BROADCAST TO GERMANS

Grey River Argus, 6 September 1939, Page 12

BROADCAST TO GERMANS

By Mr Chamberlain HITLER’S REGIME THE ONLY ENEMY. RUGBY, September 4.: The Prime Minister, in an address specially broadcast to the German people last night, said: “Your country and mine are now at war. Your Government has bombed and invaded the free and independent State of Poland, which this country is in honour bound to defend. Because your troops were not withdrawn, m response to the Note which the British Government addressed to tne German Government, war has followed.” After reviewing Herr Hitler s pretence that Poland had rejected the peace offer, and the attitude adopted to the Polish Ambassador, Mr Chamberlain said: “This is not negotiation. This is a dictate. Negotiations on a free and equal basis might well have settled the matter in dispute. You may ask why Britain is concerned. We are concerned because we gave our word of honour to defend Poland against aggression. “Why did we feel it necessary to pledge ourselves to defend this Eastern Power, when our interests lie to the west? The answer is that —and f regret to have to say it—nobody in this country any longer places any trust iri your leader’s word. He gave his word that he would respect- the Locarno Treaty. He broke it. He gave his word that he neither wished nor intended to annex Austria. He broke it. He declared, after the Munich conference, that he would not incorporate Czechoslovakia in the Reich. He did so. He gave his word, after Munich, that he had no further territorial demands in Europe. He broke it. He gave his word that he wanted no Polish provinces. He broke it. He has sworn to you for years that he was the mortal enemy of Bolshevism. He is now its ally. Can you wonder that his word for us is not worth the paper it is written on? “In this war, are are not fighting against you, the German people, for whom we have no bitter feelings, but against a tyrannous and forsworn regime, which has betrayed not only its own people, but the whole of western civilisation and all that you and we hold dear. May God defend the right.”