THE SO-CALLED GERMAN CONSPIRACIES

Immediately after the outbreak of war, our cruisers in foreign waters were cut off from their base of operations, and the German Reservists in North and South America were prevented from returning home owing to the British Command of the Sea. Measures to assist them were therefore taken by the German Nationals and German Americans in the United States, which although not in themselves aimed at the union, certainly transgressed its laws. Moreover during the year 1915 and succeeding years, several deeds of violence against the enemies of Germany, or preparations for such deeds, were discovered, involving more or less serious offences against the laws of America. Both kinds of activity, comprised under the suggestive term "German Conspiracies" or "German Plots against American Neutrality," were skilfully used by our enemies to discredit us, and these agitations did considerable harm to the German cause, besides being a serious obstacle in the way of my policy.

Among the measures for assisting the German fleet may be mentioned, in the first place, the case of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, which has already been noticed. The New York branch, acting in accordance with the instructions of their head offices in Hamburg, dispatched about a dozen chartered vessels, laden with coal and provisions, to the squadron of German cruisers and auxiliary cruisers then on the high seas. This cargo was declared in Page 102 the ships\' clearing papers to be consigned to ports beyond the area of open sea where the German cruisers were known to be. When it came out later that the New York branch of the Hamburg-Amerika Line had made use of this device for coaling German men-of-war the chief officials were brought up on the charge of deliberately making false declarations in their clearing papers, and their chief, Dr. Bünz, a man of the highest character, with three of his subordinates, was condemned, in December, 1915, to eighteen months\' imprisonment in the first instance.

The severity of the penalty thus inflicted on a man so universally respected, who had, during his long tenure of the office of Consul-General in Chicago and New York, gained the warm affection of many Americans, was regarded merely as a manifestation for the benefit of the outside world of the American Government\'s intention to preserve a strict neutrality. No one supposed that the aged Dr. Bünz would really have to undergo his sentence, and as a matter of fact he remained at liberty for some time even after America\'s declaration of war. In the summer of 1917 a violent press-campaign broke out against him, whereupon, despite his ill health he offered of his own accord to serve his sentence and was removed to the State prison at Atlanta, where he died in 1918. All honor to his memory!

Considering that his offence was nothing more than a technical violation of the letter of the American Customs regulations and was actuated by no base motive, nor by hostility to the United States, the punishment inflicted was excessively harsh. It was pleaded on his behalf in the speech for the defence that America during the war against Spain had acted in exactly the same way, when ships were dispatched from the neutral harbor of Hong Kong to coal Admiral Dewey\'s fleet before Manila Page 103 and their cargo was declared as being scrap-iron consigned to Macao. An indication of the state of public opinion in the Eastern States of America at the end of 1915 may be found in the fact that the heavy sentence on this "German Conspirator" met with general approval apart from a few emphatic protests on the part of the German-American papers.

A number of German Reserve officers domiciled in America succeeded, despite the close watch maintained by England on the seas, in effecting their return to the Fatherland, thanks to a secret bureau in New York, organized by German-Americans, which provided them with false or forged American passports. This bureau was closed by the American police consequent on the discovery in January, 1915, of four German Reservists, with such papers in their possession, on board a Norwegian ship in New York harbor. The organizer had apparently fled from New York some time before, but finally fell into the hands of the British, and was drowned in a torpedoed transport. The Reservists were discharged on payment of heavy fines. One, however, was sentenced to three years\' penal servitude. In estimating this affair, it must be remembered that according to the recognized conventions of international law, British men-of-war were not justified in making prisoners of individual unarmed Germans returning to their homes in neutral vessels. The American Government itself explicitly affirmed as much when a ship flying the Stars and Stripes was held up in mid-ocean for examination. As a rule, however, neutral Powers were too weak to stand up for their rights against British violations of international law, and so all Germans who were discovered by the British on their homeward voyage were made prisoners of war. Our countrymen, therefore, if they wished to do their duty by going to the defence of their Fatherland, Page 104 were compelled, in face of this flagrant violation of the Law of Nations, to provide themselves with false passports. They had thus to choose between two conflicting duties, a dilemma all too common in life and one which the individual must solve according to his lights. The bearers of such false passports certainly risked heavy penalties, but shrank still more from incurring any suspicion of skulking or cowardice.

It would seem, moreover, that there is little to choose, from the moral point of view, between their "sailing under false flags," for the purpose of evading the British guardians of the sea, and the hoisting of neutral ensigns by British ships to escape from German submarines.

