THE FRENCH FIND OUT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 142, 13 December 1939, Page 12

THE FRENCH FIND OUT

Speculation about the "secret weapon* which liitler mentioned in his speech at Danzig has by no means ended. It has been suggested that the weapon is the magnetic mine,.that it is a dust bomb, or that it is a container designed to be dropped from aeroplanes and spread cholera germs throughout England. Nor does the list end here. As a matter of fact Hitler's announce* ment was not even new. In 1935 Colonel yon Hassenbach, an attache of the Propaganda Ministry, announced; that Germany had five secret weapons. They were a bullet which would penetrate armour, a very light, rapidlyfiring machine-gun, an anti-aircraft gun with multiple barrels, an aerial torpedo, and the familiar ray which would stop aeroplane motors. All these (except the ray) were known already, o? are now in possession of othpr Powers, and if the Germans possess the ray they are a very long time in using it The.dust bomb was described as scattering a mixture of silicious earth and poison gas, the gas evaporating slowly over days and even weeks. A variation of the report is that the bombs contain irritants instead of poison gas. However, the French, who have a way of going to the heart of the matter, also have their theory of the nature of Hitler's "secret weapon." They think that in the light of the way in which the Nazis are fighting the war it ii merely boredom.