TALK OF PEACE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20129, 26 December 1939, Page 7

TALK OF PEACE

‘ONLY AFTER VICTORY’ german attitude XMAS OFFER RUMOURED MESSAGE TO HITLER (Reed. Dec. 23, 2 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 22. The (Rome correspondent of the British United Press says that according to political circles Signor Mussolini on Thursday entrusted Herr Himmler. Chief of the Gestapo, with a special message to Herr Hitler, after .which Herr Himmler, after telephoning Herr Hitler, returned to Berlin a day earlier thar expected Officials decline to discuss the reports that the effect of the message refers to a Christmas peace offer which, according to feelers from Germany received in Rome, it is understood, suggested that if Britain and France abandoned their insistence on a reconstruction of Czechoslovakia and Austria, Herr. Hitler was willing to deal generously as regards Poland. Berlin messages state that Dr Goebbeis, Minister of Propaganda, in an address at a political Christmas party, said that Germany’s existence was at stake. The enemy was not concealing their goal to strike down Germany and dismember and split her UP-

“Either we resign as a great Rawer or win the war,” he said, “ine whole plutocratic world is against the Socialist ( German nation in the hope of annihilating it. “Germany’s totalitarian war united the battle front and the home front by the same sacrifices and national obligations. We promise soldiers that our home front will do its duty and bear the inevitable sacrifices in order to lighten them. We shall talk peace only after victory.”