There can, at all events, be no question of a "German conspiracy" in these cases of forged passports as I had officially announced on behalf of the German Government, that under the circumstances no one who remained in America would, on his arrival in Germany, be punished for not answering the call to the Colors. I can repudiate in the most express terms any personal responsibility for the activities of the above-mentioned secret bureau in New York, although attempts have been made to connect my name with it on the sole ground of a letter, said to have been written to me by von Wedell before his departure, which was, as a matter of fact, first made known to me by its publication in the Press. It is true that this gentleman, a New York barrister before the war, was a personal acquaintance of mine; he had, however, immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, hastened back to Germany to join his own regiment, and later returned secretly to America, presumably under orders from his superiors, only to disappear again with equal secrecy after a short stay. I had never even heard the name of Rueroede before his arrest, but in view of Page 105 his denial that any personal profit accrued to him from his services in providing his fellow-countrymen with documents for the purpose of facilitating their escape from British vigilance, I much regret the severity of the penalty inflicted on him.

If the cases of the Hamburg-Amerika Line and the falsification of the passports damaged the German cause in America, this was still more true of the acts of violence planned or carried out by Germans or German-Americans against individuals known to be hostile to our cause. The few authentic cases of this sort of thing were, as every impartial person must recognize, engineered by a few patriotic but foolish hotheads; the more sober and responsible German elements in the United States were certainly no party to them.

To the list of these outrages, the enemies of Germany deliberately added others which probably had no foundation in fact. Thus, for every accident which occurred in any American munition factory—and many accidents were bound to happen in the new works which had sprung up like mushrooms all over the land, and were staffed with absolutely untrained personnel—"German agents" were regularly held responsible, and the anti-German Press, particularly the Providence Journal, announced these accidents as "a clear manifestation of the notorious German system of frightfulness." Worse still, these papers instilled into their readers the firm conviction that these crimes were an essential part of German propaganda, and in their cartoons represented the German, more particularly the German-American, as a bearded anarchist with a bomb ready in his hand.

I myself was frequently libelled in this manner by the "Yellow Press," and represented both by pen and pencil as the ringleader and instigator of the so-called "conspiracies"; this accusation, at first tentative, later grew Page 106 increasingly clear and unmistakable. The campaign of calumny in which even the more respectable Press took its share, was, however, directed more particularly against the Military Attaché, Captain von Papen, and the Naval Attaché, Captain Boy-Ed, whose names were openly coupled with some of the crimes which came before the American Courts of Justice. Both these officers finally fell victims to this agitation, and had to be recalled from America in December, 1915, in accordance with a request from the United States Government. At the same time, in the annual Presidential message to Congress, statutory measures were laid down against Americans implicated in these conspiracies, or, as the phrase ran, against all those "contriving schemes for the destruction of the independence, and implicated in plots against the neutrality, of the Government." Not until the declaration of war against Germany, on April 2nd, 1917, did President Wilson venture openly to accuse the official German representatives in America of complicity in these designs, in the following words: "It is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States." Since then my own name has been mentioned as the supreme head of the German "Conspiracy" in America, in the innumerable propaganda pamphlets with which the official "Committee of Public Information" has flooded America and Europe. And I have been openly accused of having instigated and furthered, or at the very least been privy to, all manner of criminal activities. In interviews with American journalists I Page 107 have more than once refuted these calumnies, which can be supported by no evidence, and were solely intended to arouse popular feeling against Germany; but I must now refer again to the more definite of these accusations.

It must be left to the impartial historian of the future to establish the full truth concerning the German conspiracies in the United States; any evidence given under the influence of the passions arising out of the war can, of course, possess only a limited value. It is obvious from the proceedings concerning the constitution of the Senate Committee that much of the evidence was prejudiced and unreliable, probably because it was based solely on information given by Germans or former Germans, whose identities were kept strictly secret, and who told deliberate lies, either because, like Judas, they had received a reward for their treachery, or because, having severed all ties with their old country, they wished to secure their footing in the new.

