not remember details because I was not personally interested in the paper. Q. Did you have any contact with William Dudley Pelley? A. No. He was head of the Silver Shirts and very anti-Semitic. I was opposed against all contacts with that type of propagandists. Q. Did he ever visit the Embassy? A. I heard that he had been in the Embassy once-I think in 1939 or 1940. I suggested to Thomsen that it was unwise to receive Pelley in the Embassy. Q. Whom did he visit? A. Probably Gienanth. Q. Did Gienanth give any money to Pelley? A. Maybe. I don't know. wouldn't be surprised. His case is like Deatherage. I Q. Let me revert, for a moment, to Viereck's activity. What type of an audience did Viereck intend to reach with his publications? A. Everybody interested in foreign policy, especially in English propaganda for war. Q. Including members of the armed forces of the United States? A. No, we were against distributing propaganda to the Army or Navy. For example, General von Boetticher of the Embassy had received small booklets from Germany. He was ordered to distribute them amongst American officers. He received them from Berlin. He showed me the booklets, and said "Well I have this order now to distribute this booklet, what do you think"? I suggested not to distribute them. "The Embassy receives many foolish orders from Berlin, but there are ways to turn them down". Q. What did von Boetticher do? A. The booklets were destroyed. Q. Do you recall any further instances in which German authorities in Berlin had instructed anyone in the Embassy to distribute materials to the armed forces of the United States? A. No. Q. Did Viereck ever show you a copy of the V-card? A. Yes, I think he did. Q. What was the purpose of the card? A. I remember it was a postcard. Viereck said it would be used to convince people not to send forces abroad. Q. Did you approve the distribution of the card? A. It was not up to me to decide on that. Personally I thought that such cheap type of propaganda would not have been effective. Q. But you knew that Viereck nevertheless authorized its distribution, didn't you? A. No, I did not. Q. Did you or anyone connected with the German government support James Smythe in any way? A. I have been asked about him by Mr. Rhetts. This morning I had a walk with Mr. Schmitz, former manager of the Library of Information, and he said that Smythe once came into his office to collect money, and he threw him out. Smythe was head of the Protestant War Veterans, I understand. Schmitz believed that Borchers gave some money to Smythe. Schmitz would know more about this. Q. Did you know Paul Scheffer? A. Very well. He was ousted by Goebbels as editor in chief of the Berliner Tageblatt while I was in Berlin, and we were afraid in the Press Department of the Foreign Office, especially Minister Aschmann, that he probably would run into trouble, maybe even be put into a concentration camp; and so we tried to find a position for him. We managed that he was sent as foreign correspondent to the United States. In order to organize a living for him, he worked for the DAZ, the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, whose editor in chief was Mr. Silex, who was thoroughly anti-Nazi. When Das Reich was founded and they found out that the reports of Scheffer in the DAZ were especially of a high intellectual and political level, they forced him to write for them. Q. What was the form of pressure that was used on him? A. They said they would stop his work for the DAZ and then he would have no more income. Q. What type of article did he write for Das Reich? A. Foreign policy topics. Q. Pro-Nazi? A. No. He was never a Nazi. Q. Did the Nazi government sponsor any radio programs in, or directed to, the United States? A. Yes. Q. What was the nature of these programs? A. They were of two types. One was to use simple slogans to impress the wide masses of American radio listeners, and the other type was to broadcast political information for American news agencies, newspapers and so on. Q. Were these programs transmitted by short wave from Ger mány? A. Yes. Q. Did the German government own or lease any stations in the United States? A. No, not to my knowledge. The Embassy received once an order to organize a broadcasting station in the United States. Thomsen turned it down because we thought it was just throwing away money and would be detrimental. Q. Were you privileged to disobey orders from Berlin in this manner? A. No, but the arguments of our reports apparently convinced the Foreign Office. Q. It seems rather strange that you should not have heeded such an important order. Did you or any representative of the German government purchase any radio programs? A. No, to