832.00 Nazi/40: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 27—9: 50 a.m.]
272. The Brazilian Ambassador informs me that he took up at the German Foreign Office the matter of German press attacks against President Vargas as reported in my 251, May 17, 4 p.m. He told the Foreign Office that these were obviously based on accounts in the Brazilian press attacking Germany for the alleged participation of German nationals in the events in Rio de Janeiro on May 11. The Ambassador took the position that he could not admit that mere Brazilian press accounts constituted a proper basis for attacks on the Brazilian Government by the German controlled press, that the responsibility for the incidents of May 11 had not yet been officially determined and that to maintain an appropriate relationship between the two countries Germany should await such a determination. He said that if Germany desired Rio de Janeiro to break off diplomatic relations with Berlin they were going the right way about it but that he thought that in any such event the repercussions throughout Latin America would be most unfavorable to Germany.
The Ambassador later officially informed the German Government that investigations had determined that no German nationals were involved in the affair of May 11.
[Page 419]The German press today expresses satisfaction over this Brazilian action and completely changing its tone states that it is “in line with the farsightedness of the Chief of State of the great South American Republic” and creates the atmosphere necessary for the solution of a series of questions pending between Germany and Brazil.