The Charge d'Affaires in the United States to the Foreign Ministry (Berlin)

top secret Washington, October 4, 1940—8:22 am

No. 2141 of October 3 Received October 5-3:00 PM

The United States and World War II: Military and Diplomatic Documents, pp. 18-19.

With reference to your instruction P 187 g. which arrived here August 6 and to your telegram 545 of May 22.

1. For propaganda purposes the Embassy in telegram 545 of May 22 was granted $15,000 per month (Information Department), for the period April to September. This amount has been used exclusively for financing the Embassy periodical Facts in Review. This was necessary because the number of copies, as a result of constantly growing interest and demand, increased to 80,000 a week, or 360,000 a month, and the number of pages from the original 4 to from 12 to 16 according to the type of propaganda material to be included. Please continue to make this sum available regularly each month. Since owing to the larger circulation the Embassy periodical has been coming out as a publication of the Information Library, the latter has received a tremendous number of inquiries, especially regarding the program of the German shortwave transmitter. Since September 1, therefore, the Information Library has been sending the program to 25,000 interested persons every week, which is extremely valuable for promoting the German short-wave transmitter. This involves expenses amounting to $3,000 a month, which I request be authorized to the Embassy regularly every month starting September 1. This sum also includes the expenses of the monitoring office of the Information Library, which takes down the material of the short-wave transmitter (Lord H[aw] H[aw]) and disseminates it either through F[acts] i[n] R[eview] or in other suitable ways. Thus a total of at least $18,000 a month should be made available for pure propaganda work, all of which is to be turned over by us to the Information Library. Thisdoes not include the funds for the regular budget of the Information Library particularly for purposes of cultural policy.

2. For press purposes besides the usual peace time press fund the Embassy applied for a lump payment of $50,000 for a special press war fund, and was granted it in instruction 379 of April 8. This fund is used for press policy activities, exertion of influence on newspapers, informants, etc. Most of these payments are of such a delicate nature that the method of settlement mentioned in your telegram No. 749 of July 8 is used for them. Furthermore, funds for press policy activities of the consular offices in the United States are taken from here. This fund is already so depleted that I request that it be replenished in the same amount of $50,000, with which I believe I can manage until the end of the fiscal year, to judge from the experiences thus far during the war. This sum would only suffice to maintain the press-policy work so far undertaken by the Embassy.

3. Since the expenses for (1) propaganda, and (2) for press-policy work depend upon political developments and special directives from you. which naturally cannot be anticipated at this time. I must reserve the right as in the past to request in each case special funds for special tasks, to be accounted for as such.

Thomsen