In any case I myself was never a partner to any proceedings which contravened the laws of the United States. I never instigated such proceedings, nor did I consciously afford their authors assistance, whether financially or otherwise. I was in no single instance privy to any illegal acts, or to any preparations for such acts. Indeed, as a rule I heard of them first through the papers, and even then scarcely believed in the very existence of most of the conspiracies for which I was afterwards held accountable. I shall hardly be blamed for this by anyone who remembered the number of projects which we were all duly accused of entertaining, such as the various alleged plans for the invasion of Canada with a force recruited from the German-American rifle clubs, and many another wild-cat scheme attributed to us in the first months of the war.

Such offences against the laws of America as were Page 108 actually committed were certainly reprobated by none more sincerely than by myself, if only because nothing could be imagined more certain to militate against my policy, as I have here described it, than these outrages and the popular indignation aroused by them. I fully realized that these individual acts, in defiance of the law of the land and the resulting spread of Germanophobia, were bound to damage me in the eyes of the United States Government and public opinion. It is thus obviously absurd to accuse me of being responsible in any way for the acts in question, seeing that any such instigation, or even approval on my part, would have involved the utter ruin of my own policy!

Another accusation against my conduct while in America is that I at all events connived at the commission of crimes under the direction of officers attached to the Embassy of which I was in charge, or of other German Secret Service agents. The evidence for this consists of certain cipher telegrams from the military authorities in Germany, addressed to the Embassy in Washington; these were decoded in England and said to contain instructions for outrages to be committed in Canadian territory. I cannot say if these messages were genuine or no. Military cipher telegrams, formally addressed to the military attaché, were frequently received at the Embassy, but were always sent forward at once by the registry to Captain von Papen\'s office in New York, as a matter of routine, and without being referred to me in any way. Von Papen certainly never told me a word about any instructions from his superiors that he should endeavor to foment disorders as alleged. For the present, then, I consider that there is insufficient evidence for his having received any such orders; but in all these matters I can, of course, speak only for myself, military matters being entirely out of my province. Page 109 Soon after von Papen\'s recall I entered a protest against the sending of a successor, as there was no longer any useful purpose to be served by the employment of a Military Attaché, whose presence would only serve as a pretext for a renewed hostile agitation against us.

Whether the illegal acts of the Secret Agents sent to the United States by the military authorities were committed in accordance with their orders or on their own initiative I had no means of knowing at the time, nor have I been able to discover since my return home. I may observe, however, that I more than once urgently requested the Foreign Office to use all their influence against the dispatch of Secret Service men to America. Moreover, I had published in the Press a notice, couched in strong terms and signed by myself, warning all Germans domiciled in the United States not to involve themselves in any illegal activities under any circumstances whatever. And I think I am justified in saying that twelve months before the severance of diplomatic relations, I had made a clean sweep of all "conspiracies" and extorted a promise that no more "agents" should be sent over from Germany. On my arrival home, I was held by some to have been at fault for not having put down the movement earlier; to which my reply must be that as a matter of fact it was the cases of Rintelen and Fay that first earned us the reputation of "conspirators"; all the rest came to light later, and were in great measure connected with their machinations. I took steps, as soon as I heard of these two affairs, to avoid any repetition of them, in which effort I was successful.

The following throws some light on the attitude of the United States Government towards me in the matter of the "conspiracies." When in November, 1915, the Press campaign had reached the height of its violence, Page 110 I forwarded a Note to Mr. Lansing, the Secretary of State, protesting strongly against the unjustifiable attacks aimed at myself and my colleagues of the Embassy and requesting that some effort should be made to suppress them, as follows:

"Washington, Nov. 16, 1915.

"The continuance of the baseless attacks on myself and the colleagues of my Embassy in the columns of the Providence Journal impels me to ask whether your Excellency cannot see your way to make it clear that these attacks are not countenanced by the American Government. Such slanders against the representatives of a friendly Power who have a right to claim the protection and hospitality of the United States authorities would be incomprehensible, were it not a matter of common knowledge that the Providence Journal is a \'hyphenated\' Anglo-American paper. To borrow the phrase of the United States President, this journal is obviously a greater friend of other countries than its own.

"For the last fifteen months I and all my colleagues have had, if I may say so, a whole army of American private detectives on our track. Day and night they have pursued us in the service of our enemies. Yet, although official German documents have been stolen, no one has yet succeeded in producing a single proof of illegal activities on the part of anyone of us.

"I should esteem it a great favor if your Excellency could see your way to secure this Embassy against a repetition of these baseless attacks, which have as their sole foundation the pre-supposition of conspiracies which have no existence in fact."

