740.00112 European War 1939/132: Telegram
The Minister in the Netherlands (Gordon) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 23—11:30 a.m.]
194. Some days ago Secretary General informed me that German Minister here had given him an aide-mémoire conveying the point of view of the German Government towards any yielding by the neutrals to British pressure concerning neutral trade with Germany. Today he gave me a copy thereof. While short, it contains the essence of the DDPK article transmitted to the Department by Berlin’s number 1226, September 13 [12], 1 p.m.34 and is extremely sharp in tone, closing with the following threat: if neutral governments should in any way comply with British demands Germany would reserve to itself the fullest freedom of action to combat with all means such participation of neutral states in the economic war directed against Germany.
Secretary General states that when he received this document from the German Minister he qualified it to the latter as “pure nonsense” and when a similar communication was delivered by the German Ambassador to the Belgian Foreign Minister the latter declared it “inadmissible”.
The Dutch have been debating whether to send a reply to the German communication but present indications are that they will not; as they feel that the aide-mémoire is probably a paraphrase of an instruction drafted by Ritter35 whom they know of old, they are inclined not to take its unusual tone too seriously.