AMERICANS IN GERMANY.

Taihape Daily Times, 22 December 1917, Page 5

AMERICANS IN GERMANY.

According to an obviously incomplete and highly censored account of a debate in tie Reichstag there is a bitter controversy with regard to impressing Americans still in Germany into German service, either as combatants or munition workers (says the “Daily Mail”). It would appear that there have already been such cases. The- Americans in question are those who did not leave Germany when Mr Gerard and a number of his compatriots departed, but remained in the country for private, professional, and business reasons. The formidable colony of American dentists in Berlin, for example, stayed on, including the Kaisers own Court dental surgeon. As the passports of these Americans have meantime expired, they were described in the Reichstag discussion as having become “countryless,” and, acording to one deputy, were now subject to be drafted into the Kaiser’s military establishment. Several deputies urgently recommended the German War Office to move cautiously against Americans owing to the opportunities for “reprisals” among the tens of thousands of unnaturalised Germans in the United States. General Marquardi, speaking for the military authorities, said that the cases in question would ho individually examined on their legal merits and any mistakes remedied, “but men I without a country who were enjoying j the benefits of a foreign land must also accept certain responsibilities.”