The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1940. TO MURDER THE KING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 14 September 1940, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1940. TO MURDER THE KING.

For the cause that tacks assistance, For the icrong that reeds resistance, For the future in Ihe distance. And the Qood that tee can do.

'To me all means will be right. My motto is not: 'Don't, whatever you do, annoy the enemy!' My motto is: 'Destroy him by all and any means.' \am the on<? who will wage the war."

Thus said Hitler in August, 103'J He had not yet come to power, but as Dr. Uauschning litis recorded, In whs discussing the nature of the wa that he intended to start whei , Germany was rearmed. A singh blow, he said, 'must destroy tin enemy. "Aerial attacks, stupendou in their mass effect, surprise, terror .sabotage, assassination from within the murder of leading men, over ; whelming attacks on all weak point: I in the enemy's defence, suddei > attacks, all in the same second , without .-egard for reserves 01 losses: that is the war of the future A gigantic, all-destroying blow. ] do not consider consequences; T tliint only of this one thing." "We listened," says Kauschning, "none of us guessing how close wt were to the realisation of these ideas." Mad and strange ideas, thej seemed. To-day they are still mad but no longer strange. All of them have been put into practice sinct Hitler felt himself strong enough. All of them, including "the murder of leading men." And yesterday an attempt was majle, beyond all doubt a deliberate attempt, to murder King George and Queen Elizabeth. The dropping of a time-bomb in the gardens of Buckingham Palace might have been accidental; yesterday's bombing of the Palace itself was riot. It was part of Hitler's method of waging total war. It was an act calculated to throw the nation into grief and consternation, to promote what Hitler has called "the moral breakdown of . the enemy." The enemy ruust bo destroyed "by all and every means," including tho murder of the Sovereign. The attempt failed, and throughout the world there will be great thankfulness that it failed-. There will be thankfulness, and there will be surprise, surprise that the King and Queen should have been allowed to expose themselves to such a danger. True, they are in danger every day. When they go forth, as they have gone (and as they did go again after the attack on the Palace) to visit the bombed areas, to comfort the afflicted and hearten the defenders, they are taking risks. And every British man and woman is proud and glad that they aro taking those risks, proud and glad, though not surprised, that they are in some degree sharing the common lot of .Londoners to-day. But for Their Majesties to occupy Buckingham Palace at this time, even though they are provided with an air-raid shelter, is to take a greater and an unwarranted risk. The Palttco is a target too conspicuous. It was said after the last war that the German airmen of. that day had explicit instructions to avoid damaging the Palace, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's and some other places of great historical and national significance. But the Kaiser was a sucking dove compared with Hitler— and that fact should bo faced in all its implications. The man who brought about the murder -of Dollfuss and tho imprisonment of Schuschnigg, tho man who sought to capture, if not kill, Queen Wilhclmina, the man by whose orders King Haakon of Norway was specially sought out by Nazi , bomber? —this man would not shrink from ordering the assassination of the King and Queen of England. And if that could not be accomplished he and his Nazis would gloat over the destruction of tho Palace itself. These facts should be faced, and tho happening in Lopdon yesterday shows that they have not been faced yet. No one, least of all themselves, would tolerate that Their Majestir,? should be removed from all danger for the duration of tho war, but the warning of ye3tcrdny should bo fully heeded. The King nnd Queen are one of the special objectives of the maniac Hitler's Nasi bombers, and one of the objectives which the British nations at this time can least afford to have harmed. They rauft, therefore, not expose themselves to risks greater I than those accepted by their subjects. I