Munitions For Germany

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 217, 17 September 1934, Page 7

Munitions For Germany

Violation of Versailles Treaty SHEAF OF CABLES KEPT SECRET United Press Association—By Electrio Telegraph —Copyright. Received Sunday, 7 p.m. WASHINGTON, Sept. 14. The questioning ’of the Dupont Company by the Senate Munitions Investigating Committee concluded to-day with evidence that, on February 1, 1933, the company entered into a contract with Jungo Geira, described as an "international spy,” to act as its agent for the sale of military explosives to the German Government. The company’s executive committee had torn the contracts up, but later made a new agreement with Geira, which stipulated; however, that no contracts should be entered into for the rearmament of Germany, except with the approval of the United States Government. It was further revealed that considerable quantities of American small arms and machine-guns had been smuggled into Germany from Holland. Most of tho equipment went to the Nazis before Hitler's rise to power, but Communists and other private armies received some. M. Lammot Dupont, president of the E. I. Dupont de Neraour’s Company, told tho committee ho had reports indicating that Germany was making war explosives in considerable quantities, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. At this stage a censorship was placed by tho committee on a s.hcaf of cables apparently relating to a successful effort by the Dupont Company and its British ally, Imperial Chcmi cal Industries, Ltd., to keep a German concern from building a powder plant in Argentina. "If those cables were made public,” said Mr Stephen Raushenbush, secretary of the committee, "it might mean the actual’ destruction of life and property.” Senator Bennett Clark (Missouri, Democrat) asserted that tho rise of Hitler had been financed indirectly by French munitions manufacturers to stimulate their own arms sales.