The Times MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1937, Nazi Aims in Spain

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 62, 15 March 1937, Page 6

The Times MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1937, Nazi Aims in Spain

The line is clear: France and England arc to be made responsible for hunger and poverty in the Third Reich. The starvation of the German people is due, not to Nazi rearmament, which is consuming almost the whole income from the exports of the Third Reich, not to Nazi economic policy, nor to the Nazi war policy, whicli has thrown Europe into a state of extreme nervousness and unrest—it is due to the enemies of yesterday, who are to be made the enemies of to-morrow, writes the editor of “The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror” in his latest book. “The Nazi Conspiracy in Spain.”

The Spanish possessions in Africa have been chosen as the jumping-off ground for the German colonial struggle. The Nazis have carried their colonial propaganda into the whole of Africa, from Spanish Morocco, Ifini and Rio de Oro. Just as Spanish Morocco is the key to the Mediterranean, so the colonial possessions of Spain are the decisive outposts for stirring up unrest in Africa. The Spanish policy of the Third Reich has its basis also in the economic needs, the demand for raw materials, of the Nazi armament programme. Spain and its African possessions are rich in minerals and raw materials.

Only a small part of these has been developed. There arc unexploited copper mines in Spanish Morocco and in the neighbourhood of Saragossa. The mercury workings of Aimaden could be more highly exploited by the application of Nazi methods of work, Spanish Guinea is rich in rubber. Nazi economic experts state that increased quantities of tin could be mined in Spain. . The Nazis turned their covetous eyes toward these resources. If their influence were to become dominant in Spain, they could secure for themselves the wealth of the country. Strategic, colonial and economic considerations therefore led the Nazis to become the allies of the Spanish rebels.