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Anonymous ID:WXocNYY2 Sat 21 Oct 2017 20:18:03 No.2610135 View View Reply Original Report

A terse paragraph in the Irish national dailies on 3 May 1945 started the avalanche of international protest. Under the heading ‘People and Places’, the Fianna Fáil-backed Irish Press reported laconically that the Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs, Éamon de Valera, accompanied by the Secretary of External Affairs, Joseph Walshe, ‘called on Dr Hempel, the German minister, last evening, to express his condolences’. The condolences were for Hitler who had committed suicide on 30 April. The Irish Times was prevented by the censor from publishing the following report from Reuter on 3 May: ‘Éire delegation mourns Hitler. Lisbon, May 3. The Éireann Minister in Lisbon today hoisted the German swastika at half mast over the legation as a sign of mourning for Hitler’. While the report that de Valera had condoled with the German minister was accurate, the Lisbon report was incorrect on one count. The swastika did fly at half mast over the Irish legation in Lisbon; but it had not been placed there by an Irish diplomat. While the Irish occupied the ground floor, the headquarters of German intelligence for the Iberian peninsula was situated on the floor above. They, not the Irish, had hung out the swastika in sympathy.
Both pieces of information—one accurate and the other false—were sent by the international wire agencies around the world. Éamon de Valera, the leader of neutral Ireland, was widely interpreted internationally as being pro-Axis and personally sympathetic to Hitler. The swastika at half mast was further proof, if proof were needed, that the Irish diplomatic service abroad had been instructed to show respect for Hitler and his fallen Reich.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:WXocNYY2 Sat 21 Oct 2017 20:19:39 No.2610151 Report

Quoted By: >>2610170

>>2610135
No such instruction had been issued by the Department of External Affairs to its mission abroad. One Irish envoy, Leopold Kerney, had, without instructions, called on 3 May at the German embassy in Madrid to express his condolences. The reports of his visit were carried by the Spanish news agency, EFE. Fortunately, for Ireland’s tattered reputation the letters of gratitude he received remained unpublished. A former Spanish foreign Minister and philo-Nazi, Ramon Serrano Suner, wrote with embarrassing warmth to Kerney about de Valera’s action:

The brave, Christian and human attitude of President de Valera [sic] moves me to write you these lines to express to you my admiration for your country and to assure you again of my friendship.

The Conde de Mayalde Jose Finat, who had been Spanish ambassador in Berlin, wrote to Kerney:

The sympathy which both as Spaniard and as Catholic I have always felt for the noble people that you represent has continually increased during the war before the Christian and dignified attitude of its government. Today, in the presence of the noble [cabelleroso] gesture of Mr de Valera, president of Ireland [sic], I desire to manifest to Your Excellency my admiration and respect.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:WXocNYY2 Sat 21 Oct 2017 20:21:30 No.2610170 Report

Quoted By: >>2610185

>>2610151
In the meantime, Michael McDunphy, the secretary of President Douglas Hyde, had been reported on 4 May as having ‘called on the German minister [yesterday] to express condolence on behalf of the President’. That report, too, was carried in all the Irish dailies and sent around the world by the wire agencies.

Unwanted international attention

Within forty eight hours, de Valera’s Ireland—which had managed to remain below the radar for the duration of the war—was the subject of unwanted and unwarranted international attention. De Valera had been ‘begged’ by Frederick Boland, the assistant secretary of the Department of External Affairs, not to go. Although Walshe’s position is less clear, he probably took the same view as Boland. It is likely that de Valera was more influenced in his decision by the advice of cabinet colleagues who viewed the issue in its narrow, domestic context. The counsel of the professional diplomats, as was evident within hours of the ill-fated visit, proved the more reliable and trustworthy. Nevertheless, de Valera continued to try to rationalise his action and justify what he had done in the teeth of the international protests. He wrote to his close friend Robert Brennan, the Irish envoy in Washington, that he had ‘noted that my call on the German minister on the announcement of Hitler’s death was played up to the utmost. I expected this’, and he added:

I could have had a diplomatic illness but, as you know, I would scorn that sort of thing…So long as we retained our diplomatic relations with Germany, to have failed to call upon the German representative would have been an act of unpardonable discourtesy to the German nation and to Dr Hempel himself. During the whole of the war, Dr Hempel’s conduct was irreproachable. He was always friendly and invariably correct—in marked contrast with Gray. I certainly was not going to add to his humiliation in the hour of defeat.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:WXocNYY2 Sat 21 Oct 2017 20:22:59 No.2610185 Report

Quoted By: >>2610209

>>2610170
De Valera felt that shirking his visit would have set a bad precedent. It was, he thought, of considerable importance that the formal acts of courtesy should be made on occasions such as the death of a head of state and that they should not have attached to them any further special significance, such as connoting approval or disapproval of the politics of the state in question or of its head: ‘It is important that it should never be inferred that these formal acts imply the passing of any judgements good or bad’, he concluded. In Dáil Éireann, de Valera stated that his visit ‘implied no question of approval or disapproval or judgement of any kind on the German people of the state represented here’. He added that there was little publicity given to the fact that the Dáil had been adjourned on the death of President Roosevelt.
Dev myopic and naive

