"FOLLY AND LIES"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 103, 28 October 1939, Page 11

"FOLLY AND LIES"

"RIPE FOR DEFEAT"

NEUTRAL'S VIEW OF GERMANY

(By Air Mail—From "The Post's" London Representative.) LONDON, October 3. "Here was a country going to war like a sleep-walker with a loaded gun in his hand," is how a neutral traveller describes Germany. The traveller, who recently returned from Austria to France, writes < states the Ministry of Information) that the impressions he got in Germany were appalling. "Two-thirds of the population knew, or pretended to know, nothing," he declares. "The remaining third was a prey to defeatism and despair. 1 cannot say," he continues, "that food was actually short, but I was astonished to see a complete breakdown of the Government machine. "Thus m Vienna, a city of 2,000.000 inhabitants, no police were to be seen. The Austrian police had been dissolved and nobody appointed in their place. All around me I heard nothing but complaints about the Nazi tyranny and fears for the future. It is true that Austria presents a special case, but when travelling through purely German provinces the tone of the conversation was the same. "What a relief it was to get back to France. I don't know what the future has in store for us. or what the outcome may be of the catastrophe which has overtaken us. But cl one thing I am certain. On the other side of the Rhine I have seen a country ripe for defeat, while here 1 see people confident and worthy of victory. "There can be no mistake. 1 am well aware of the material resources of Germany, and of the fanaticism which actuates hundreds of thousands of its young men. But folly and lies are self-destructive, and Germany today is a realm of folly and lies. In France I find a quite remarkable comprehension of the situation among all classes and an unshakable resolution to put an end to this business once and for all."

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