government that the German Government proposes to remove to Germany the group of United States official personnel and assimilated categories of United States nationals who have been detained in Lourdes, unless United States Government clearly declares willingness exchange group against members German Consulate, Algiers and German members North African Armistice Commission.

In accordance with international practice United States Government is prepared to exchange for its personnel the former French Ambassador in the United States together with such members of his staff as may wish to accompany him to metropolitan France. Since the severance of diplomatic relations the United States Government has been negotiating through the Swiss Government for an exchange.

The United States Government does not consider the exchange of German personnel captured in French North Africa has any relation to the question of the exchange of French and American personnel. However, it is willing to deliver the German consular officials taken in North Africa and members of their households, at Lisbon along with the French Ambassador and accompanying French personnel, provided the German Government will deliver all of the American personnel in question at Lisbon, under guarantee of the Portuguese Government for the exchange of both groups. The German personnel referred to are Peter H. Pfeiffer, Consul General; Dr. Hans Schwarzmann, Vice Consul; Walter Gohl, First Secretary; Oskar Mehle, Secretary; Otto Riedel, Secretary; Heinz Kehr, Secretary, and 18 (eighteen) dependents and employees, totalling 24 (twenty-four) persons.

However, the German military members of the German Armistice Commission are in a different category and the United States Government is not prepared to release them.”

Hull
  1. Not printed; it reported that the transfer of American officials at Lourdes to Germany could be stopped only if the United States agreed to the exchange of Americans for German officials of the North African Armistice Commission and of the German Consulate General at Algiers (125.0040/1370).