At the beginning of the war, when the British censors refused the American correspondents in Germany the right of telegraphing to the United States via England, the Berlin Government granted permission to the United Press, The Associated Press and the Chicago Daily News to send wireless news via Sayville. At first this news was edited by the correspondents of these associations and newspapers in Berlin. Later, when the individual correspondents began to demand more space on the wireless, the news sent jointly to these papers was cut down. This unofficial league of American papers was called the "War-Union." The news which this union sent was German, but it was written by trained American writers. When the Government saw the value of this service to the United States it began to send wireless news of its own. Then the Krupp interests appeared, and the Overseas News Agency was organised. At that moment the Krupp invasion of the United States began and contributed 800,000 marks annually to this branch of propaganda alone.
Dr. Hammann, for ten years chief of the Berlin Foreign Office propaganda department, was selected as president of the Overseas News Agency. The Krupp interests, which had been subscribing 400,000 marks annually to this agency, subscribed the same amount to the reorganised company. Then, believing that another agency could be organised, subscribed 400,000 marks more to the Transocean News Agency. Because there was so much bitterness and rivalry between the officials of the two concerns, the Government stepped in and informed the Overseas News Agency that it could send only "political news," while the Trans-ocean was authorised to send "economic and social news" via Sayville and Tuckerton.
This news, however, was not solely for the United States. Krupp's eyes were on Mexico and South America, so agents were appointed in Washington and New York to send the Krupp-bred wireless news from New York by cable to South America and Mexico. Obviously the same news which was sent to the United States could not be telegraphed to Mexico and South America, because Germany had a different policy toward these countries. The United States was on record against an unlimited submarine warfare. Mexico and South America were not. Brazil, which has a big German population, was considered an un-annexed German colony. News to Brazil, therefore, had to be coloured differently than news to New York. Some of the colouring was done in Berlin; some in New York by Krupp's agents here. As a result of Germany's anti-United States propaganda in South America and Mexico, these countries did not follow President Wilson when he broke diplomatic relations with Berlin. While public sentiment might have been against Germany, it was, to a certain degree, antagonistic to the United States.
Obviously, Germany had to have friends in this country to assist her, or what was being done would be traced too directly to the German Government. So Germany financed willing German-Americans in their propaganda schemes. And because no German could cross the ocean except with a falsified neutral passport, Germany had to depend upon German-Americans with American passports to bring information over. These German-Americans, co-operating with some of the Americans in Berlin, kept informing the Foreign Office, the army and navy as well as influential Reichstag members that the real power behind the government over here was not the press and public opinion but the nine million Americans who were directly or indirectly related to Germany. During this time the Government felt so sure that it could rely upon the so-called German-Americans that the Government considered them as a German asset whenever there was a submarine crisis.
When Henry Morgenthau, former American Ambassador to Turkey, passed through Berlin, en route to the United States, he conferred with Zimmermann, who was then Under Secretary of State. During the course of one of their conversations Zimmermann said the United States would never go to war with Germany, "because the German-Americans would revolt." That was one of Zimmermann's hobbies. Zimmermann told other American officials and foreign correspondents that President Wilson would not be able to bring the United States to the brink of war, because the "German-Americans were too powerful."
But Zimmermann was not making these statements upon his own authority. He was being kept minutely advised about conditions here through the German spy system and by German-American envoys, who came to Berlin to report on progress the German-Americans were making here in politics and in Congress.
Zimmermann was so "dead sure" he was right in expecting a large portion of Americans to be disloyal that one time during a conversation with Ambassador Gerard he said that he believed Wilson was only bluffing in his submarine notes. When Zimmermann was Under Secretary of State I used to see him very often. His conversation would contain questions like these:
"Well, how is your English President? Why doesn't your President do something against England?"
Zimmermann was always in close touch with the work of Captains von Papen and Boy-Ed when they were in this country. He was one of the chief supports of the little group of intriguers in Berlin who directed German propaganda here. Zimmermann was the man who kept Baron Mumm von Schwarzenstein, former Ambassador to Tokyo, in the Foreign Office in Berlin as chief of foreign propaganda and intrigue in America and China. Mumm had been here as Minister Extra-ordinary several years ago and knew how Germany's methods could be used to the best purpose, namely, to divide American sentiment. Then, when Zimmermann succeeded Jagow he ousted Mumm because Mumm had become unpopular with higher Government authorities.
One day in Berlin, just before the recall of the former German military and naval attaches in Washington, I asked Zimmermann whether Germany sanctioned what these men had been doing. He replied that Germany approved everything they had done "because they had done nothing more than try to keep America out of the war; to prevent American goods reaching the Allies and to persuade Germans and those of German descent not to work in ammunition factories." The same week I overheard in a Berlin cafe two reserve naval officers discuss plans for destroying Allied ships sailing from American ports. One of these men was an escaped officer of an interned liner at Newport News. He had escaped to Germany by way of Italy. That afternoon when I saw Ambassador Gerard I told him of the conversation of these two men, and also what Zimmermann had said. The Ambassador had just received instructions from Washington about Boy-Ed and von Papen.