GERMANS ABROAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 60, 8 September 1938, Page 8

GERMANS ABROAD

A DOUBLE LOYALTY

HENLEIN'S BRESLAU SPEECH

Herr Henlein, leader of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia, recently made his first political speech in the Reich at the National Gymnastic Festival in Breslau, says the Berlin correspondent of "The Times."

The festival was being attended by some 40,000 representatives of German minorities in Europe and America, the German-speaking community in Italy being the most notable absentees.

Herr Henlein, whose speech was punctuated by shouts of "One People, One Reich, One Leader," apostrophised the creator of the Great German Reich, Herr Hitler, whom he acknowledged as the leader of the Germans within and without the frontiers of the Reich.

"We are all part of the great German nation," he said, and added that the Sudeten Germans at the festival would return to their own country with the difficult task of protecting their German Homeland and bringing peace to their people.

A UNITED NATION.

' This meeting of Germans from all the world, he said, proved better than any words that there existed once again a great united German nation. The effort to make spiritual frontiers out of the State frontiers had been shattered by the German people's feeling of common origin. The Germans from abroad gave to the State what they owed to the State, and to the nation what they owed to the nation. As Germans they were accustomed to fulfil their obligations conscientiously. Accordingly they took seriously their obligations to the State to which they belonged, but, while being nationals of various Powers, they remained citizens of the great German nation and volun : tarily placed themselves under the laws of the German nation (Volkstum).

"We have become one people; we have become the community (Gemeirischaft) of the Germans in all the world." We see in this great German Reich the greatest constructive work of history, and from it we gain faith and confidence for ourselves and for our fight. For we know that the greatness and good fortune of the great German Reich are the greatness and good fortune of the whole German people."

Dr. Goebbels, the German Propaganda Minister, followed with a tirade against the democratic world surrounding (Germany.

"THE REVOLUTION WON."

"We have lost the war, but we have won the revolution," he declared. "What we had to give up in 1918-33 we have recovered in double and triple measure. But I shall not deceive you by saying that all our German problems have been solved. The Reich is still engaged in a difficult economic and political battle for existence. We live as a totalitarian State in a democratic world. There is nothing for us to do but defend ourselves, seeing that this democratic world has challenged us to an ideological fight. This democratic world cannot understand us: It would be ready to plunge Germany into a bloody war if it could put an end to National-Socialism in Germany. (Shouts of "Shame.") I say they would if they could? but they come too late. They could have done it in 1933, but at that time they did not take us seriously. In 1938 they can ho longer do it because they must take us in earnest—yes, in deadly earnest.

"Too cowardly to open fire on us with their machine-guns and artillery," Dr. Goebbels continued, "they fall upon the Reich with printers' ink. In millions and millions of copies their lying Press goes through the rotary machines and floods the world with a filthy diet of slander. They talk as if all Germany were surrounded by barbed wire and the Reich were a concentration camp. Tliere are days when one talks about problems and days when one acts about them. Today we have only one problem, to be strong and to remain strong, and, if it becomes necessary, to defend ourselves and win through."