MASKED GERMAN ARMY.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 October 1921, Page 5

MASKED GERMAN ARMY.

POLICE FORCE SUSPECT.

FULL MILITARY EQUIPMENT.

London, Sept. 29. The correspondent of the Times at Berlin states that fresh confirmation of Germany’s opposition to disarmament is afforded by the military leaders in Bavaria, who peremptorily refused the information demanded by Allied officers regarding the numbers of the Reichswehr discharged during the first six months of 1921 in order to check the building up of masked reserves. The refusal was based on an Interpretation of the Versailles Treaty. More significant still is the refusal of Bavaria to communicate the figures of the Budget, including the army and police estimates -for 1919, 1920, and 1921.

M. Nollet recently handed a Note to the German Government pointing out that nothing had been done to convert the so-called “safety police” into a civilian force, in accordance with the Allied demand, but the “safety police” remained a mobile field force, the strength of which was kept secret. An even deeper mystery surrounds the irregular forces in East Prussia, and M. Nollet emphasised the fact that the police invariably take the field in any trouble on the frontier regarding Silesia, and in the farcical communist war in Saxony, with full field equipment, machine guns, field kitchens, and armoured cars, while the army remains in barracks.

The Times, in a leading article, confesses that it is not impressed with the official enumerations of the material destroyed by Germany. The real menace, it says, is the steady and systematic preparation for a return to the militarist system, to be accomplished by the retention of camouflaged officers and men, and the keeping alive of the Spirit of militarism, especially oy une Krumper system, whereby recruits are passed rapidly through the ranks and intensively trained. Though the numbers of the army do not exceed the limit fixed by the Treaty, the Times urges the enlargement 'and strengthening of the Disarmament Commission.”