Memorandum from Joseph P. Walshe to Eamon de Valera (Dublin)

Taoiseach, Minister for External Affairs.

Sir John Maffey came to see me this morning after his return from London where he had spent a few days. Before going over, we had had one or two talks about the German internees during which I made it clear that, if they were to be repatriated to Germany, they should not be treated as prisoners of war either in transit or on their arrival in Germany.

Maffey told me today that his authorities would endeavour to arrange for the transfer to Germany direct by air. Should that method prove impossible or too inconvenient, the internees would have to be taken through England on their way to Germany but would not be regarded during the passage as German prisoners. On arrival in the British zone in Germany, they would be treated as ordinary disarmed German service personnel, but, when disbanded, if their homes happened to be in the Russian zone, the British could take no responsibility for their treatment there.

On being questioned, Maffey said that there was no idea of forcing them to go into the Russian zone against their will.

It seems to me that this offer should be accepted. The internees arrived here in the course of war operations, and they must have understood from the beginning that they would be repatriated to Germany at the first opportunity. They can have no objection – and it is unlikely that they will offer any – to going back their own country.

In the case of the one internee who has married an Irish girl, facilities will be given for her journey to Germany at a later date.

2. Maffey thought that we, in common with the other neutrals, might receive a request from the United Nations concerning the situation of the personnel of the German Legation.

I told him that the late German Minister was now a private individual residing here with his family and we did not consider it appropriate to take any steps to have him transferred to Germany until such time as he himself expressed a wish to go there. So far as I was aware, Dr. Hempel intended, after six months or so, to go back to Germany in order to get news about his relatives and his property and with a view to taking his family back when living conditions in Germany made it possible.

Maffey asked that we should try and keep the situation in regard to the Legation personnel as fluid as possible. It would not be a good thing, he thought, to have any publicity about Hempel and his family or members of the Legation finally settling down in this country.

I expressed the hope that we were not going to receive any further notes from the United Nations. The war was now over and that barren method of dealing with us could surely be dropped.

Maffey was not so sure that they would not be obliged to send us further notes, but he hoped that it could be avoided.

I did not give Maffey any hope that we would accede to any request to send the Legation personnel back to Germany without their complete agreement and goodwill.

3. Maffey then went on to refer to un-interned Germans, making particular mention of Becker¹ and Fassenfeld.² He suggested that it would be a good thing for relations between the two countries if we could make a clean sweep of all the Germans who came to Ireland since the establishment of the Hitler régime.

I replied that we did not regard these Germans as a problem. We had our own security organisation to see that Germans and other non-Irish nationals conducted themselves properly while in this country. Our problem with regard to German nationals, of whom there were very few now in this country, was proportionately very much simpler than that which faced the British authorities. According to the latest statistics I had seen, there were some 75,000 German nationals in Great Britain.

He did not pursue this point any further, but the fact that he mentioned it at all betrays a somewhat unhealthy interest in our internal affairs.

4. Finally, Maffey spoke about the German and other wartime agents at present interned in Athlone. He said that his authorities could give no undertaking that these agents would be immune on return to their own countries from punishment for any offence which they might have committed under their own domestic laws. The British could give an assurance, on the other hand, that the three British subjects concerned would not be punished under British military law or emergency powers. That would not preclude their being put on trial under the ordinary law.³ The German nationals would be returned to the British zone in Germany and the control authorities would take them over there.

This is the most difficult part of the whole problem. We would have no assurance that their ultimate punishment, if handed over to the British, would not be worse than they are at present undergoing here, though Maffey says their situation would be much better. On the whole, we do not seem to have any alternative with regard to this special class of internees except to keep them in Ireland until they make a request for their repatriation. It is possible that some of them, if asked now, might opt to be handed over to the Allies on the off-chance of purchasing their freedom in exchange for the story of their experiences, whether true or false.