GOEBBELS IN DANZIG

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 June 1939, Page 5

GOEBBELS IN DANZIG

TELLS PEOPLE TO HOLD OUT PENDING RETURN TO REICH. POLISH CLAIMS MOCKED. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright DANZIG, June 18. Calling on the citizens of Danzig to hold out. pending the return of the Dree City to the Heidi, Dr Goebbels, the German .Minister of Propaganda. who arrived today, in an impromptu speech, declared: “The world should know from past experience that Hie Fuehrer does not make empty speeches. The world commits a dangerous mistake if it believes the Fuehrer shrinks from threats or surrenders to blackmail. Therefore you can look confidently to the future.

“Germany stands at your side, just as you remain loyal to it. The lying war-inciting Press of London and Paris asserts you do no want to return to the Reich. I came in order to strengthen your determination. Only a jealous, unreasonable world can undertake to resist the urge of one people to join another.” Dr Goebbels said that, according to Warsaw, towns at river mouths belong to the countries through which the rivers flow; therefore Rotterdam belongs to Germany, because the Rhine is German. This method of solving matters was lame, and almost comical.

“Poland declares the Oder River her frontier. It is surprising she does not claim the Rhine, where she would meet her new British allies, who regard the Rhine as their frontier,” he said. “Lord Halifax declares he wants the Danzig question settled in a friendly manner, therefore Britain has given Poland a blank cheque and attempts to encircle Italy and Germany in order to revive her policy of 1914. They err if they believe they are confronted by a weak, bourgeois Germany.”

A crowd punctuated the speech with the cries, “The Fuehrer shall come, to Danzig!” “One Fuehrer, one people, one Reich!”