NOVEL RETICENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1941, Page 4

NOVEL RETICENCE

HITLER’S> BEER CELLAR SPEECH

LITTLE REPORTED AND IN CONFLICTING VERSIONS. STORY OF INTENDED ATTACK BY RUSSIA. LONDON, November 9. No complete report has yet been received in London of Hitler’s speech in the Munich Beer Cellar on Sunday. Never since Hitler came to power has a speech of his been less publicised. In the old days his annual oration to his Nazi comrades was broadcast from the Beer Cellar. Last year, Hitler made his speech early in the day and recordings were broadcast in the evening. This year not even recordings have been broadcast. From German and German-control-led stations various versions have been given of what Hitler said about the position at Leningrad and on other subjects. He is said to have alleged that he had full reports of a secret session of the House of Commons at which Mr. Churchill said that Russia would attack Germany within a year or eighteen months.

BOASTFUL TAUNT

BRITISH INVASION IN WEST INVITED. LONDON, November 9. Challenging Britain to invade in the West, Herr Hitler declared: “I have made such preparations in the West that the British can step in any time.” He was speaking at the Munich anniversary of the Nazi putsch of 1923. He expressed confidence in Germany’s ability to develop offensive forces not only in the Reich but also in all Europe. He decried the “loud-mouthed strategists” in London who announced nonexistent victories while the German soldiers were actually gaining tremendous victories on the Eastern Front. The Germans, he claimed, were superior to the “murder strategists” of the West. Hitler also referred to “stupid efforts of certain Americans to create nightmare plans for gigantic armaments. I have not begun rearmament during the last few months; I have increased the Reich’s gigantic arms potential manyfold since the outbreak of war.” Hitler declared that 3,600,000 Russian prisoners had been taken, and that altogether between 8,000,000 and 10,000,000 Russian soldiers (approximately the whole Russian Army) had been eliminated.

SPEECH SUBEDITED?

LONDON SUGGESTION. SOME SWEEPING CLAIMS, f (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) LONDON, November 9. Hitler's speech, made from the Munich Beer Cellar, was not broadcast as on former occasions. In....stead, extracts were put out from the Berlin radio. It is suggested by one London paper that Goebbels sub-edited the speech. Certainly the extracts available are not so flamboyant as Hitler’s last speech, in which he announced a pending victory on the Eastern Front. Late in the afternoon, the German News Agencyissued a fuller version of the spech. Hitler, after dwelling on his victories in the West, said: “I then decided, and for the last time, to hold out my hand to England. That mad drunkard who now for years has directed England immediately saw in this a new sign of my weakness. I was described again as a man who no longer dared to continue this struggle. I did not foresee the future other than as it has turned out, but apart from all the glory I also foresaw sacrifices which I wanted to avoid. I wanted above all to spare our people.” Hitler described Italy as a State that suffers the same ills as Germany and even greater ones. “I know,” he ( said, “the Duce regards this struggle in the same light as we do. Italy, too, is poor and overpopulated, always at the disadvantage of not knowing whence its daily bread shall come. The Duce has made a vow and no one on earth can break it.” Hitler described the Russians as “the Huns of modern times” and his latest aggression as a' crusade against Bolshevism, and added, “In the Soviet paradise exists in reality the most miserable slavery ever known. German soldiers have seen in a country where abundance oozes from the ground a people who can baiely call a stewpot their own. They live in miserable hovels , slatternly, lousy and filthy—millions of intimidated, suppressed and neglected human beings in a state of semi-starvation. It will be a real salvation for Europe when this danger disappears and when the abundance of that soil is used for the benefit of Europe.” Hitler claimed that Soviet prisoners so far totalled 3,600,000, and that Russian casualties were between 8,000,000 tond 10,000,000, excluding those slightly injured. The Germans so far, he said, had captured or destroyed 15,000 planes, 22,000 tanks, and 27,000 guns. STALIN BROUGHT DOWN.

Hitler also said: “I have never used the word ‘blitzkrieg’ because it is an idiotic word, but if it can be used respecting any campaign it should be used for this one. Never has a gigantic empire been smashed and defeated in a shorter time than Soviet Russia. The German soldier has brought down Stalin —the companion of Judas in murder. “People say to us, ‘Why don’t we march?’ I answer, because it is raining, or ■ snowing, or perhaps because we have not quite finished the railroads. The speed of this advance is not decided by those wonderful British strategists who decided the speed of their retreat, but exclusively by us.” Referring to the Battle of the Atlantic, Hitler said he had given orders that his ships were not to fire against American attackers, but to defend themselves when attacked. “If American ships on the President’s orders fire they do so at their own risk,” he said. “I should court-martial any officer who did not defend himself.”