WAR GUILT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1942, Page 6

WAR GUILT

NAZIS’ RESPONSIBILITY ALONE. The condemnation in France of political leaders without the slightest semblance of a trial has raised the indignation of Frenchmen everywhere. This “crime against the mother country” formed the subject of a broadcast to France by M. Dejean, Free French National Commissaire for Foreign Affairs. “The responsibility for this war,” said M. Dejean, “is Germany’s and Germany’s alone. The Reich systematically torpedoed every effort of France and Great Britain to save peace, and placed the western Powers before the alternative: abdicate or fight. “Did France tear up the Locarno treaty? Did France annexe Austria? Did France mutilate, then invade, Czechoslovakia in spite of agreements freshly signed at Munich? Did France attack Poland? Is it France who for years turned all her activities and all her resources to one end, war?” The condemnation, M. Dejean argued, was but a Nazi trick to make France accept responsibility for war. He reminded his hearers that those who today stand as judges are not without guilt for the defeat of France. “During the twenty years that preceded the war,” he said, “they held responsible positions in the higher spheres of the army where they could have exercised a decisive influence on the military preparedness of the country. But they did nothing towards obtaining the construction of the thousands of aeroplanes and thousands of tanks indispensable foi’ the defence of the country which General de Gaulle had pressed for as early as 1934.”