Teleprinter message from Frederick H. Boland to G.P. Sarsfield Hogan (Dublin)
(No. 2900) (Urgent) (Secret) (Copy)

Mr. Hogan, Department of Finance.

My recollection of the matter to which you refer is as follows:-

The agreement signed in Berlin early in 1945 provided that 10% of the monies collected should be placed at the disposal of H[empel]. The Emergency Powers Order previously made provided however, that all monies collected under the Order should be ‘paid into or disposed of, for the benefit of the Exchequer’. It was therefore impossible to pay any funds collected under the Order to H and it was considered undesirable to amend the Order. My recollection is that, as a result of this difficulty, it was arranged that £5,000 or thereabouts, being the equivalent of 10% of the monies collected by that date, should be paid to H from another source which would be recouped by the transfer of an equivalent amount to the Exchequer from the special account provided for under the Emergency Powers Order.

In any case, my recollection is quite clear that a sum of £5,000 or £5,500 was handed over to H by me personally in March or April. When the German collapse came most of this money was still in H’s hands. He kept it intact until all the private resources of himself and the other members of the staff of the former German Legation had been exhausted. At that point he spoke to me and explained the following difficulty which he felt himself to be in. He felt that as this money had been transferred to him for the upkeep of the Legation, it was doubtful whether he could use it for the support of himself and his former colleagues now that the Legation had ceased to exist, but that on the other hand, he and his former colleagues had no other resources and, assuming that they did not use this fund, they would have no option but to open with us the question of financial assistance to tide them over their difficulties. After consultation with the then Minister¹ and with his authority, I then wrote H a letter to the effect that, in our view the monies were properly utilisable for the support of himself and his former colleagues as long as they remained in Ireland: that we felt sure that whenever there was a German Government free to consider on its merits it would endorse our view: but that in the last resort, if the German Government when constituted refused to take that view, we would be prepared to regard the sum involved as a set-off pro tanto against our claims.

I am pretty certain that this is as accurate an account of the matter as one can expect to get from recollection, but I should be surprised if the documentary records of the whole business in the Department of External Affairs are not reasonably complete. In particular, they should contain H’s receipt for the payment made in March or April 1945 and a copy of the letter from me to him referred to in the preceding paragraph.²