Volume 6 1939~1941


Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 54 NAI DFA 205/4

Minute by Frederick H. Boland

Dublin, 19 October 1939

The German Minister told me on 9th October that he has taken up with Berlin the question of the ________ 1 broadcast from the Hamburg station on 14th of September to which reference had been made by Mr. McGilligan in the Dáil and which had occasioned a certain amount of comment here.2

He had a reply from Berlin to the effect that the scripts of all the English talks given from the Hamburg station round about the dates mentioned had been carefully examined and no trace of any allusion to Ireland, either derogatory or otherwise, had been found in them. Herr Hempel said that the telegram he had received asked him to obtain further particulars with regard to the station from which, and the date and time at which, the alleged broadcast was supposed to have been made, whereupon further enquiries would be instituted. I thanked Herr Hempel for his communication, and said that, if any further particulars with regard to the supposed broadcast were brought to our notice, we would furnish them to him.

[initialled] F.B.

1 Word missing in original.

2 See Dáil Debates vol. 77, col. 195 (27 Sept. 1939). Deputy P.S. Doyle questioned de Valera (on McGilligan's behalf) on the content of alleged broadcasts from Hamburg.