Letter from Frederick H. Boland to Joseph P. Walshe (Holy See)

You will like to see this copy of a note which we have sent to the heads of missions abroad, for their information, about the decision to deport the German agents still remaining in this country.¹ Although nobody quite liked the business, I am convinced myself that, on the whole, the decision taken was the right one. Remembering the anxious days of 1940 and 1941, and the contempt which these people showed for our national interests and safety in coming here at such a critical juncture of the war, I find it difficult to have patience with any suggestion that the very people who showed such a disregard for this country and the fate of its population five years ago should now be entitled to the privilege of residence here and membership of our national community. Actually everyone here seems to take the same view, and it is amazing how little criticism there has been of the decision.

I forget whether I ever told you the outcome of the difficulties we had with Rugby when the men were released last September. Rugby did not go so far as saying that the release of the men was a breach of an undertaking that we had given, but he did say that it was contrary to the 'statement of intention' contained in the letter you wrote to him in July, 1945,² and he argued with some force that, as he had used that letter as a means of warding off pressure on us to comply with the demand of the Allied Control Council, our action in releasing them placed him personally in an extremely difficult position. After two or three weeks of great tension - in the course of which Gerry Boland made clear that the re-internment of the men would involve his leaving the Government - we finally arranged an interview between Rugby and the Minister for Justice in the course of which the latter, entirely voluntarily and without any request or pressure of any kind, informed Rugby that he did not intend to re-intern the men, but he proposed to send them back to Germany within six months when the winter was over and conditions in Germany were better. The present decision to get rid of the men follows on that conversation. While there is thus no basis for any suggestion of Allied pressure, and Rugby himself would be the first to deny that there was anything of the kind, we are very anxious, for obvious reasons, to keep these exchanges with the British Representative entirely secret.

Suggestions have been made in the papers that, since their release last September, the men were engaged in some kind of Nazi conspiracy in this country. Needless to say, that is absolute bunkum.