 Although Bogdan-Pitești, Domnica and Caragiale paid a mysterious visit to Berlin in early 1916, they were never listed as foreign spies by Siguranța Statului counter-intelligence.Bogdan-Pitești's name then surfaced in a February 1916 conversation between German statesman Matthias Erzberger and Raymund Netzhammer, the Catholic Archbishop of Bucharest.Erzberger asked if the Vlaici landowner could ever help advance the Germanophile cause; the Archbishop, a loyal German subject, replied that Bogdan-Pitești was unreliable.