NAZI BOASTING

Evening Star, Issue 23369, 12 September 1939, Page 7

NAZI BOASTING

BRITAIN’S WITHERING ANSWER REPLY TO GOERING'S SPEECH PEACE IMPOSSIBLE WHILE HITLER (SIGNS (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 11. (Received September 12, at 11 a.m.) A Ministry of Information bulletin states that official circles consider Field-Marshal Goering’s speech revealed the bankruptcy of the German policy. Herr Hitler has made many promises to foreign countries, and none has been kept. Therefore it is not surprising that no confidence is placed in any assurance ho may give, and Britain is justified in requiring that peace should be concluded with a German Government whose word may be trusted. The German Government has also misled the German people, who were promised “ peace and honour.” They have not got peace, because the Gorman Government deliberately pursues a policy of violence which made war inevitable. , They have not got honour, because the world recognises the crudity and falseness of the German Government’s charges against Poland. The “ sickening technique,” as the Prime Minister called it, has become too familiar. There is no country in Europe which does not regard the present German Government as pursuing a dishonourable policy which is a menace to the security and indepen dence of all

Britain is fighting for a return to decency in international relations. Until this is achieved no country is safe.

Germany may say she has no aims in the west', but the tale of limited German territorial ambitions has been told too often to inspire the slightest confidence. Britain does not desire another Versailles, as Field-Marshal Goering falsely alleges, nor the collapse of Germany, but a just and enduring peace with any honourable German Government. FAILURE OF NAZI STRATEGY. The significance of the War Cabinet’s decision to prepare for three years or more of war continues to engage the attention of the newspapers. To ‘ The Times ’ it appears as meaning “in the first place Nazi political strategy has wholly failed. This strategy, of which traces appeared in Field-Marshal Goering’s clumsy and rather uneasy broadcast on Saturday was aimed at gulling the western Powers into a dishonourable peace after the consummation of the crime against Poland. But Nazi Germany in 1939 has been guilty of the same blunder as the Kajser’s Germany in 1914. In the words of the late Lord Oxford, the ‘ capital blunder ’ of the Germans then was to ask themselves ‘ could any nation, least of all the cold, calculating. phlegmatic, egotistic British nation, embark upon a costly, bloody contest from which it had nothing in the way of profit to expect? They forgot we had something at stake which cannot be translated into what one of our poets called ‘ the lore of nicely-calculated less or more.’ They have forgotten it again. And by the same wishful thinking have been given the same answer to the same misguided question.” ‘ The Times ’ also makes the point that the “ prudent but not pessimistic decision means that the plans prepared for organising national effort during the war will be put into operation complete and without delay. It is no exaggeration to say that on comparison with 1914 these plans have advanced our readiness for war by between one and two years.” “ALL THE WORLD KNOWS.” The ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ commenting editorially on Field-Marshal Goering’s speech, says: “When the German armies violated 'Belgium in 1914 their leaders counted on a short war. FieldMarshal Goering has told the unfortunate German people that Herr Hitler’s campaign for the destruction of Poland will not last more than four weeks. That boast was given a withering answer in an hour. It was uttered by the announcement of the British War Cabinet that its policy was being framed and plans made for a war which may last three years or longer. Whatever successes Herr Hitler’s perfidy and desperate haste may win in Poland, the wild exaggerations with which Field-Marshal Goering thinks it necessary to advertise them suggest uncomfortable disappointment. AH the world now knows they will be only the beginning of the struggle to which Nazism has challenged civilisation and into which the British will throw all their strength.”