I never received any reply to this letter, but a short time after Mr. Lansing while informing me that the Page 111 American Government felt itself compelled to ask for the recall of Captains Boy-Ed and von Papen, as being no longer acceptable to them (this affair I propose to refer to again in another place), stated in the most explicit terms that I was in no way implicated in the matter. The fact that the American Government, even after the departure of the two attachés, maintained the same intimate relations with me throughout the fourteen months which elapsed before its diplomatic representatives were recalled from Germany, proves that this was no empty compliment but was meant in all sincerity.

I feel myself compelled to insist on these facts, in view of the efforts subsequently made to represent me as the originator or leader of the famous "conspiracies," which were later immeasurably exaggerated by American propaganda. This propaganda has poisoned the mind of the average American citizen to such an extent that he firmly believes the German Embassy to have been a nest of anarchists, who even during the period of his country\'s neutrality "waged war" in the most dastardly manner against her.

And yet these stories of so-called conspiracies, with their legions of conspirators, and resulting lengthy lists of German outrages in America, will not bear serious examination.

Irrefutable evidence on the subject can be found in the official report of the Senate Committee of Inquiry into the activities of German propaganda, which has already been mentioned more than once. After the depositions of Mr. Bruce Bielaski on this subject had gone on for two days, Senator Nelson, being tired of this dry recital—he had already expressed the opinion that most of the evidence given so far was too academic—asked this officer of the Department of Justice for a report on the German attempts "to foment strikes and cause Page 112 explosions in munition factories" which he apparently considered to be an integral part of German propaganda. Mr. Bielaski then referred to the "more important cases of offences against the law, which had been fathered by the German Government." He prefaced his statement with the remark that the list he was about to give was complete in every way; twenty-four cases were dealt with, and the names of the incriminated individuals given, as reproduced below:

1. Falsification of passports (von Wedell, Rueroede).

2. Destruction of a bridge in Canada (Horn).

3. Falsification of passports (Stegler, Madden, Cook).

4. Falsification of passports (Lüderitz).

5. Attempted destruction of a canal in Canada (von der Goltz, Tauscher, Fritzen).

6. Falsification of passports (Sanders, Wunmerburg, and two accomplices).

7. Supplying of coal, etc., to German men-of-war at sea (Bunz, Koeter, Hofmeister, Poppinghaus).

8. Attempt to bring about a revolution in India (Bopp, von Schack, von Brinken, Ram Chandra, and twenty-five accomplices).

9. Attempt to blow up a railway tunnel in Canada (Bopp and three accomplices).

10. Attempted destruction of munition factories and railway bridges in Canada (Kaltschmidt, and five accomplices).

11. Plot to destroy Allied munition ships by infernal machines (Fay, Scholtz, D?cher and three accomplices).

12. Plot to destroy Allied munition ships by incendiary bombs (Scheele, von Kleist, Wolpart, Bode).

13. Attempt to foment strikes in factories engaged in the making of war materials (Rintelen, Lamar, Martin).

Page 113 14. Attempt to foment strikes among the dockers (no convictions).

