Uncle Sam: "So we are only a dollar making people, are we?"
Germany never had the slightest intention of attacking the United States of America, and does not intend to do so now. Germany never desired war against the United States of America, and she does not desire it to-day. How did things develop? We told the United States more than once that we announced the unrestricted use of the submarine weapon in the expectation that England could be made to observe in her blockade policy the laws of humanity and international agreements.
If the American nation regards this as a reason for declaring war against the German nation, with which it has lived in peace for more than a hundred years; if by this action it wants to increase bloodshed, not we shall have to bear the burden of responsibility for it. The German nation, which feels neither hatred nor hostility towards the United States of America, will also bear this and overcome it.
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg,
Berlin, March 29, 1917.