PAPEN'S MISSION

Evening Post, Issue 67, 17 September 1934, Page 9

PAPEN'S MISSION

AUSTRIA AND GERMANY

NATURE OF ORDERS

DEEP SUSPICION

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, August 9.

Before • Herr yon Papen left for Vienna, where he is to be received as an ordinary Minister among the others of the Diplomatic Corps, he made a statement to an American News Agency. He said:—

"The task entrusted to me by the Fuhrer and Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, is clearly and unambiguously denned in his letter of July 26. I place myself at disposal to carry out this mission in the meaning and spirit of that letter, because I know how much the improvement of the European situation depends on its realisation, and because I thus further serve my country in this new post. The last signature of the late Field-Marshal yon Hindenburg is set to this letter to me: 'In sending you to Vienna as diplomatic representative of the Reich I do this in the sincere hope that you may succeed in restoring normal and cordial »elations, with our Austrian kinsfolk. My best wishes accompany you in the execution of this responsible task.' This order is at once a legacy, to which nothing can be added."

The relevant passage of Herr Hitler's letter to which Herr yon Papen refers reads:—

"It is my ivish if possible to contribute to an improvement of the general situation, and in particular to lead the long-troubled relations with the Ger-man-Austrian Stato back to a normal and friendly plane." CAUSES OF TENSION. It is made very clear in official circles, says tho "Daily Telegraph" correspondent, that Herr yon Papen's reception will bo extremely cold, and that his whole mission is regarded with the deepest suspicion. There will be no question of his being treated as a person entrusted with some special political mission. The actual causes of Austro-German tension, writes "The Times" correspondent, remain—on tho one side, the refusal of the rulers of Austria as yet to give the Nazis a sharo in government; on the other, tho Austrian legion in Germany, the broadest canipaignj the alleged responsibility for terrorism, the 1000-mark tax on travel to Austria. ■ "When reports have como from abroad that the Austrian Government contemplated making positive undertakings in these matters a condition of assent to the "gesture" of Herr -• yon Papon's appointment, the German Press said that ."conditions" could not, bo discussed.

Present' signs are unfortunately not propitious for an improvement, chief among these unfavourable portents being the weekend broadcast and the Press accounts of the execution of Dr. Dollfuss's assassins, for which Herr Habicht can no longer bo responsible. This amounted in effect to the glorification of the murderers, though responsibility for this glorification was avoided by attributing the account to the representative of the "Daily Mail," who saw the executions. The fact that, according to his statement, the account was falsified puts responsibility on those who altered it. An unusual accident befell .Keg. Thomas, a schoolboy,, of 73 Abel Smith Street, this morning. While ho vns riding a bicyclo along Covtrtonay Place shortly after 8.30 o'clock a generator working off the wheel of the machine caught in (he spokes find hei u-ns thrown to tlir. ground. Suffering fruin a. f.'itturi'd nose, abrasions to his f;ire. ;iii'l shock In- wns tal<cji In hus- j liuuj. by, Lkv £i'cc Ajnjjujiincti _ j