table for the purpose. Our
mutual personal relations were always of the best. On the other hand,
it was naturally difficult to make any headway with our official
business, since each received independent instructions from Berlin.
This was least the case with Dr. Dernburg, because his responsible
authority as far as propaganda was concerned was partly the Foreign
Office itself and partly the semi-official "Central Office for
Foreign Service." The other three gentlemen, however, were all
responsible to home departments other than mine. Captain von Papen
and Commander Boy-Ed frequently held back from me the instructions
they had received from Berlin in order not to embarrass the Embassy
by passing on military or naval information. Financially, too,
the four officials were completely independent and had their own
banking accounts, for which they had to account individually to
their respective departments at home. Only Privy Councillor Albert
had, for the purchase on a large scale of raw material, definite
funds which were in any event under my control. Concerning the
activities of these four gentlemen, countless legends have been
spread in America and in part have found their way to Germany. In
spite of all the reproaches levelled against them, and indirectly
against myself, with regard to propaganda--I shall speak of the
so-called conspiracies in Chapter V.--nothing has reached my ears
of which these gentlemen need in any way be ashamed. Individual
mistakes we have, of course, all made; in view of the ferocity and
protraction of the struggle they were inevitable. But in general
the German propaganda in America in no way deserves the abuse with
which it has been covered, in part, too, at home. If it had really
been so clumsy or ineffective as the enemy Press afterwards claimed,
the Entente and their American partisans would not have set in
motion such gigantic machinery to combat it. One need only read
G. Lechartier's book, "Intrigues et Diplomaties a Washington," to
see what importance was attached to our propaganda by the enemy.
In spite of all the bitterness which the author infuses into his
fictitious narration, admiration for the German activity in the
United States shines through the whole book. Further, at the end
of 1918 a Commission of the Senate appointed to investigate German
propaganda, as a result of the publication of protocols on this
subject, repeatedly stated that its work had in no way been in
vain, but r