De Valera appeared to be both myopic and naive. His considerable political skills deployed during the course of the war had won him the grudging respect of the US envoy and amateur diplomat, David Gray. The British representative, Sir John Maffey, understood de Valera better than his US counterpart. Exasperated as he had been on many occasions by de Valera during the course of the war, Maffey had come to admire the Irish leader. Both Maffey and Gray were fully aware that de Valera was not pro-Axis and that he had been of considerable covert assistance to the Allies during the course of the war. He had never shown any admiration for Hitler or for the Nazis during the 1930s or during the war years. Yet, Gray’s immediate response on confirming the news of de Valera’s visit was to suggest to Washington that he should be recalled in protest. He also encouraged Maffey to persuade London to follow the same course. Neither the US nor the British felt it necessary to take such an extreme course of action.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:WXocNYY2 Sat 21 Oct 2017 20:25:12 No.2610209 Report

Quoted By: >>2610235

>>2610185
But de Valera was left in absolutely no doubt about the depth of the anger of both Churchill and Truman. The victorious Allies knew how to exact retribution and the coldness of Washington and London was felt by Dublin when it came to trying to procure scarce supplies in the difficult months which followed the ending of the war.
Although Frederick Boland had strongly advised against the visit, the Department of External affairs could hardly have anticipated the deluge of international criticism which descended on them. The Irish envoy in Washington, Robert Brennan, sent a telegram to Dublin within hours of the visit:Radio Commentator announced item in bitter and caustic tone. Although similar action by Portugal is reported Chief gets headlines in all papers seen. Particularly because of horror atrocity stories of German prison camps during past months. Anti-German feeling was never so bitter as now.

The latter was a reference to the photo and film coverage of the liberation of the concentration camps which had, in the previous months, brought out the hidden horror of the Holocaust.

US press coverage

The major US papers reported the visit and carried scarifying editorial comment. The New York Times, under the heading ‘Mr de Valera’s regrets’ wrote that de Valera may have merely been following ‘what he believed to be the protocol required of a neutral state’. However, the editorial stated caustically: ‘Considering the character and the record of the man for whose death he was expressing grief, there is obviously something wrong with the protocol, the neutrality of Mr de Valera’. The Herald Tribune was even more forceful; it entitled its editorial ‘Neutrality gone mad’ and commented:

In this time of the breaking of nations when the stream of history becomes a rushing millrace, there is much to arrest the attention of the world.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:WXocNYY2 Sat 21 Oct 2017 20:27:28 No.2610235 Report

Quoted By: >>2610259

>>2610209
But, despite all preoccupation with greater events, there is still time for a glance and a gasp at the spectacle of the prime minister of Eire marching solemnly to the German legation to present his government’s condolences on the death of Adolf Hitler while the pious Dr Salazar places the flags of Portugal at halfmast to mourn the passing of the enemy of the human race.
If this is neutrality, it is neutrality gone mad—neutrality carried into a diplomatic jungle—where good and evil alike vanish in the red-tape thickets: where conscience flounders helplessly in slogans of protocol, and there is no sustenance for the spirit but mouldy forms of desiccated ceremonies… Obviously, for all the colourless connotations of the word, neutrality can go rancid when it is kept too long. The Washington Post headlined its editorial ‘Moral myopia’. The paper did not question the ‘correctness’ of de Valera’s action. Concluding that the visit provided an indication of ‘why diplomatic usages have fallen into such disrepute’, it added:

The neutrality which these governments practised throughout the course of the war was dictated by expediency… Now, however, the war in Europe has been won; the neutrals need no longer fear Hitler or the Reich. Can it be that the moral myopia they imposed upon themselves in the face of danger has now blinded them to all ethical values? Or is it merely that a preoccupation with protocol has atrophied their emotions? In sober truth, there could be no real neutrality in this war… Even in death, Hitler forced a choice upon the neutral governments. By their response, they have judged themselves and that judgement in the case of Éire and Portugal is a condemnation in the eyes of all free people.

What de Valera had quickly come to discover was that he appeared, at that time, to be unique in his action among the leaders of the Western democracies. Neither Switzerland nor Sweden had adhered to the protocol.

Anonymous

Anonymous ID:WXocNYY2 Sat 21 Oct 2017 20:29:57 No.2610259 Report

Quoted By:

>>2610235
That left the Irish leader in the dubious company of the Iberian dictators, Salazar of Portugal and Franco of Spain. All inquiries by the Department of External Affairs to their envoys abroad yielded the same answer—de Valera was alone in his adherence to the protocol.
Brennan confirmed the gravity of the Irish situation in a telegram on 5 May:
Among general public, incident has attracted more attention than anything else arising from our neutrality. There is considerable adverse criticism among Irish and some defenders… I know how to answer all this…but I am not sure it is wise to have controversy at the present moment and think that I should wait for a few days, subject to your opinion.

That proved to be very solid advice. De Valera’s action was not capable of being understood objectively or sympathetically. It had been indefensible. But to engage in public debate with the leading US newspapers would simply have been foolhardy. The depth of antagonism among certain Irish Americans may be gauged by the following letter from Angela D. Walsh of New York:

Have you seen the motion pictures of the victims of German concentration camps, de Valera? Have you seen the crematoriums? Have you seen the bodies of little children murdered by Nazi hands? Have you seen the flourishing cabbages—cabbages for German food—flourishing because of the fertiliser, human remains of citizens from almost completely Catholic countries like Poland? These were citizens of a conquered country—and ÉIRE might easily have been a conquered country, neutrality or no neutrality. Have you seen the living dead, de Valera? Skin stretched over bone, and too weak to walk?

Angela Walsh was not alone in her condemnation of de Valera.

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