FRANCO-SOVIET PACT

Evening Star, Issue 22271, 24 February 1936, Page 9

FRANCO-SOVIET PACT

SUMMARY OF GERMAN ATTITUDE “INDIGNATION, FEAR, AND GENUINE REGRET " NAZIS WANT DEFEAT OF COMMUNISM Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright I LONDON, February 22. The Berlin correspondent of ‘ The Times ’ says: “ Germany’s hostility to the Franco-Soviet pact is compounded of indignation, fear, and a genuine regret that France, by linking up with an Eastern and Communist State, is making a Western European understanding more difficult. The whole Nazi movement is based on the, defeat of Communism, for which reason the argument that Germany has only to even out matters by joining the pact is treated with scohi. The idea that Soviet Russia and Hitlerite Germany might under any circumstances be found fighting on the same side is simply ridiculed. The ‘ Deutsche Allegemeinc Zeitung ’ expresses the universally-held view when it says 1 Soviet Russia to-day shows the face of Janus, despite all disavowals and subterfuges. The Soviet foreign policy and Comintern are Siamese twins.’ There is also complete agreement with M. Herriot’s high estimate of the value of the Red army. The Russian soldier is declared to be excellent fighting material, and the leadership of the officers and non-com-missioned officers is of a higher standard than ever before. Moreover, Russia is paying enormous attention to airpower. It is argued that if the FrancoSoviet pact is signed Germany must have an air force in the east calculated separately from any equality of strengths agreed to between Western Powers. All these arguments may be summed up in the one phrase, ‘ Russia —there is the enemy!’—and by this Germany does not mean only the enemy of Germany, but of all European civilisation.”