IS GERMANY PREPARING WAR ?
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In a letter to the Editor of The Spectator a man, calling himself " Expertus," tries to correct " at least three mis- statements " in my previous article on the question : " Is Germany preparing war ? " I urn afraid his own knowledge is rather insufficient.
(a) Why should the diplomatic correspondent of the Manchester Guardian Weekly, when estimating the total military strength of Germany at 1,200,000 men, be a greater authority than Count d'Ormesson who thinks-a figure of 900,000 is sufficient to impress public opinion ? Neither I or
" Expertus " or any French or English journalist is in the
position to give correct figures. I therefore repeat my suggestion : ask your military attaches, or, when you are M.P., ask the Minister for War ! A real expert will know
that the military service in Germany has been increased to two years largely because the present " Jahrgang " is below the normal standard owing to the considerable decrease in the birth-rate of the same.
(b) My quotation of the Moscow wireless station is per- fectly correct. The actual saying was that the Red Army " is ready to invade Germany " to turn her Communist. Whilst I admit that a saying of such a kind is rather foolish, I cannot agree with " Expertus " when he suggests my English reader were a fool if he should believe me. Certainly this is a piece of stupid Moscow propaganda, underestimating
the mental strengths of an average German, but still it is a fact.
(c) Again, " Expertus " is ill advised to state, with all signs of bad temper, that Herr Hitler has written the second volume of Mein Kampf, " comprising all his statements on foreign policy," after his release from imprisonment. The fact is that the two volumes of the book have been written in all essential parts in Landsberg, that is to say in prison: It is, by the way, equally wrong to say that Herr Hitler personally owns the Eher Verlag (the publishing company) and it is hardly generous to suggest, without proofs, that the leader of the Reich makes his policy a good private business.
" Expertus " speaks " of one of the grossest fabrications that are left on record." " Ever since coming to power Hitler himself and his agents have over and over again propagated all over the world, but never within their country, the same
falsification that has again been rendered by Herr Birchen', Well, this accusation sounds formidable, but to answer it I need only to ask my British readers whether they have heard, for instance, of the famous interview given by Herr Hitler to the well-known French politician Bertrand . de
Jouvenel ? It was published in Paris Midi on February 28th, 1936, and reprinted all the world over—and in every single German newspaper ! On this occasion Adolf Hitler said himself :
" When I wrote Mein Kampf I was in prison. It was the time in which the French troops occupied the Ruhrgebiet. It was the moment of greatest tension between our two countries . . . I would contempt myself if, in case of-a Conflict I-would not, fink of all, feel as a German. But today there is no more reason for a conflict. You want that I correct my book as an author does who publish a new Edition of his works. But I am not an author, I am a politician. My correction is my Foreign Policy Pfeifle Berich- tigungen nahme ich in ?twiner Aussenpolitik vor) which aims at an understanding with France. If I succeed with a Franco-German understanding, this will be a correction worthy of myself. My correction I write in the big book of history."
So much on " falsifications," so much on " Expertus."—
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