The authorities, unconvinced, maintained a watch on the activities of the Russians. They were particularly suspicious of the unusual number of diplomatic couriers passing between Berlin and Petrograd. Their number was said to reach nearly four hundred. The press began to voice these suspicions. Joffe, with a fine show of indignation, declared that it "was beneath his dignity" to take any notice of them. The tenuity of Herr Joffe's dignity and the value of his word became apparent on November 5, 1918, in the revolution week, when a box in the luggage of a courier arriving from Russia was--"accidentally," as the official report put it--broken open at the railway station. Its contents proved to be Bolshevik propaganda literature inciting the Germans to institute a reign of terror against the _bourgeoisie_, to murder the oppressors of the proletariat and to overthrow the government. One of these appeals came from the Spartacan _Internationale_ and contained a carefully worked-out program for instituting a reign of terror.
Even the _Vorwärts_, which had been reluctant to credit the charges against _Genosse_ Joffe, was now compelled to admit that he had lied and misused his diplomatic privileges. Joffe, still denying his guilt, was escorted from the embassy in the middle of the following night by an armed guard and placed aboard a special train for Moscow, with the whole staff of the embassy and of the Rosta Telegraph Agency, ostensibly a news agency, but really an institution for carrying on Bolshevik propaganda. Once safe in Russia, Joffe admitted his activities in Germany and gloried in them. In a wireless message sent on December 8, 1918, he said the Bolshevik literature had been circulated "through the good offices of the Independent Socialists." He declared further that a much greater number of weapons than had been alleged had been handed over to the Independent Barth, together with "several hundred thousand roubles." He added:
"I claim for myself the honor of having devoted all my powers to the success of the German revolution through my activities, which were carried on in agreement with the Independent Socialist ministers Haase and Barth and with others."
Following the publication of this wireless message, Cohn also issued an explanation of his activities in connection with Joffe. He said: