GERMAN PLAN FOILED

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24736, 29 November 1945, Page 5

GERMAN PLAN FOILED

MOVE TO DRAW SPAIN INTO WAR

JODL'S SPEECH TO NAZI GAULEITERS

NUREMBERG, November 27. German plans to draw Spain into the war and seize Gibraltar were revealed when parts of Jodl's speech to the Nazi gauleiters in 1943 was read at the war criminal trial to-clay. Jodl, who was Chief of the German General Staff, said that the plan was wrecked by the resistance of the Spanish, or, more correctly, by the Jesuit Foreign Minister (Senor Suner), and Jodl admitted that- the Royal Air Force turned .the tide against Germany and that' the Nazis completely underestimated Russia's strength. "The palm of victory, which was almost in our grasp, finally eluded us because of our hopeless inferiority at sea," said Jodl. "We prepared for a landing in England down to the smallest detail, but it could not be risked with .improvised transport until British arms had been completely beaten." He described the Atlantic Wall as the greatest construction ever known. In 1943 it contained more than 2600 7.5 centimetre guns, excluding anti-aircraft guns and artillery from divisions stationed there. There were also 2350 medium and heavy anti-personnel weapons, again excluding divisional equipment. The permanent positions were manned by 1,370,000 men. About 4,183,000 Germans were then fighting on the Eastern Front.

Allied Strength Overestimated Jodl's address showed that the Germans in 1943 overestimated the Allied strength while the Allies underestimated the German strength. The German intelligence reported that there were 54 divisions with various brigades in Britain, whereas there were actually about half that number. The Germans had 46 divisions manning the Western Front, whereas the British intelligence estimate was from 24 to 30 divisions.

Jodl listened without expression when the deputy United States prosecutor (Mr Sidney Alderman), after reading extracts from Jodl's speech, said: "This document identified Jodl fully with the Nazis. It shows that he was no mere soldier."

Mr Alderman said that German plans-! for an aggressive war started soo/i after the first world war.

In spite of their modest origin and the rather fantastic nature of the Nazi Party, aVid the fact that its rise to world power could have been interrupted at a number of points, there was no break in the continuity of its planning. Each step in its international defiance was bolder and more significant than,the last.

Mr Alderman quoted an unsigned memorandum from Schacht to Hitler dated May '3, 1935, "stating: "The fact that our rearmament had to be camouflaged completely until May, 1935 (when Hitler denounced the Versailles Treaty), necessitated using the printing press in order to provide currency." Schacht pointed out that the Reichsbank had invested the major part of foreigners' deposits in armaments, "so our armaments have been financed partly from assets out of our political opponents." Birth of Luftwaffe

Mr Alderman, quoting a report sent to Hess, said that Germany by 1932 had secretly prepared a military organisation of civil air line pilots, which later became the Luftwaffe. A letter to Rosenberg, dated October, 1932. outlined plans for training military air crews through sports and commercial flying and providing for the payment of 50 marks hourly as flight-time pay for those surreptitiously training for war.

A secret speech by Hitler revealed that Germany, during the six years before the war, spent 90 billion marks on building up the Wehrmacht.

Goering grinned and exchanged glances with Raeder when Mr Alderman read the report of Raeder's interrogation, in which he stated that Germany fulfilled the word of the Versailles Treaty, but simultaneously arranged to build submarines in Holland and carried out other subterfuges in Spain and Finland, where U-boat crews were secretly trained. The prosecutor quoted a document signed by Raeder on April 12, 1934, dealing with war plans in which Raeder said: "The primary purpose is readiness for war without any alert period." Mr Alderman added that the Nazi theory was clever, Versailles forbade rearmament in Germany, but said nothing of rearming in Holland. Spain, or Finland.

Mr Alderman went on for an hour listing the various camouflages which the German Navy used under which to rearm. He said that the Germans constructed cruisers by disguising them as merchant ships and transports. The programme called for the construction of cruisers by April 1.1935. The actual battleship displacements exceeded bv 20 per cent, the displacements reported by the Germans to the British. Unidentified class ships were reported at 46,000 tons, but they were actually 51.300 tons. The correspondent of the Associated Press says .that the list of subterfuges under which the German navy was rearmed revealed that the Bismarck displaced the enormous tonnage of 56,200.

Fascist Propaganda in Rome.—The police are seeking the occupants of a black motor-car which sped through. Rome to-day uttering the streets with handbills bearing pictures of Mussolini.—Borne, November 37.