the Warburg firm that heavily financed the German war effort, was also a
natural target. German ambassador Johann von Bernstorff, along with
Straus and another agent, Bernhard Dernburg, were in close contact with
the banker even as they engaged in open propaganda work. (Von Bern-
storff also asked that Kuhn, Loeb, with the cooperation of the American
Red Cross, serve as treasurer for the German Red Cross in the United
States.)^12 Although Louis Marshall thought that his friend’s involvement
on behalf of Germany was ill-advised, Schiff corresponded (before the
sinking of the Lusitania) with the Austrian ambassador and with Arthur
Zimmermann of the German foreign office.^13 Meanwhile, other active de-
fenders of Germany who were well-known Americans—Harvard professor
Hugo Muensterberg, Semitics scholar Morris Jastrow, and publicist
George Sylvester Viereck (years later a leading propagandist for the Nazis
in the United States)—turned to Schiff with ideas on how to arouse Amer-
ican sympathy.^14
The Schiff papers do not reveal the extent of the banker’s aid to his native
land. He secretly guarded those activities even from his friends. He well
knew the purpose of the German mission in America, but he claimed, with
respect to Straus, that he broke off connections when he learned that the
man was a German secret agent out to propagandize among the Jews. Over-
all, the tenor of Schiff’s correspondence suggests that he was genuinely
sympathetic toward those who appealed for his cooperation but that in most
cases he offered no more than verbal encouragement. If requests of him de-
manded public demonstrations of loyalty to Germany or if the one who ap-
proached him was too aggressive publicly, acts that would have belied the
banker’s insistence on American neutrality, Schiff put an end to the associa-
tion. It was one thing for him to say that he sympathized with Germany but
quite another to have his name linked with what he considered to be extre-
mist schemes. Besides, as he told Viereck, any time he uttered something
meant for Germany’s benefit he was attacked in the German press.^15
In 1914, Schiff wrote a friend in Munich that American public opinion
“is not as much in favor of Germany as we all would wish, but with a group
of friends we are doing our best to spread the truth.” Schiff’s support of
Germany, however, was not unconditional. He refused to contribute to the
German-American Literary Defense Committe, explaining that he found
some of its statements offensive. In addition, when advising Zimmerman
and others on how they could best secure American Jewish sympathy, he
was the Jew as well as the German. Calling Germany the birthplace of anti-
Semitism, he asked first for an end to government prejudice that kept Jews
out of civil and professional positions and ignored the ardent patriotism of
German Jews.^16
Although Germany wanted generous financial backing from Schiff more
than his words of sympathy, the banker did not comply. Evidence that Schiff
The World at War 193