NAZI CAPTAIN’S CLAIM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 71, 21 February 1940, Page 9

NAZI CAPTAIN’S CLAIM.

AMERICAN PRESS OPINIONS

NEW YORK, Feb. 19

In a broadcast to the United States, which was full of inconsistencies, Captain Dau, of the Altmarck, said he ordered the crew not to resist, because the Altmarck was unarmed “I was determined to respect Norwegian neutrality at all costs, and not one German snot was fired',”'he added. The English, ho said, left hurriedly and seemed very nervous. The American Press continues to deride Berlin in its “miscast role of a pious plaintiff against a breach of international law.” Even the Hearst Press applauds the raid as “brilliantly conceived and daringly executed.”

All American comment maintains that the British were certainly morally, and probably legally, right. The New York Daily Mirror, a Hearst paper, says: “It is pointless talking about international law. The dramatic daring of the raid has won over American public opinion. A suggestion by a Norwegian newspaper that President Roosevelt preside over international arbitration in connection with the Altmarck affair is treated cautiously. The Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) refused to comment. The British action over the Altmarck has delighted the peoples of the Danube countries and the Balkans, and Britons are stopped and congratulated li the streets of Belgrade. In Berlin the official view is that now England has transferred the war t> neutral soil a completely new military situation has arbxn of which Germany will take the fullest advantage.