held in the preceding twenty four hours, so that on the very same evening he was able to communicate everything important to the State Department and to President Wilson.
Let us bear in mind the time this installation was created, at the beginning of the year 1915, that is, at the time when the United States still lived in peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, and Wilson never tired of giving assurances that he harboured no hostile intentions against Germany. It was also the time when the German Ambassador in Washington, Count Bernstorff, neglected no opportunity to show due appreciation of Wilson’s friendly disposition and feelings for Germany and the German Folk. It was also the time when Wilson gave his confidant Baruch instructions to begin the gradual mobilisation of industry for war; also the time in which it became increasingly obvious, as the American historian Harry Elmer Barnes also sets forth in his book On The Origins Of The Great War, that Wilson was firmly decided to enter the war, and postponed the execution of his bellicose plans only because public opinion first had to be won over for these plans.
Flynn’s memoirs must finally remove the ground from the foolish chatter that Wilson was pushed into the war against his will by German submarine warfare. The tapping of the telephone wires leading to the German embassy took place with his knowledge. We also learn this from Flynn’s memoirs. The author adds that the material thus gathered against Germany contributed considerably to the eventual break. This can prove only that this put means in Wilson’s hands to win public opinion for the war long planned by him. And in fact this material was wholly and ideally suited for it. The Memoirs confirm to the fullest extent what unfortunately must still be said, that Germany at that time was represented in Washington in a downright incredibly incompetent and incredibly unworthy way. If we hear that in one passage Flynn writes that the stenographic reports prepared for him daily contained enough material to keep a divorce lawyer busy for months on end, then we get a general idea of what went on.
The Secret Service maintained women agents in Washington and New York whose job it was to sound out the members of the German Embassy, Bernstorff included, whenever anything important happened. One of these woman agents kept a better class apartment in Washington in which the gentlemen met their ladies, and where occasionally even Secretary Of State Lansing dropped in to hear what was new. On New Year’s Day, 1916, when the news of the sinking of the liner Persia became known in the national capital, Bernstorff telephoned five women one after the other in order to make sweet compliments to them and to receive similar compliments in return, although in view of the mood which news of the sinking of the Persia had left behind in the State Department and the White House, he really could not have been lacking in more serious pursuits.
One of the ladies complimented Bernstorff on the fact that he was a great lover, and always would be, even were he a hundred years old. The rest of the gentlemen of the embassy were not differently built. One, whom Flynn designates as the best diplomatic aide in the embassy, had a lady friend in New York, a married woman, with whom he had a daily telephone conversation which each time cost the German Reich twenty dollars, and whom he visited frequently. He told her about everything that happened, and she then took care to bring this information to the right places. Even quite vulgar remarks about Wilson and his consort were made during the telephone conversations, and thus we can without difficulty imagine that thereby the mood of the White House vis-a-vis Germany did not get any friendlier.
From the conversation held at the beginning of March, 1916, we learn how little the embassy knew about the country and the Folk, and with what childish plans it concerned itself. At that time a bill introduced by Senator Gore lay before Congress to the effect that a proclamation be issued warning the American Folk not to use armed commercial vessels. President Wilson most bitterly fought against the proposal. He needed the loss of American lives in order to incite feelings against Germany. People in the German embassy knew that the prospects of the bill were not favourable, so they earnestly concerned themselves with plans to buy Congress.
Only at first they did not know where to get the money. On March 3rd, the Senate decided to postpone the Gore Bill provisionally. The vote in the House was supposed to follow a few days later. So the plan first to buy the House was further eagerly pursued, but in this case at least Bernstorff was reasonable enough to advise against the plan decisively.
The reading of the Flynn article must leave a feeling of deep indignation in the veins of every man of healthy German blood, not only over Wilson’s treacherous policy, but rather, and especially, over the incredible stupidity with which the German Embassy played into the hands of this policy. Wilson duped Bernstorff more and more from day to day. When Colonel House, his adviser, returned from his European journey in May, 1916, Bernstorff travelled to New York to meet him there. Wilson, however, who vis-a-vis Bernstorff had acted as though he had no objections to this meeting, secretly instructed House not to have anything to do with the Count, and to avoid him at all events. Thus it happened. Bernstorff waited in New York in vain. Then he went to a nearby beach and let himself be photographed in a bathing suit with two lady friends in a very intimate position.
The photo accompanies Flynn’s article. At that time it fell into the hands of the Russian Ambassador Bakhmateff, who had it enlarged and sent it to London, where it was published in the newspapers under the caption, The Dignified Ambassador, and it rendered a capital service to Allied propaganda.
This is what the Munchen Latest News writes now. The man thus characterised, however, was a typical representative of German foreign policy before the War, just as he is also the typical representative of the German foreign policy of the Republic. This fellow, who would have been sentenced to hanging by a political tribunal in any other State, is the German representative at the League Of Nations in Geneva.
These men bear the guilt and the responsibility for Germany’s collapse, and, therefore, also for the loss of the Southern Tyrol. And with them the guilt falls on all parties and men who either caused such conditions, or covered them up, or also tacitly countenanced them or did not fight against them in the sharpest manner.
The men, however, who today brazenly try to deceive public opinion anew, and would like to aver that others are guilty of the loss of the Southern Tyrol, must first give a detailed accounting of what they have done for its preservation.
As for my person, at any rate, I can proudly declare that, since the time that I became a man, I have always been for the strengthening of my Folk. And when the War came, I fought on the German Western Front for four and a half years, and since its end I have been fighting against the corrupt creatures whom Germany can thank for this disaster. Since that time I have entered into no compromise with the betrayers of the German Fatherland, either in domestic or foreign policy matters, but immovably proclaim their destruction one day as the aim of my life’s work, and the mission of the National Socialist Movement.
I can all the more calmly endure the yelping of the cowardly bourgeois curs as well as that of the Patriotic Leaguers, as I know the average poltroon of these creatures, for me unspeakably contemptible, all too well. That they also know me is the reason for their hue and cry.
Chapter 16
SUMMARY
As a National Socialist, I see in Italy to begin with the first possible ally of Germany who can step out of the camp of the old coalition of enemies, without this alliance signifying an immediate war for Germany for which we are not equipped militarily.
According to my conviction, this alliance will be of great benefit to Germany and Italy alike. Even if its direct benefit should ultimately no longer exist, it will never become detrimental, as long as both nations represent their interests in the highest sense of the word. As long as Germany views the maintenance of the freedom and independence of our Folk as the supreme aim of her foreign policy and wants to secure this Folk the prerequisite for its daily life, for so long will its foreign policy thinking be determined by our Folk’s territorial need. And for so long will we not be able to have any internal or external inducement to fall into enmity with a State which does not in the least stand obstructively in our way.
And as long as Italy wants to serve her real vital needs as a truly national State, for just so long will she, likewise attending to her territorial needs, have to base her political thought and action on the enlargement of Italian soil. The more proud and independent, the more national the Italian Folk becomes, the less will it in its development ever come into conflict with Germany.
The areas of interest of these two countries, in a most fortunate way, lie so widely apart from each other
