TRIAL OF GERMAN MARSHALS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25589, 2 September 1948, Page 5

TRIAL OF GERMAN MARSHALS

LORD VANSITTART’S VIEW IN CONTROVERSY (Snecial Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON. Sept. 1. A newspaper controversy is still proceeding over Britain’s treatment of the German field-marshals, von Brauchitsch, von Manstein, and von Rundstedt, and the justice of bringing them to trial after a lapse of three years. Writing to the “Daily Telegraph,” Lord Vansittart says: “In their first war the Germans said they would ‘organise sympathy* if they lost. They did, and they are doing it again now. I do not consider these German marshals to be innocent victims of British oppression. I hold that they may be guilty of something more than winning battles, and the only way to prove me right or wrong is to try them speedily. I agree that this process has already been too long delayed. “In the meantime, let us beware of organised sympathy. I have often criticised British policy toward Germany, but for the last CO years I have been sick of the suggestion that everything we do to defeat war-makers is wrong. Such illusions end by being expensive.”