FANTASTIC RUMOUR

Evening Star, Issue 23326, 24 July 1939, Page 9

FANTASTIC RUMOUR

GIGANTIC LOAN TO GERMANY DENIED BY BRITISH GOVERNMENT (British Ollicial Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph-Copyright RUGBY, July 22. Several London newspapers give currency to rumours that during his visit to London for the International Whaling Conference Herr Wohltat, German Minister of Economics, engaged in conversations with British Ministers and others, during which a disarmament plan, coupled with a gigantic loan to Germany for assisting in converting her national effort from war production to a peaceful commercial basis, was discussed. There is no truth in these rumours, which are described as fantastic in official quarters. WEEK-END SENSATION STORY SPREADS TO EUROPE. (Independent Cable Service.) LONDON, July 23. (Received July 24, at 8 a.m.) The story that Germany was unofficially offered a £1,000,000,000 loan by Britain to make peace created a sensation in Europe over the week-end, especially as the report immediately followed the Berlin Spokesman’s statement of Nazis’ hopes of a peaceful solution of Danzig, which was responsible for a notable upward trend on Wall Street. According to the story certain influential but unofficial Britons suggested to Herr Wohltat that if Herr Hitler agreed to disarm a vast loan might bo given Germany, enabling her to restore her industry. Also it would help Germany to recover the trade she would need if she gave up manufacturing armaments on a huge scale. She would be permitted to share with the possessors of African colonies in the development of these possessions. The story was given the greatest prominence by the three strongest antiappeasement newspapers—the ‘ News Chronicle,’ the * Daily Telegraph,’ and the ‘ Daily Mirror ’ —but the Sunday newspapers carry* a categorical denial by the British Government Spokesman, who declared that Mr Chamberlain and Cabinet Ministers were astounded at the story.

The ‘ Sunday Express ’ says a loan would be the biggest blackmail payment in history. It understands that Herr Wohltat’, who is a dose friend of Field-Marshal Goering, had contact with a person closely connected with the British Government, but no member of Cabinet. The plan was suggested to Herr Wohltat, not as a cut-and-dried series of proposals, but as an idea which he might put up to Herr Hitler.