15. Sending of spies to Canada (K?nig).

16. Perjury in the matter of the arming of the Lusitania (Stahl).

17. Attempt to smuggle rubber to Germany (Jaeger and five accomplices).

18. Attempt to smuggle ashore chronometer of an interned German ship (Thierichens).

19. Attempt to smuggle nickel to Germany (Olsen and two accomplices).

20. Attempt to smuggle rubber to Germany (Newmann and accomplices).

21. Sinking of a German ship at the entrance of an American harbor (Captain and crew of the Liebenfels).

22. Attempt to smuggle rubber to Germany (Soloman and accomplices).

23. Falsification of passports (Rintelen and Meloy).

24. Plan to destroy Allied army horses by means of bacteria (Sternberg).

The above is the substance of the evidence given by Bielaski. I have no wish to extenuate, in the slightest degree, the few serious offences against common law included in this list, but I imagine that the unprejudiced reader will not fail to observe that Mr. Bielaski found it necessary to rake up everything possible in order to be able to present the Committee with a respectable catalogue of crimes instigated by the German Government in the United States. Apparently his only object was to produce a list of imposing length, and for this purpose he included in it cases in which it would be difficult for even the most suspicious mind to discover the hand of the German Government. Moreover even he himself Page 114 did not venture directly to assert the complicity of the representatives of the German Empire in any single one of these offences. In reply to Senator Overman, who asked if Captains von Papen and Boy-Ed were held to be implicated in all these illegal acts, Mr. Bielaski gave the following evasive answer: "The most important, and most serious of these illegal acts, were, generally speaking, inspired, financed and conducted by one or other of the accredited representatives of Germany." Officials or agents in the service of Germany were, however, mentioned by name as leaders or accomplices only in the first fourteen and the two last cases, and I may be allowed to emphasize the fact that by the admission of Mr. Bielaski himself, my own name was coupled only with the agitation for a revolution in India, which was supposed to be a part of Germany\'s designs. Even if we take Mr. Bielaski\'s unconfirmed evidence as being reliable, the total number of individuals convicted on these charges in the American Courts of Justice amounts only to sixty-seven, of whom apparently only sixteen were German nationals; and their offences fall under the following heads: the case of the Hamburg-Amerika Line and the five cases of falsification of passports already mentioned: the so-called Indian plot: one case of successful and three of attempted sabotage in Canada: and finally the cases numbered ten to fourteen and twenty-four in Bielaski\'s list of the illegal acts planned by the agents Rintelen, Fay and Sternberg.

I propose to go into the details of these cases later. What I am now concerned to establish is that the list in question is from one point of view more interesting for what it omits than for what it includes.

In the first place one may notice the absence of the accusation previously made against us more than once, that we had plotted to embroil the United States in war Page 115 with Mexico and Japan; from the fact that Mr. Bielaski made no mention of this in his evidence before the Senate Committee it must be supposed that these ridiculous stories with which American public opinion had been at one time so assiduously spoon-fed were finally exploded.

As a matter of fact, during my service in Washington, nothing was further from my thoughts than to conspire with Mexican Generals, as any such action would have seriously interfered with my chosen policy. As concerning Japan I may, incidentally, remark that Mr. Hale, when he was acting in collaboration with us in propaganda work, particularly stipulated that we should not undertake anything which might inflame the existing antagonism between America and Japan—a condition which Dr. Dernburg accepted without hesitation, since both he and his assistant Dr. Fuehr, who knew Japan well, were decidedly opposed to any such agitation.

In order to avoid misunderstanding, I wish expressly to state that I do not deny that instructions were sent by Zimmermann, the Secretary of State, to our Embassy in Mexico, which envisaged co-operation with that country against the United States as well as an understanding with Japan, but must point out that this was recommended in the event—and only in the event—of the United States declaring war on us.

I shall return to these instructions later, only remarking here that it was my duty to pass them on to von Eckhardt.

It should further be noted that the design, frequently imputed to us in earlier days, of endeavoring to stir up a negro rising in the United States was also omitted from Mr. Bielaski\'s list. To the request of a Senator of a Southern State for his opinion on this point, he replied without hesitation that no efforts in this direction had Page 116 been made by any of the official representatives of Germany.

It is noteworthy, moreover, that this agent of the Department of Justice, who had heretofore consistently held us guilty of promoting strikes in munition factories and sabotage of all kinds, failed to follow up his charges. I must admit that, in view of what had already appeared in the Press on the subject of German "conspiracies," I had expected that definite proceedings would be taken on this charge, if they were taken at all; and apparently the members of the Senate Committee were also of this opinion, for one of them expressly asked Mr. Bielaski if he had any evidence to produce on the subject. His reply was: "I know very little, if anything, of that; I don\'t think that during our neutrality there were any instances of criminal activities of that kind."

Again, the Bureau for the Employment of German Workers, which was likewise at one time proclaimed as a device or cloak for a dangerous "German Conspiracy," was not mentioned in Bielaski\'s catalogue, which conclusively proves that this calumny had been allowed to drop. The office in question, which was known as the Lübau Bureau from the name of its chief, was started by Captain von Papen with the assistance of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, after Dr. Dumba and I had pointed out clearly to our fellow-countrymen working in the American munition factories that any of them who took part in the manufacture of arms or supplies for our enemies would render themselves liable to be tried for high treason in their native land. After this it was the bounden duty of both Embassies to find employment for all those who voluntarily resigned from the factories working for the Entente; and from first to last this office, which had branches in Philadelphia, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and provided about Page 117 4,500 men with fresh employment of an unobjectionable nature, was never guilty of any illegal act.

