BERLIN'S DIPLOMACY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 39, 14 January 1944, Page 5

BERLIN'S DIPLOMACY

SEEKS JAPANESE ACTION. LONDON, Jan. 12. Berlin's diplomatic machinery has opened a campaign to goad • the Japanese into attacking Russia with "Pearl Harbour" treachery, says the Daily Express's Istanbul correspondent. Hitler apparently believes that only a sudden Japanese blow against Russia can avert a terrible catastrophe for his armies in Russia. Hitler is trying to instill fear in the Japanese that if they do not strike immediately Russia, with Britain and America, wjjl concertedly attack the heart of the Japanese empire. The German Foreign Office has warned the Japanese Ambassador to Berlin (Oshima) that Marshal Stalin has agreed to attack in the Far East as soon as the second front opens in the west. Hitler is playing one of his last aces by urging Japan to attempt a blitz on Vladivostok. There is every indication, however, from reports which have leaked out about German dealings with the Japanese, that Tokio is most reluctant to end its attitude of armed neutrality towards Russia. The correspondent adds that he has the strongest evidence that Japanese diplomats, in the hope of maintaining this uneasy neutrality, have not scrupled in the past few weeks to pass on to Russia military information concerning troop movements and dispositions which must have been of groat practical value to tho Russian High Command.