STALE NEWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1940, Page 5

STALE NEWS

REPORTS OF HITLER’S SPEECH. DROPPED IN ENGLAND BY NAZIS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 2. German planes late last night dropped thousands of leaflets containing Hitler’s speech of July 19 over the south-east and south-west of England. The leaflets, which were headed, “A last appeal to reason,” suggested that the British public had no knowledge of the speech. A London message on July 22, referring to the Nazi. peace offensive, stated: Germany is basing her propaganda on the British reaction to Hitler's speech bn the entirely false premise that a war-mongering British Government had withheld the contents of the speech from the British public. This is quite untrue, as the following statistics show. On the night of the speech the 8.8. C. devoted six minutes, or 1500 words, in its 9 p.m. news bulletin to a summary of what the Fuehrer said. Next morning six leading British papers, "The Times,” the ‘Daily Telegraph,” the “News Chronicle,” the “Daily Herald,” the “Manchester Guardian,” and the "Daily Mail” each gave it more than two columns. In addition all the papers carried lengthy comment. As a result, England, from end to end, knows all about it. VALUED AS SOUVENIRS. SALE IN AID OF RED CROSS. (Received This Day. 9.15 a.m.) LONDON. August 2. The leaflets dropped from German planes apparently were enclosed in large brown paper parcels, which opened some distance from the ground. They bore a complete English translation of Herr Hitler’s Reichstag speech of July 19, under the heading of: "A Last Appeal to Reason, by Adolf Hitler.” Police and A.R.P. workers, usingtorches, scoured the district and picked up as many as possible. One warden who collected copies said: “I am taking these to a factory and hope to sell them for a shilling and give the money to the Red Cross Fund.” The leaflets were also showered in Welsh areas, falling on streams, fields and roads. A dozen bombs were dropped on a Welsh coastal town, causing very slight damage.