GODESBERG PLAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 10

GODESBERG PLAN

LETTERS PUBLISHED

CHAMBERLAIN AND HITLER

EFFORT FOR PEACE

United Press Association— -By Electric Telegraph—Copyright

(Received September 29, 2 p.m.) LONDON, September 28. A White Paper has been issued giving correspondence relating to the Godesberg proposals.

Mr. Chamberlain's first letter to Herr Hitler on September 23 says: "I am ready to put to the Czech Government your proposal enabling an examination of the suggested provisional boundary," and adds: "The difficulty I see concerning your proposal of September j 22 is that the areas should be immediately occupied by German troops. I recognise the difficulty of conducting lengthy investigation under the existing conditions. Doubtless the plan you propose would, if acceptable, immediately ease the tension. I Uon't think you have realised the impossibility of my agreeing to putting forward any plans unless I have reason to suppose they will be considered by public opinion in my country and in France, indeed, the whole world, as carrying out the principles already agreed upon in orderly fashion, free from the threat of force." HITLER INSISTENT. Herr Hitler's reply was: "I am grateful that after twenty years the British Government has decided to take steps to end a situation which is becoming hourly more unbearable. If the Czech behaviour was formerly brutal, it is now madness, and 120,000 refugees have been driven out. This situation is unbearable, and will be terminated by. me. I emphasise that these Germans are coming back to the German Reich not because of the gracious sympathy of other nations but on the ground of their own will and irrevocable decision. The Reich will give this will effect There is no international Power or agreement which can have the right of precedence over the Ger-, man right." Mr. Chamberlain, in a second letter, on September 23, asked Herr Hitler: "No action should be taken, particularly in the Sudeten territory, by the forces of the Reich to prejudice any further mediation which may be found possible." A letter by Mr. Chamberlain to Herr Hitler on September 26 said: "A settlement by negotiation remains possible, and with a clear recollection of our conversations and an equally clear appreciation of the consequences which must follow abandonment of negotiation and the substitution of force, I ask your Excellency to agree that representatives of Germany shall meet representatives of the Czech Government to discuss the situation with a view to settling by agreement the way in which the territory is to be handed over. I am. convinced that these discussions can he-completed in a very short time. If you and the Czech Government desire it, I am willing to arrange for the British Government to be represented at the discussions."

BLAME PUT ON PRAGUE; Herr Hitler's reply to Mr. Chamberlain on September 27, after Sir Horace Wilson's visit, was. that the occupation of the Sudeten areas represented no more than a security measure, and was intended to guarantee the quick and smooth achievement of a final settlement, otherwise the Czech Government would be in a position to drag out the negotiations to any point it liked. "I cannot place sUch confidence in Prague's assurances," he said. "Surely Britain is not in a position to dispose of this danger by the use of diplomatic pressure. Prague is distorting the meaning of my proposals in order to mobilise the support of other countries, especially England and France, and thus achieve the possibility of a world conflagration. I leave it to your judgment whether to take >an opportunity to spoil such manoeuvres and bring Prague to reason at the very last hour."