my knowledge. Q. This also seems strange, since radio is such an effective medium of propaganda. A. There were those short wave broadcasts. Q. What was the Embassy's function with respect to those broadcasts? A. On these short wave broadcasts, it was von Gienanth's function to report to the Foreign Office, who would send them to the Propaganda Ministry. The radio propaganda was cherished by both Goebbels and Ribbentrop, so both said they should have a hand in radio propaganda. Ribbentrop organized a radio propaganda department, headed by Minister Ruehle. So it was a constant fight between Goebbels and Ribbentrop who should handle radio propaganda. Gienanth, since 1940, received a salary from the Foreign Office, but he was not a permanent official of the Foreign Office, and so he retained his capacity as representative of the Propaganda Ministry. He drafted his reports for the Berlin Foreign Office;. but I think his reports, while forwarded to the Foreign Office, carried a notation to transmit them to the Propaganda Ministry. Q. What was the nature of Gienanth's reports? A. Political and technical supervision of the radio propaganda: Q. Did he report upon certain themes which might effectively be played upon? A. Yes. Q. Do you recall the particular themes? A. I do not remember. Facts which would help keep the United States out of the war. Q. Were his recommendations followed? A. Partly. Q. Did Gienanth report to Germany upon the size of the American audience? A. Yes-grossly exaggerated. He said 5 million people were listening. I told him I wondered whether it would be much more than 10% of that figure. Q. Did you see any of Gienanth's reports? A. Yes. Several times, if the reports were not clear enough, or were not written in the right style, then Thomsen gave them to me. I redrafted them. Q. Did Gienanth mention the names of any persons he was supporting in these reports? A. I would not know, because these reports would not necessarily come to my knowledge. Q. Were any branches established outside of Berlin for short wave radio broadcasting to the United States? A. Yes, in Shanghai. Q. What was the reason for that? A. For technical reasons, German broadcasts did not come through well to the Pacific coast, so Berlin established a powerful radio station on the other side of the Pacific. Several members of the Library of Information, who had gathered experience in the Library, left America and were supposed to go to Shanghai. Q. What was their function to be? A. To make a radio program which appealed to American listeners. Q. Was the Shanghai station openly known as a German station? A. Yes, I think so. Q. Did it, in fact, broadcast German news and other programs to the United States? A. I think so. I personally never heard it. Q. Did Gienanth report on the effectiveness of these broadcasts? A. I think so. Q. Did you read any of the reports submitted about Shanghai? A. No. Q. To your knowledge, did the Reich Railways Office, Reichsbahnzentrale, in New York, receive any funds from the Propaganda Ministry? A. Yes, I think it did. Q. Who managed the Reichsbahnzentrale? A. Mr. Ernst Schmitz. Q. I take it that this is a different Schmitz from the one in the German Library of Information? A. Yes. Q. Did you learn that funds were given the Reichsbahnzentrale by the Propaganda Ministry while you were in Washington, or after your return to Germany? A. After my return. Q. How much did Schmitz receive from the Propaganda Ministry? A. I do not know, but they were very large funds. Q. What was the nature of Schmitz's activity? A. He published more or less regularly weekly letters in which he appealed to those Americans who he knew had travelled in Europe and had special interest in European affairs. Q. What did Schmitz seek to accomplish by these publications? A. To show that Germany would not lose the war, and thereby indicate that it would be useless for the United States to enter the war. Q. Where did the Reichsbahnzentrale, under Schmitz, receive the materials which were used in its propaganda literature? A. From the German short wave, direct communications from the Propaganda Ministry and the Transocean News Service. It even picked up some material from the American press. Q. How large a group of persons did Schmitz reach with his publications? A. I don't know. Quite large, I assume. Q. Have you ever heard of Dr. Degner? A. Yes. Q. In what connection? A. He was secretary general of the German-American Chamber of Commerce in New York. Q. Did he issue any publications? A. Yes, he issued a periodical. Q. What was its nature and to whom did he distribute it? Q. How large was the circulation? A. Not very big. It was supposed to have a select audience. |