My open reference to the German law of high treason, however, was much criticized by the greater part of the American Press, which stigmatized it as an attempt "to introduce the German criminal code into America," and as an infringement of the sovereignty of the United States. Such criticism appears somewhat unwarranted in view of the wide application given to the law of treason by the Americans themselves shortly afterwards.

After this digression on the subject of the conspiracies which had been previously imputed to us, but were now dropped out of Bielaski\'s list, I propose to return to the instances of illegal action which were definitely laid to our charge.

The first of these is the action of Werner Horn, a retired German officer, which gained us for the first time the opprobrious epithet of "dynamiters." Horn, of whose presence in America I was not aware until the story of his crime appeared in the papers, contrived in February, 1915, to blow up a railway bridge near Vaneboro, in the territory of Canada, on the line running through the State of Maine to Halifax. Apparently he believed, as did many other people, that this railway was being utilized for the transport of Canadian troops. As the act was quite senseless, and could at worst only have held up traffic for a few hours, Captain von Papen saw no objection to advancing to Horn, who was without means, a sum sufficient to pay the fees of his defending counsel. To the best of my knowledge Horn was simply kept under observation for some time, and it was only after America\'s entry into the war that he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment for a breach of the regulations with regard to the transport of explosives (he had apparently carried his dynamite with him in a hand-bag).

Page 118 Of the three attempts at sabotage in Canada the Welland Canal affair caused at the time the greatest sensation in New York. The Welland Canal connects Lake Ontario with Lake Erie, west of Niagara Falls, i.e., through Canadian territory, and it is a highway for all seaborne traffic on the great lakes, and particularly for the transport of corn to the coast. It was therefore considered advantageous from a military point of view to attempt the destruction of the canal. This had apparently already been projected in September by a German adventurer, calling himself Horst von der Goltz, but for some unexplained reason the idea had been abandoned at the last moment.

Captain Hans Tauscher, Krupps\' representative in New York, was charged in 1916 with having supplied dynamite for this scheme, but was acquitted on his calling evidence to prove that he had no knowledge of the use which was to be made of the explosive.

The first information that I had about the attempt on the Welland Canal was the report of the proceedings against Captain Tauscher. Even to-day the full truth of the matter has not yet come to light. The leading figure of the drama, von der Goltz, while on his way to Germany in October, 1914, fell into the hands of the British. When Captain von Papen returned to Germany in December, 1915, under safe conduct of Great Britain, his papers were taken from him at a Scottish port; among them was his American check book, and an examination of this led to the identification of von der Goltz as the individual who had planned the destruction of the Welland Canal. The latter, it would seem, was thereupon offered, by the English authorities, the alternatives of being shot or of returning to America under a guarantee of personal safety, and giving evidence against Germany in open court. He chose the latter Page 119 course, and turned "State\'s evidence" in New York, where he was kept under constant supervision. His statements, however, in view of the pressure brought to bear upon him, and of his doubtful past, can only be regarded as of somewhat doubtful value.

During the whole course of my period of office in the United States I heard nothing about the case of Albert Kaltschmidt, the German resident in Detroit who after America\'s declaration of war, was arrested on a charge of conspiring—apparently some time in 1915—to blow up a munition factory, an arsenal and a railway bridge in Canada, and sentenced in December, 1917, to penal servitude, together with four of his confederates, and the statements made in the American Press which fastened upon me the responsibility for the deeds of violence then simmering in the brain of this individual, on the ground that, in October, 1915, he had received a considerable advance from a banking account opened in my name and that of Privy Councillor Albert, I most emphatically deny. Kaltschmidt, who was a well-known business man had acted on behalf of Albert and von Papen in several negotiations, with the object of forestalling the Entente\'s agents in the purchase of important war material, and had consequently been in receipt of considerable sums of money for this purpose, both from von Papen and from the general funds of the Embassy. This had, of course, earned him the undying hatred of the outwitted agents of our enemies, and he had also, in company with his sister and brother-in-law (both of whom were later convicted of complicity in his designs), got himself disliked for the prominent part he played in the agitation for an embargo on the export of arms and munitions of war. It seems quite possible that the charges against him were the work of private enemies, and that the American Criminal Court, which condemned him, was Page 120 hoodwinked by the schemings of certain Canadians; the fact that these criminal designs on Kaltschmidt\'s part only came to light after the United States had become a belligerent adds probability to the supposition. One thing, however, is certain, that even if the alleged plot on the part of Kaltschmidt and his relations had any real existence, the initiative was theirs alone, and cannot be laid at the door of the Embassy.

