Leland B. Morris

Morris became the American Chargé d'affaires in Germany in October 1940. Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States was officially neutral and retained a diplomatic corps in Berlin. This included diplomat George Kennan. Morris, serving as Chargé d'Affaires, was the highest-ranking American diplomat in Germany at the time (the last United States Ambassador, Hugh R. Wilson, was recalled in 1938 in protest of Kristallnacht). On December 11, after the Pearl Harbor attack, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop summoned Morris to his office and read to Morris Germany's formal declaration of war and addressed him by accusing the United States of violations of neutrality and other acts of war.[3] According to Kennan, after reading the declaration Ribbentrop screamed at Morris, "Ihr Präsident hat diesen Krieg gewollt; jetzt hat er ihn" ("Your President has wanted this war, now he has it"), turned on his heels and left the room.[4][5] Official diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany thus ended.

On December 14, most of the American diplomatic corps still in Germany, including Morris, Kennan, and Associated Press journalist Louis P. Lochner were detained by German authorities and held at a former resort near Bad Nauheim.[6] In February 1942, through Swiss diplomats, Morris reported conditions of the detainment to his superiors in Washington. While there was relative freedom of movement around the resort grounds, he wrote of food shortages and weight-loss amongst the group.[6] In May, Morris and the other Americans were transferred to Lisbon, Portugal where they departed for New York aboard the SS Drottningholm and exchanged for German prisoners being held in the United States.[6]

Morris died on July 2, 1950, at the age of 64, in Washington, D.C.[7]

• U. S. Department of State - Office of the Historian page