GERMANY'S WAR PLANS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1922, Page 4

GERMANY'S WAR PLANS

SURREPTT&C&S f'rEPAE^T-TONS,

LONDON, November 30

For some weeks past “The Times” has been publishing a series of articles based on what is purported to be unimpeachable. sources .of information regarding the existence of a carefully thought-out plan to restore, the old Cerman army to what it was before the war. Evidence has been produced that all the material for mobilisation orcanisat.ion, clarification of (officers alike in.,regard to records, recruiting, and men, is being kept up, so that at any moment the cadres of the new Heichsheer may be expanded to the old peace-time strength of 800,000, and ultimately, when the plans for resumption of armament production have been matured, to a war strength of many millions. The work is being done, it is said by two official institutions —the “demobilisation” organisation, which has been kept on nearly three years after the armistice,. ostensibly to demobilise an army whose officers and men have long since returned to civil life, and a ; “pensions” organisation, which, osten- ; sibly devoting its attention to the unj fit, has prepared a complete classification of the fit, classifying every officer and man according to his pre-war unit, his musketry and other certificates, his yearly ‘class” his arm of the service, and his place of residence in the event of his being called up. THE GENERAL STAFF.

The German General Staff is kept on almost en bloc in the demobilisation organ known as the Reichsarchir, ostensibly demilitarised and ostentiously 'engaged in writing the official history of the war, while 74 generals and innumerable bfficers of field rank,, who have also put on mufti, are engaged in the pensions organisation, oh pay equivalent to their army rank and seniority, being work which, if it were what it professes to be would be that of an ordinary second division clerk. The German Officers’ Corps, which wa s the very bone and sinew of the old army, is practically intact; not only does it exist unofficially in the powerful Deutsche Offizier Bpnrl and keep up all its old regimental institutions, but it exists officially in the records, carefully kept up to date, of a “Personal Abteilung” of the old demobilisation organisation, which, continually changing its name and flitting from one civil department to another to escape control, is busily looking after its own. At present it is being “kept on the run” by the Qommission, but, as in the ease of so many other of these official organisations, it is being maintained, long after its nominal duties have ceased, in the hbpo that it will survive the Commission long enough to rbsume, or rather to quicken, its real duties the moment the commission lias gone. 'CONCEALED ARMAMENT PLANTS. Under the Treaty of Versailles, German armament production was to be limited to a Scale sufficient for the re'quirements of the 100,000 army, and.it was to be restricted to certain factories

approved by the Commission, the rest )>eing put out of action. The German 'Government demanded the authorisation of a number' of factories with 'special plant sufficient for an army of 'three times the size and so organised 'as to, be capably, especially by working 'overtime of indefinite increase of output . The Commission cut down the list to a. third, and made it a point of principle that no state arsenals such as those at Spandau and Erfurt should bo allowed having at the same time repeatedly orderod that all armament production, in view of the existing surplus stocks, should cease. The Spandau arsenal, nominally transformed into a private commercial factory, but with the German Government holding all the shares, ha s continued to manufacture millions of so-called “blank” cartridges (they have since been found to lie indistinguishable from

'service cartridges) under the very nose of the Commission and concealed its pi hint. The Erfurt establishment has gone on surreptitiously manufacturing spare parts for machine-guns, and has taken on hundreds of extra workmen to manufacture “sporting arms” and ammunition in quantities out of all proportion to the requirements of the trade in order to keep ’their riflemaking plant intact. Only the other day millions of rounds of small arms ammunition were discovered at Frank-furt-on-th e-Oder. A SECRET CONFERENCE.

Most significant of all is a secret 'conference!, report from a very Reliable source, at Wurzburg, in Bavaria, on September 26 and 26, of representatives of the leading industrial firms in 'Germany convened to discuss the resumption of large scale armament production by firms which had failed to secure authorisation from the Control Commission. That such a conference could and should, be held at the present moment lends a new and sinister significance to the recent discovery by the Control Commission at a factory at Dusseklorf (which had long ago been given a clearance certificate allowing it to turn over to commercial production) of a large number of hidden machines for the manufacture of rifle bullets. Evidently Colonel Sprosser

knew what he was talking about when at the conference of the Deutsche Offizier Bund at Pforzheim on June 24

he declared,: —“Measures have been taken to maintain the productive capacity of German armaments with the object of having an army ready to enter the field in as short a time as possible; the industrial organisations have fully justified the confidence reposed in them.”

In regard to tarits and transport, it is believed the German Government has never made any declaration or surrender at all, and in regard to this matter the Disarmament Section of the Com mission appears to hare been strangely lax. As ijor the military clauses of the Treaty, which forbid the import or export of arms, their evasion has been open, flagrant and notorious —arms have been exported to Tyrol,) ho Hungary and to Ireland—and the Control Commission has encountered' nothing hut continual obstruction from the German r Government in its at-, tempts to ensure that this article should be given the necessary legislative and administrative sanctions. SERIOUS SIGNIFICANCE. ‘"Such are the facts/* says “The Times.” “We believe the Control Oomgnssiop is almost 1 upapimous ip jtg ip-

of their. t serious signifies Mice, aid jliat & baa representations fib fifie cil dn. Ke '{ss&’,, W^iasising the need at present for . .the continuAiioO of strict'' doitfoi. Time iis required for the German plans to mature; for the same reason time in required for the Commission of Control to defeat. them.

“Unfortunately, the British representation as a whole is not as strong as it might be. We believe the British position to have been prejudiced from the start by an insurable. tendency to under-estimate both the. duration and the, .magnitude of the task. An impression appears to exist that British officers who show zeal and pertib&city in detecting the tricks and bad. fAitfis of the Germans are discouraged. And ms--1 countenanced on the ground that .they ‘make trouble’ with the German ..authorities. It seems to he forgofifieii in some quarters that the Control .. Committee was never sent to GerfAafiy to cultivate personal popularity with the Germans.”