44
863.00/1178
Memorandum
by the Minister to Austria (Messersmith) Regarding A Conversation With the Ambassador
in Germany (Dodd)
[Extract]
BERLIN, March 22, 1935.
I had a talk with the Ambassador this morning
and we found ourselves in major agreement on all the subjects discussed.
I mentioned a despatch about the Chinese
Minister in Vienna having said that I had told him that there was a
Japanese-German understanding, if not alliance. I told him that I had not made
such a statement but that I had told the Chinese Minister that in May and June,
1933 I had heard talk in Berlin that the Nazis and Japanese were trying to get
together. I told the Ambassador that I had good reason to believe at the time
that this was so, but I did not know how far it had gone. He said that he
thought this had continued and that he felt that it had gone pretty far and he
was not at all sure that there was not a very thorough understanding and
perhaps even a very far-reaching one.
I told the Ambassador that I thought if these
people stayed in much longer we would have something to reckon with, and that
many good men had already been affected. He said this unfortunately was the
case. We again went over the situation and agreed that no faith
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DOCUMENTS
whatever can be laid in the present regime and its promises, and that we
are going to suffer unless we recognize what they are really after, and this
means unlimited territorial expansion.
G[EORGE] S. M[ESSERSMITH]