Grimm–Hoffmann affair

[1] Following the February Revolution, socialist-democratic Swiss National Council (Nationalrat) member and International Socialist Commission Secretary Robert Grimm traveled to Petrograd.

Grimm, accompanied by Russian-Jewish-Italian socialist activist Angelica Balabanoff, facilitated the movement of political refugees — most prominently Vladimir Lenin — from Switzerland to Russia via Germany and Sweden.

[4][3] In Petrograd, Grimm and Balabanoff were accused by the press of being German agents and working toward a separate peace between Germany and Allied countries.

On May 26/27, 1917, Grimm sent a telegram to Federal Councilor (Bundesrat) and Foreign Affairs Minister Arthur Hoffmann stating that Russia was eager for peace with Germany.

On June 13, 1917, a Swiss envoy informed his superiors that a cable message telegram between Bern and Petrograd sent by Hoffmann was deciphered by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

There, after consultation with Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, the declaration has been made regarding annexation to the effect that Germany does not desire any increase in her territory or any economic or political expansion.

[2]In the telegram, Hoffmann confirms the improbability of a German offensive attack along the Eastern Front, which would threaten a separate Russian–German peace.

[6] Grimm was censured, but ultimately cleared of acting with German imperialistic interests and actively supporting a separate peace.