711.62/116: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Dodd) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 18—3:21 p.m.]
256. Yesterday I saw Foreign Office officials. Nothing decisive said. Today I talked with Dr. Schacht. He spoke for the first time almost with bitterness about our country and the President’s Chautauqua speech.90 He insisted on bilateral agreements, said he would buy nothing else from the United States, would not pay interest on debts to the banks of the United States, and was almost violent in his criticism of recent American-Brazil relations.91
When I asked about possible lowering of trade barriers in order to reduce tendency to war, he said of course another great war would mean economic collapse and world-wide communism. But he then added that Germany had been preparing for war to the limit for 3 years and had paid for everything. He said that the only chance for Germany to cooperate for world peace would be international guarantee of colonial possessions and room for her increasing population; that the United States ought to urge these things upon England, a country which was certainly losing its world position.
When I named some things done and said here that alienated American public opinion, Schacht agreed but closed with the wish that next November the President would call an international conference for making proper concessions to Germany.
- Delivered on August 14, 1936, Department of State, Press Releases, August 22, 1936, p. 163.↩
- see vol. v, pp. 247 ff.↩