Obviously, Germany had to have friends in this country to assist her, or what was being done would be traced too directly to the German Government.  So Germany financed willing German-Americans in their propaganda schemes.  And because no German could cross the ocean except with a falsified neutral passport, Germany had to depend upon German-Americans with American passports to bring information over.  These German-Americans, co-operating with some of the Americans in Berlin, kept informing the Foreign Office, the army and navy as well as influential Reichstag members that the real power behind the government over here was not the press and public opinion but the nine million Americans who were directly or indirectly related to Germany.  During this time the Government felt so sure that it could rely upon the so-called German-Americans that the Government considered them as a German asset whenever there was a submarine crisis.

When Henry Morgenthau, former American Ambassador to Turkey, passed through Berlin, en route to the United States, he conferred with Zimmermann, who was then Under Secretary of State.  During the course of one of their conversations Zimmermann said the United States would never go to war with Germany, “because the German-Americans would revolt.”  That was one of Zimmermann’s hobbies.  Zimmermann told other American officials and foreign correspondents that President Wilson would not be able to bring the United States to the brink of war, because the “German-Americans were too powerful.”

But Zimmermann was not making these statements upon his own authority.  He was being kept minutely advised about conditions here through the German spy system and by German-American envoys, who came to Berlin to report on progress the German-Americans were making here in politics and in Congress.

Zimmermann was so “dead sure” he was right in expecting a large portion of Americans to be disloyal that one time during a conversation with Ambassador Gerard he said that he believed Wilson was only bluffing in his submarine notes.  When Zimmermann was Under Secretary of State I used to see him very often.  His conversation would contain questions like these: 

“Well, how is your English President?  Why doesn’t your President do something against England?”

Zimmermann was always in close touch with the work of Captains von Papen and Boy-Ed when they were in this country.  He was one of the chief supports of the little group of intriguers in Berlin who directed German propaganda here.  Zimmermann was the man who kept Baron Mumm von Schwarzenstein, former Ambassador to Tokyo, in the Foreign Office in Berlin as chief of foreign propaganda and intrigue in America and China.  Mumm had been here as Minister Extra-ordinary several years ago and knew how Germany’s methods could be used to the best purpose, namely, to divide American sentiment.  Then, when Zimmermann succeeded Jagow he ousted Mumm because Mumm had become unpopular with higher Government authorities.