The affair of Bopp, the German Consul-General at San Francisco, was also one which aroused much feeling against Germany. This gentleman had already, as early as 1915, been accused of having delayed or destroyed certain cargoes of military material for Russia, with the aid of certain abettors; his subordinates, von Schack, the Vice-Consul, and von Brinken, the Attaché, were also believed to be implicated. In the following year he was further charged with having incited one Louis J. Smith to blow up a tunnel on the Canadian Pacific Railway, with the idea of destroying supplies on their way to Russia. All three officials were therefore brought to trial, but dismissed with a caution. However, at the end of 1916, he and his two subordinates were again brought up on a serious charge and sentenced on the testimony of their chief lieutenant, Smith, who turned State\'s evidence[*] against them, to a term of imprisonment.

[Footnote *: For the benefit of the reader not familiar with American legal procedure, it should be explained that in cases where several individuals are charged in common with an offence, any one of them may be assured of a pardon if he turns State\'s evidence and informs against his associates. This course of action, reprehensible as it undoubtedly is, from a moral point of view, has the advantage of facilitating the task of police spies!]

All three resigned from their posts and lodged an appeal, but were again found guilty in the second instance, after America had entered the war. Consul-General Bopp and his colleagues if they had in reality committed the offences of which they were accused, were Page 121 certainly actuated in no way by the Embassy or any high authorities, but must be held solely and entirely responsible for the course they adopted. In his reports to me, Bopp invariably asserted his innocence, and I am rather inclined to believe that he really fell into one of the traps which the Allied Secret Service were always setting for our officials in America.

According to common report, Consul-General Bopp, Schack and von Brinken later underwent yet a further term of imprisonment for their complicity in the so-called Indian conspiracy. I am quite certain that nothing was ever heard of this affair until after the American declaration of war; then, however, newspaper reports were shown me, the effect that in the year of 1916 an attempt had been made by the Indian Nationalists in San Francisco, with German co-operation, to bring about an armed rising in British India—an absolute "wild-goose chase," which, of course, came to nothing. It was asserted in this connection that a cargo of arms and ammunition on board the small schooner Annie Larsen, and destined for our forces in German East Africa, was, in reality, dispatched to India via Java and Siam; but no proofs were brought forward in support of this statement. In connection with this design, four persons were sentenced at Chicago, in October, 1917, and ten (according to Bielaski twenty-nine in all) at San Francisco, in August, 1918, to long terms of imprisonment, for having "illegally conspired in the United States to make war against the territories and possessions of His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India." It seems that this affair was exploited with great success by the American propaganda service to inflame the minds of its people against Germany. As a matter of fact, I cannot too strongly condemn on principle all military enterprises undertaken from neutral Page 122 territory; but, from the purely moral point of view, I cannot but remark that it ill befits America to give vent to righteous indignation over such activities, considering the facilities she afforded to Czechs and Poles, during her period of neutrality, for supporting to the utmost of their power their blood brothers in their designs against the Central Powers. Besides, even if it be admitted that the schooner in question was actually sent by the Indian Nationalists with her cargo of arms, it is absurd to regard the dispatch of this small supply of war material as a crime, and gloss over the fact that whole arsenals and ammunition columns were being shipped every day to France!

I now propose, in conclusion, to deal with the illegal activities attributed by American opinion to the secret agents controlled by the German military authorities, and sent by them to the United States.

