This letter [of which the facsimiles are of the first and last pages] was written by Wedell to Bernstorff to justify his action in abandoning the work of gathering passports for fraudulent use. The full text follows, in English. It is an interesting document, not only because it reveals a lot of weak human nature in the agents of “German efficiency” but also because it definitely revealed Von Papen and Albert as principals in the German plots as early as three months after the war started:
HOTEL ST. GEORGE Felix Fieger, Proprietor, Nyack-on-Hudson, December 26, 1914. His Excellency The Imperial German Ambassador, Count Von Bernstorff, Washington, D. C. Your Excellency: Allow me most obediently to put before you the following facts: It seems that an attempt has been made to produce the impression upon you that I prematurely abandoned my post in New York. That is not true.
I. My work was done. At my departure I left the service well organized and worked out to its minutest details, in the hands of my successor, Mr. Carl Ruroede, picked out by myself, and, despite many warnings, still tarried for several days in New York in order to give him the necessary final directions and in order to hold in check the blackmailers thrown on my hands by the German officers until after the passage of my travellers through Gibraltar; in which I succeeded. Mr. Ruroede will testify to you that without my suitable preliminary labors, in which I left no conceivable means untried and in which I took not the slightest consideration of my personal weal or woe, it would be impossible for him, as well as for Mr. Von Papen, to forward officers and “aspirants” in any number whatever, to Europe. This merit I lay claim to and the occurrences of the last days have unfortunately compelled me, out of sheer self-respect, to emphasize this to your Excellency.
II. The motives which induced me to leave New York and which, to my astonishment, were not communicated to you, are the following:
1. I knew that the State Department had, for three weeks, withheld a passport application forged by me. Why?
2. Ten days before my departure I learnt from a telegram sent me by Mr. Von Papen, which stirred me up very much, and further through the omission of a cable, that Dr. Stark had fallen into the hands of the English. That gentleman’s forged papers were liable to come back any day and could, owing chiefly to his lack of caution, easily be traced back to me.