My Three Years in America

by Graf von Johann Heinrich Bernstorff

Of the three attempts at sabotage in Canada the Welland Canal affair caused at the time the greatest sensation in New York. The Welland Canal connects Lake Ontario with Lake Erie, west of Niagara Falls, i.e., through Canadian territory, and it is a highway for all seaborne traffic on the great lakes, and particularly for the transport of corn to the coast. It was therefore considered advantageous from a military point of view to attempt the destruction of the canal. This had apparently already been projected in September by a German adventurer, calling himself Horst von der Goltz, but for some unexplained reason the idea had been abandoned at the last moment.

Captain Hans Tauscher, Krupps' representative in New York, was charged in 1916 with having supplied dynamite for this scheme, but was acquitted on his calling evidence to prove that he had no knowledge of the use which was to be made of the explosive.

The first information that I had about the attempt on the Welland Canal was the report of the proceedings against Captain Tauscher. Even to-day the full truth of the matter has not yet come to light. The leading figure of the drama, von der Goltz, while on his way to Germany in October, 1914, fell into the hands of the British. When Captain von Papen returned to Germany in December, 1915, under safe conduct of Great Britain, his papers were taken from him at a Scottish port; among them was his American check book, and an examination of this led to the identification of von der Goltz as the individual who had planned the destruction of the Welland Canal. The latter, it would seem, was thereupon offered, by the English authorities, the alternatives of being shot or of returning to America under a guarantee of personal safety, and giving evidence against Germany in open court. He chose the latter course, and turned "State's evidence" in New York, where he was kept under constant supervision. His statements, however, in view of the pressure brought to bear upon him, and of his doubtful past, can only be regarded as of somewhat doubtful value.

During the whole course of my period of office in the United States I heard nothing about the case of Albert Kaltschmidt, the German resident in Detroit who after America's declaration of war, was arrested on a charge of conspiring—apparently some time in 1915—to blow up a munition factory, an arsenal and a railway bridge in Canada, and sentenced in December, 1917, to penal servitude, together with four of his confederates, and the statements made in the American Press which fastened upon me the responsibility for the deeds of violence then simmering in the brain of this individual, on the ground that, in October, 1915, he had received a considerable advance from a banking account opened in my name and that of Privy Councillor Albert, I most emphatically deny. Kaltschmidt, who was a well-known business man had acted on behalf of Albert and von Papen in several negotiations, with the object of forestalling the Entente's agents in the purchase of important war material, and had consequently been in receipt of considerable sums of money for this purpose, both from von Papen and from the general funds of the Embassy. This had, of course, earned him the undying hatred of the outwitted agents of our enemies, and he had also, in company with his sister and brother-in-law (both of whom were later convicted of complicity in his designs), got himself disliked for the prominent part he played in the agitation for an embargo on the export of arms and munitions of war. It seems quite possible that the charges against him were the work of private enemies, and that the American Criminal Court, which condemned him, was hoodwinked by the schemings of certain Canadians; the fact that these criminal designs on Kaltschmidt's part only came to light after the United States had become a belligerent adds probability to the supposition. One thing, however, is certain, that even if the alleged plot on the part of Kaltschmidt and his relations had any real existence, the initiative was theirs alone, and cannot be laid at the door of the Embassy.

The affair of Bopp, the German Consul-General at San Francisco, was also one which aroused much feeling against Germany. This gentleman had already, as early as 1915, been accused of having delayed or destroyed certain cargoes of military material for Russia, with the aid of certain abettors; his subordinates, von Schack, the Vice-Consul, and von Brinken, the Attaché, were also believed to be implicated. In the following year he was further charged with having incited one Louis J. Smith to blow up a tunnel on the Canadian Pacific Railway, with the idea of destroying supplies on their way to Russia. All three officials were therefore brought to trial, but dismissed with a caution. However, at the end of 1916, he and his two subordinates were again brought up on a serious charge and sentenced on the testimony of their chief lieutenant, Smith, who turned State's evidence[*] against them, to a term of imprisonment.

[Footnote *: For the benefit of the reader not familiar with American legal procedure, it should be explained that in cases where several individuals are charged in common with an offence, any one of them may be assured of a pardon if he turns State's evidence and informs against his associates. This course of action, reprehensible as it undoubtedly is, from a moral point of view, has the advantage of facilitating the task of police spies!]