As regards the machinations of Franz Rintelen, my first information about him reached me in the late autumn of 1915, and even now I have to rely for most of the details on the American papers. Rintelen, who was a banker by profession, and during the war held a commission as Captain-Lieutenant in the Imperial Naval Reserve, appeared in America in April, 1915, and presented himself to me during one of my periodical visits to New York. He declined at the time to give any information as to his official position in the country, or the nature of his duties; I therefore wired to the Foreign Office for some details about him, but received no reply. Some time afterwards he applied to me for proofs of identity, which I refused to grant him, and as his continued presence in New York was considered undesirable by both von Pap en and Boy-Ed, they took steps to have him sent back to Germany. He was captured, however, by the British, on his voyage home. Shortly after this, Page 123 the affair of Rintelen became a matter of common talk, and the first indications of his mysterious intrigues for the purpose of interfering with the delivery of munitions from the United States to the Allies appeared in the Press; the Foreign Office thereupon instructed me to issue an official démenti on the subject. Mr. Lansing, the Secretary of State, however, informed me that, as a matter of fact, Rintelen, while in England, had confessed himself to be an emissary of the German Government. I then heard from Captain Boy-Ed that Rintelen, by representing himself as empowered to purchase large stocks of raw material for Germany in the United States, had obtained a considerable advance from the Embassy\'s funds. This fact was one of the main reasons for the American Government\'s request in December, 1915, that Boy-Ed should be recalled. I was never able either in America or Germany to discover the details of Rintelen\'s intrigues; he himself never allowed anything to leak out about it at the Embassy, and was unable to send any report on the subject to Germany, as he was handed over to the United States by the British after the American declaration of war and sentenced to some years\' penal servitude. The current story in the United States is that he was proved to have been in touch with the Mexican General Huerta with the object of bringing about war between the two Republics—an offence of which the famous list of Mr. Bielaski makes no mention. Further, he was supposed to have founded, in conjunction with a member of Congress, and two individuals of evil reputation, a society of workmen in Chicago, With the object of obtaining from Congress an embargo on the export of arms—an undertaking which according to the aforementioned report cost a great deal and proved entirely valueless from the point of view of the German Government. It is not known whether this undertaking brought Page 124 Rintelen and his assistants within the reach of the Sherman Act against conspiracies inciting industrial disorders, or whether he had, in addition, made efforts to bring about strikes in munition works. He was certainly suspected of endeavoring to cause trouble among the dockers of New York, in the hope of preventing or delaying the shipment of war material to the Allies; but even Bielaski admitted before the Senate Committee that there was no tangible evidence of this.

As a matter of fact, the real grounds of Rintelen\'s conviction were apparently that he had prepared, through the agency of a certain German chemist, domiciled in America, named Scheele, a number of incendiary bombs, which were apparently to be secreted by three officers of the German Mercantile Marine on board Allied munition ships, with the object of causing fires on the voyage. After America\'s entry into the war, Rintelen and his accomplices were sentenced on this count to fairly lengthy terms of imprisonment, and these sentences they are serving at the present moment in the Federal prison at Atlanta.

I have been unable to discover how far Rintelen was actually guilty of the offences imputed to him; but I can only observe that he, and, in so far as he acted under orders, his superiors, gravely compromised the position of the German official representatives in the United States, and afforded our enemies an excellent opportunity of inflaming public opinion against Germany. It is impossible to over-estimate the unfortunate effect produced throughout the world by the discovery of bombs on board a German passenger-steamer, and of their secretion in the holds of Allied munition ships.

Another attempt of a similar kind, which had most unfortunate results from our point of view, was that attributed to a German, Lieutenant Fay, who had likewise Page 125 come to America in April, 1915, and two other Germans, by name Scholz and D?eche. Their idea was to put Allied munition ships out of action by means of infernal machines, fastened to the rudders, and timed to explode shortly after their departure. My first information concerning these gentlemen was the report in the Press of their arrest, which was apparently effected while they were experimenting with their apparatus under cover of a wood. A telegraphic inquiry elicited from Berlin the reply that Fay was absolutely unknown there; it is possible, however, that he had really come to America on some business of an official nature. He and his accomplices were sentenced in May, 1916, to several years\' penal servitude, although no proof was adduced that any real damage could possibly have been caused by their contrivance, which experts informed me was not a practicable one.

Last of all, on Bielaski\'s list comes the case of the German agent Stermberg, of whom, also, I had never heard. In January, 1915, he was arrested on a charge of having attempted to inoculate horses, purchased for the Allied Armies, with disease germs. As his practical knowledge was not great, his intentions were in excess of his performances. Bielaski, in his evidence before the Senate Committee, at first hesitated to mention this case at all, and was only induced to do so by the insistence of another Government official; it is clear, therefore, that he attached very little importance to it, and, as a matter of fact, the charge was not supported by any witnesses in a court of law, or by any legal attestation.

In a word, during all our period of service in America, as representatives of the German Empire, practically nothing of all that was alleged against us was proved to be true. A few of the stories of illegal activity, however, were based on some foundation of truth, and were Page 126 popularly but erroneously supposed to further the interests of Germany. By these means we were first brought into discredit, and from that time on, every rumor, or piece of gossip concerning acts of violence on the part of Germans, whether based on fact or not, served only to increase the wide-spread popular suspicion and distrust of everyone and everything German.