Since public opinion in this country (not without ample reason)
is uniformly adverse to General Goering, whose book, addressed to the English-speaking peoples, has appeared this week, I am glad in fairness to reproduce a verdict on the Prussian Premier given me by one of his intimate friends, for whose judgement generally I have considerable respect. He depicts Goering as the spearhead of the attacks against the Communists, and claims that the violence and hyperbole (exaggerated in the abbre- viated reports that have reached this country) in his speeches is directed at the internal foes of National Socialism alone, not at all at any foreign Power. He is represented as profoundly anxious for an Anglo-German understanding—as his book, however inept, indicates. As to the' story of his drug addiction, it is (I am, of course, quoting still) perfectly straightforward. Goering, badly wounded in the Munich putsch in 1923, was smuggled across the frontier and in hospital heavily dosed with morphine. Addiction resulted, but he went to Sweden for curative treatment, broke the habit, and the strenuous- ness of his present life is sufficient evidence that there has been no recurrence: Such is the story, which, as a believer in the principle audi alteram partem, I give without prejudice, and without further comment.
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