All three resigned from their posts and lodged an appeal, but were again found guilty in the second instance, after America had entered the war. Consul-General Bopp and his colleagues if they had in reality committed the offences of which they were accused, were certainly actuated in no way by the Embassy or any high authorities, but must be held solely and entirely responsible for the course they adopted. In his reports to me, Bopp invariably asserted his innocence, and I am rather inclined to believe that he really fell into one of the traps which the Allied Secret Service were always setting for our officials in America.

According to common report, Consul-General Bopp, Schack and von Brinken later underwent yet a further term of imprisonment for their complicity in the so-called Indian conspiracy. I am quite certain that nothing was ever heard of this affair until after the American declaration of war; then, however, newspaper reports were shown me, the effect that in the year of 1916 an attempt had been made by the Indian Nationalists in San Francisco, with German co-operation, to bring about an armed rising in British India—an absolute "wild-goose chase," which, of course, came to nothing. It was asserted in this connection that a cargo of arms and ammunition on board the small schooner Annie Larsen, and destined for our forces in German East Africa, was, in reality, dispatched to India via Java and Siam; but no proofs were brought forward in support of this statement. In connection with this design, four persons were sentenced at Chicago, in October, 1917, and ten (according to Bielaski twenty-nine in all) at San Francisco, in August, 1918, to long terms of imprisonment, for having "illegally conspired in the United States to make war against the territories and possessions of His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India." It seems that this affair was exploited with great success by the American propaganda service to inflame the minds of its people against Germany. As a matter of fact, I cannot too strongly condemn on principle all military enterprises undertaken from neutral territory; but, from the purely moral point of view, I cannot but remark that it ill befits America to give vent to righteous indignation over such activities, considering the facilities she afforded to Czechs and Poles, during her period of neutrality, for supporting to the utmost of their power their blood brothers in their designs against the Central Powers. Besides, even if it be admitted that the schooner in question was actually sent by the Indian Nationalists with her cargo of arms, it is absurd to regard the dispatch of this small supply of war material as a crime, and gloss over the fact that whole arsenals and ammunition columns were being shipped every day to France!

I now propose, in conclusion, to deal with the illegal activities attributed by American opinion to the secret agents controlled by the German military authorities, and sent by them to the United States.

As regards the machinations of Franz Rintelen, my first information about him reached me in the late autumn of 1915, and even now I have to rely for most of the details on the American papers. Rintelen, who was a banker by profession, and during the war held a commission as Captain-Lieutenant in the Imperial Naval Reserve, appeared in America in April, 1915, and presented himself to me during one of my periodical visits to New York. He declined at the time to give any information as to his official position in the country, or the nature of his duties; I therefore wired to the Foreign Office for some details about him, but received no reply. Some time afterwards he applied to me for proofs of identity, which I refused to grant him, and as his continued presence in New York was considered undesirable by both von Pap en and Boy-Ed, they took steps to have him sent back to Germany. He was captured, however, by the British, on his voyage home. Shortly after this, the affair of Rintelen became a matter of common talk, and the first indications of his mysterious intrigues for the purpose of interfering with the delivery of munitions from the United States to the Allies appeared in the Press; the Foreign Office thereupon instructed me to issue an official démenti on the subject. Mr. Lansing, the Secretary of State, however, informed me that, as a matter of fact, Rintelen, while in England, had confessed himself to be an emissary of the German Government. I then heard from Captain Boy-Ed that Rintelen, by representing himself as empowered to purchase large stocks of raw material for Germany in the United States, had obtained a considerable advance from the Embassy's funds. This fact was one of the main reasons for the American Government's request in December, 1915, that Boy-Ed should be recalled. I was never able either in America or Germany to discover the details of Rintelen's intrigues; he himself never allowed anything to leak out about it at the Embassy, and was unable to send any report on the subject to Germany, as he was handed over to the United States by the British after the American declaration of war and sentenced to some years' penal servitude. The current story in the United States is that he was proved to have been in touch with the Mexican General Huerta with the object of bringing about war between the two Republics—an offence of which the famous list of Mr. Bielaski makes no mention. Further, he was supposed to have founded, in conjunction with a member of Congress, and two individuals of evil reputation, a society of workmen in Chicago, With the object of obtaining from Congress an embargo on the export of arms—an undertaking which according to the aforementioned report cost a great deal and proved entirely valueless from the point of view of the German Government. It is not known whether this undertaking brought Rintelen and his assistants within the reach of the Sherman Act against conspiracies inciting industrial disorders, or whether he had, in addition, made efforts to bring about strikes in munition works. He was certainly suspected of endeavoring to cause trouble among the dockers of New York, in the hope of preventing or delaying the shipment of war material to the Allies; but even Bielaski admitted before the Senate Committee that there was no tangible evidence of this.