811.91262/205: Telegram
The Chargé in Germany ( Morris ) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 19—1:23 p.m.]
999–1000. My 991, March 18, 1 p.m.3 From his employer and associates I learn that the German secret police were able to motivate their arrest of Hottelet on certain imprudent relations and very vocal and indiscreet expressions of opposition to National Socialism among both German and foreign circles in Berlin. It is known that some 7 months ago an evident agent provocateur tried unsuccessfully to persuade Hottelet to transmit certain documents to England. Schmidt, Chief of the Press Section of the Foreign Office, asserted to a Swedish journalist that 6 months ago he had quite plainly given a warning to Hottelet to change his attitude and cease his activities. Whether in fact such warning was delivered is unknown but Hottelet’s employer warned him in general to exercise restraint in his talk and actions. The investigator of the secret police asserted to another United Press correspondent that Hottelet in a voyage to Hungary had consorted with Britishers suspected of being secret agents. From his associates it is known that Hottelet on a voyage to Budapest did see something of the London Times correspondent and indiscreetly boasted to presumed friends that he had told of the effect of British air raids over Germany. …
The very indiscretion of Hottelet in attitude and expression should be sufficient evidence that he was not a British agent but the strictness of German regulations against communication with enemy subjects gives the secret police latitude to form charges against him, an action to which they were presumably inclined by his unconcealed opposition to the regime and of sympathy for England.
There is some evidence, however, that the arrest or at least its timing was in connection with the indictment of Zapp,4 Transocean correspondent in Washington. Schmidt, Foreign Office Press Section head, while denying that Hottelet’s arrest was in retaliation for Zapp’s [Page 599] indictment told a Swedish correspondent who is head of the Foreign Journalists Association in Berlin that he, Schmidt, had telephoned Ribbentrop5 from abroad a week previously personally recommending that no obstacle be interposed by the Foreign Office to Hottelet’s arrest which had allegedly been pending for some time. This telephone call must have occurred therefore about the time of Zapp’s indictment. Yesterday a German official in private conversation confidentially suggested to member of the Embassy that the solution was the release of Zapp against the release of Hottelet.
In the conversation above referred to, Schmidt also said that although such proceedings were usually kept secret that in this case the results of the trial would be published, would cause a sensation, and might involve other American journalists. In the interest of Hottelet I think the foregoing should be kept confidential at present except possibly for discreet communication to the responsible officers of the United Press Association.