811.04418/478: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany (Kirk) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1 p.m.]
661. My telegram No. 658, July 15, 4 p.m.14 The latest issue of the German Foreign Office DDPK15 comments as follows respecting American neutrality legislation developments.
“The difficulties which the present Government of the United States has met in Congress with regard to its efforts to change the neutrality law have in no way altered its determination forcibly to obtain power to raise the embargo on arms. On the contrary the special message of the President as well as the Hull declaration again demanding the enactment of the administration project for this purpose adequately demonstrate how urgent it is from his point of view to have available the desired full powers.
“The arguments which Secretary Hull sets forth culminate in the statement that the risks of America becoming involved in a war would be by no means increased if the United States should permit the export of arms as well as of raw materials. Furthermore neutrality as such at any rate as seen from a purely juridical point of view would in no way be disturbed. And finally Mr. Hull envisages in the possibility of an unrestricted export of arms an excellent factor for peace which would be especially destined to play into the hand of the small states.
“It is clear that in the case of a country like the United States not only considerations of a purely juridical nature can be decisive but also and primarily facts and developments will tell. That the geographical situation for which it is not responsible plays a role was also admitted by Mr. Hull. Thus the deliberate and unilateral support which would result from a lifting of the arms embargo is clearly exposed. Furthermore experience shows that the United States from the very first would be selected as the arms factory of a particular party to a war which would build up its own war industry upon American soil with American workers and with American raw materials and so the cash and carry clause would be easily circumvented. The same situation would therefore arise as with the Alabama case; [Page 670] incidents which would please many would be conjured up and the possibility of maintenance of neutrality would perforce become ever more problematical.
“These considerations would of course not apply only in Germany and America. They enter into the calculations of all those who reckon with an even count on a war and who in their political objectives would in a given case rely upon such powerful assistance. Such encouragement would in no way as Mr. Hull believes lead to a strengthening and an assurance of peace only for this has been already adequately demonstrated by the conduct of Poland which has been surrounded with guarantees from the great powers and whose Government press has chosen to celebrate with pointed and renewed desires for conquest this very day which is the anniversary of a very awkward situation of over 500 years ago won over an army of the German order.16 This furnishes a clear indication as to how security or guarantees granted unconditionally can only lead to animosity and excess.
“Far more deserving of attention in the United States is the fear of those small states which more and more realize that they are exposed to the ill concealed greed of the ‘peace front’ that they may be drawn into the whirlpool of a conflict as the glacis or point of support of a party to a war. The efforts on the part of these several states to maintain their inviolability, their integrity and neutrality, under all circumstances would have been especially worthy of the moral and material support of that power which as Secretary Hull says wished above all to strengthen in grave emergency the powers of defense of those small weak and peace loving countries. In its final analysis anything else would only mean a deliberate aggravation of the tension which already exists in full measure.”