RIBBENTROP’S CLAIM

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20077, 25 October 1939, Page 8

RIBBENTROP’S CLAIM

DANZIG PAGEANTRY

RALLY OF DRUMS TALE OF WAR GUILT i (F.lnc. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Rcccl Oct. 25, 1 D.m.) LONDON. Oct. 24. During hi.? speoen at Danzag today, the German Foreign Mil ister, Herr Von Ribbenfrop, said that all the necessary conditions existed for deepening the German-Soviet friendship. “Territorial divergence is out of the question for all time,” he declared. •‘The economic demands supplement c-r.ch other ideally.” Herr von Ribbentrop’s speech was heralded by the rolling of drums and all the pageantry typical of a Nazi rally. He told the Dar.zig people that Britain was responsible for the war

by an anti-German press campaign, secondly by the guarantee to Poland, and thirdly by the rejection of Herr Hitler's peace proposals of October G. “There is not the slightest doubt that the French did not. want war and would prefer peace to-day rather than to-morrow,” he declared. "England forced the war on the French. “Dangerous Game” "The British Government is now playing a dangerous game with the future of its Empire and if it persists it may go down, in history as the grave digger of the British Empire.” Herr von Ribbentrop said that part of the world praised the Munich

agreement as a great work by the British Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, for peace. Nothing could be more false, he alleged. Britain’s promise of assistance to the Czechs transformed into a European crisis a problem >yhich, without interference, would have been solved overnight. Mr. Chamberlain went home and presented a gigantic armaments programme. "I can prove beyond all doubt that this war was systematically and secretly prepared for for years by the British Government,” said the Nazi Minister. “Mr. Chamberlain went to Munich not to prevent war, but to j postpone it till the British rearma-! ment was completed.”