At 5 p.m. on 19th December, the German Minister asked to see Mr. Walshe urgently. He arrived a quarter of an hour later and told Mr. Walshe that he had a wire from Berlin saying that three additional officials had been appointed to the staff of the German Legation in Dublin and they would arrive at the Limerick airport (sic) by a Luft Hansa civil plane at daybreak, on 21st December. Mr. Hempel handed in an official Note1 making a formal request for permission for the new officials and the crew of the aircraft to enter Éire and for particulars of the call sign and wavelength of the Shannon wireless station, which Herr Hempel wished to wire to Berlin at once. Copy of this Note, together with a list of the names of the new officials, is attached hereto.
2. Mr. Walshe told Herr Hempel that the proposed increase in the staff of the Legation would occasion us political embarrassment at the present time, and he felt sure that the proposal was the work of some official in Berlin who did not possess that keen appreciation of the situation here which Herr Woermann and the other senior officials of the German Foreign Office had always shown. He would wire Mr. Warnock at once and instruct him to tell the Foreign Office that the proposed arrangement was politically impossible from our point of view.2 In the meantime, he was going to see the Taoiseach and he would mention the matter to him at once.
3. After Mr. Walshe's departure, Herr Hempel remained with Mr. Boland, and the Secretary of the German Legation, Herr Thomsen, arrived and handed Herr Hempel the text of the Berlin telegram which apparently had not been fully decoded when Herr Hempel left the Legation. On reading the text, Herr Hempel asked with great insistence that we should not wire Mr. Warnock, that we should deal with the matter through him, and that, pending consideration of the general question, the airport should be cleared 'in order to save time' and we should let him have at once the call sign and wavelength of the airport wireless station.
4. On Mr. Walshe's return from the Taoiseach about 7.30 p.m., a wire was sent to Mr. Warnock telling him to see the Under Secretary of State and tell him that the proposed arrangement was impossible from our point of view, that it might be reviewed at a later time, but that, for the moment, it was out of the question.3
5. On the morning of the 20th December, Herr Hempel called again on Mr. Walshe. He argued with considerable emphasis that the German Government had the technical right to increase the staff of its Legation here if it wished to do so, and that for us to refuse to allow them to exercise that right would be a serious matter. He referred at one point to the possibility of a breach of diplomatic relations.
Mr. Walshe told Herr Hempel that we did not deny the technical right, our attitude was, not that the right did not exist, but that its exercise in present circumstances would occasion us serious political embarrassment. We were entitled to expect that the German Government would have regard to our interests in the matter, and therefore we had told Mr. Warnock to ask the Foreign Office in Berlin to withdraw the request.
Herr Hempel promised to wire Berlin and put the considerations advanced by Mr. Walshe before his Government, but he urged again that, pending some decision, the airport at Rynanna4 should be cleared and he should be given the call sign and wavelength of the Shannon station.
6. On the same day, Mr. Walshe saw the Minister for Coordination and the Minister for Defence and informed them of the development. He had already mentioned the matter to Mr. Aiken on the previous evening.
7. Nothing further was heard of the matter until the morning of the 26th December, when Herr Hempel came to see Mr. Walshe and told him that he had received a wire from Berlin the previous evening to the effect that, as the German request represented no more than the exercise of a right which they undoubtedly possessed, there was no room for discussion.
Mr. Walshe re-emphasised the considerations which made the request impossible and unreasonable from our point of view. He pointed out that it would furnish propaganda against Irish neutrality, which Germany had professed herself so anxious to see maintained, with a strong weapon and would aggravate the delicate situation created by the American and British Press campaign about our ports. The matter was put to us on the basis of the German Government's right to increase the staff of its Legation if it wished to do, but even Herr Hempel himself would not pretend that the present staff of the Legation was inadequate. Germany had thus no apparent interest in the matter commensurate with the political embarrassment which the proposed arrangement would create for us, and, in the circumstances, we could only regard the German persistence in the request as most unreasonable. He hoped it would not be necessary for us to return a positive refusal, and he would therefore ask Herr Hempel himself to urge his Government again to withdraw the proposal. If he was not prepared to do this, it was perhaps better that he should see the Taoiseach.
Herr Hempel said that he hesitated to ask for an interview with the Taoiseach about what was really a routine administrative matter, and for him to do so would perhaps give the request an aspect of political importance which it had not got. However, he would consider the matter.
8. During this interview, Herr Hempel made it quite clear again that, in fact, the request was being treated by his Government as a matter of very considerable importance. He referred again to the possibility of 'serious consequences' following if the request were refused, but, when Mr. Walshe told him that for Germany to break off relations with us over what Herr Hempel himself had characterised as a routine administrative matter would expose the German Government to ridicule throughout the world, Herr Hempel at once said he had no instructions to say that the refusal of the request would mean the breaking-off of relations. In fact, when he referred to the possibility of 'serious consequences' following a refusal of the request, he was voicing merely a personal impression. He had no instructions whatever on the point.
9. Throughout the interview Herr Hempel seemed to be at some pains to remove any unfavourable impression created by the insistent and somewhat menacing tone in which he had put forward the matter at earlier interviews.
10. On the morning of the 27th December, Herr Hempel called again on Mr. Walshe and said he would like to see the Taoiseach. Much of the ground covered at earlier interviews was traversed, and once again Herr Hempel seemed in a calmer and more resigned frame of mind.
11. Herr Hempel saw the Taoiseach on 28th December. The Taoiseach told him he would like the request withdrawn, but he indicated that, if the request were persisted in, it would be refused.
12. In the course of an informal conversation on 29th December, Herr Hempel told Mr. Boland that he had reported these conversations to Berlin; he was very worried as to what the reactions would be, but he thought it possible that, as an alternative, the German Government might instruct him to visit Berlin. He hoped there would be no difficulty if he were so instructed. He would leave his wife and children here.
