GERMAN COLONIES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4817, 31 July 1939, Page 3

GERMAN COLONIES

o THE, NAVY AS AN INSTRUMENT. Grand Admiral Raeder, Comman-der-in-Chief of the German Navy, and General von Epp, Statthalter of Bavaria and leader of the Reich Colonial League, were the principal speakers at the annual congress of the German Foreign Institute, which concluded at Stuttgart on Friday night, said a Munich message to "The Times" on June 11. Admiral Raeder said that the German navy's activities abroad extended far beyond purely naval considerations. One of its tasks was "the protection of our living space (Lebensx'aum) overseas —that is, access to the possessions of the earth," and another was its "national political mission.' In this - connection he referred to the propaganda value of the visits of German warships to foreign ports, by means of which many Germans living abroad had been converted to National Socialism.

On the question of the colonies, Admiral Raeder said:—"The refusal to Germany of these sources of raw materials is unfair. Germany's rights cannot be withheld from her permanently, for the dynamic of the Greater Germany idea is too powerful. Germans everywhere (das gesamte Deueschtum) are to-day inspired by this dynamic, and recognise their mission. As bearer of this mission the German navy will form a link binding together all men and women of German blood in foreign countries. It will be the bridge between the German outposts in the world and the Greater German homeland."

General von Epp declared that the German people demanded reparation for "the fraud initiated at Versailles." Such reparation could be made only by means of a suitable declaration and the return of the former colonial territory.