NOTES on the WAR NEWS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 29 January 1940, Page 7

NOTES on the WAR NEWS

Nazi Secret Weapon A FAMILIAR STORY REVIVED The “war of nerves” has received a fresh impetus from the reports published this morning that Hitler’s secret weapon is not the magnetic mine, hut is believed to be a chemical preparation known as “sleeping gas,” which Nazi aeroplanes will spread over England leaving the populace impotent to resist an invasion. Actually there is »« novelty in this idea,’ which is scarcely likely to disturb any reasonable Englishman. It has been propounded by many writers of fiction, regardless of t"e fact that scientists have emphasized again and again the limitations tiie field left for the finding of new gases. At the same time, the belief ii? generally accepted that the Nazis will stop at nothing in an attempt to smash England, against which country they have been pouring the most bitter hate conceivable. Special Research Reports of tlioir experiments to produce a secret weapon are also not lacking in corroboration. A Tokio message in December announced General Oshiina, one of the “architects” of the Anti-Comintern Pact, and General Oba, who have lately returned to Tokio from Europe, declare that Germany possesses new weapons and also is preparing “novelties in chemical warfare.” General Oba, while expressing the greatest interest in the weapons, admitted that he did not know how they operated. lie added that the Germans were employing 1400 chemists as Frankfurt on special research. Wild Rumours With news considerably curtailed in the Press of England, Dame Rumour is having a fine time. Recently a number of rumours current in the rural areas were compiled. All were entirely untrue, but they give an interesting picture of how a usually well-informed country may react when news is curtailed. The rumours were: The reason German air raids have not been more successful is that Britain is using a secret magnetic device so strong that it jerks all steel parts out of approaching enemy planes, causing them to crumple and crash. The gold reserves of the Bank of England are being hidden in vaults distributed in the tunnels of the London subways. Hitler last spring imported 30.000 gorillas from Brazil and these have now beeu trained in readiness to attack the Maginot Line. The Russians have a device on their parachutes that can shoot them up again if they do not like the place where they are about to land Germany’s Military Plans Under the title of “Inside Germany” there lias been published in London (Constable and Co.) in book form a series of articles by an American journalist who returned from Germany after the war began. Most of the articles first appeared in the London “Daily Telegraph.” The writer, Oswald Villard, deals mostly with living conditions in the Reich and the collapse of personal independence under Hitlerism, but his book (a copy of which is to hand in the most recent mail) lias something to say about the Nazi military plans which were being whispered of in Berlin three or four months ago. “Nazi plans.” writes Mr. Villard, “like those of all dictators, are subject to change without notice. But wheiu I left Berlin no one looked for any anti-British offensiv this winter. May The Vital Month? “I am convinced that the army plan, if not interfered with by Hitler himself or by political considerations, or the need of some action to head off the unrest and dissatisfaction with the war. is to attack England at the beginning of May, 1940, with a ferocity unparalleled in history. “The aim is to destroy the British Empire once and for all. To that the long winter months are being most carefully utilized. “The attack on England cannot, of course, be otherwise than through submarines and by means of the air. One hears in Germany the most astounding figures as to th > size of the air fleet that is being accumulated for the spring attack. “If those assertions are heavily discountqd, there still remains the figure of 30,000 machines to be available when good flying weather returns. “One can believe this or not, but that there will he the largest air armada ever brought together is confidently claimed. When one asks how it will be possible to man all these machines, the answer is that this has been foreseen for a long time.” Meaning Of “Third Reich” Why Greater Germany is called the Third Reich is explained by Oswald Dutch in his book, “Hitler’s Twelve Apostles.” “Alfred Rosenberg, who named himself ‘the Heathen Proselyte,’ the originator of National Socialist ideology, is also the author of this designation ‘Third Reich.’ “By way of amplification Rosenberg states that the first Reich (empire) was a Roman Reich of the German nation. The second Reich, the Reich of the German emperors, was a Reich that only a giant’s strength could preserve from smashing to atoms in its own internal disharmony: and it did break up once that political giant Bismarck had left the scene. “The Third Reich, however, Is the announcement of a first truly German Reich as the firm objective of all the longings of the yet unfulfilled German being; as an organic State-form developing out of a racially separate national body without interested rulers or lenders of a representative assembly faking any part whatsoever. “As with Hitler,” says the author, “so with Rosenberg—his language must first be translated into everyday speech before it can be understood. Rosenberg takes the point of view that, for all practical purposes, the period of the Republic in Germany must be eliminated. “lie only admits a Reich for monnrehial times, which the first and second Reich represent. The Third Reich encompasses all Germans in the whole world, and is the Reich of the People; it can only be completed and closed when all that is German is united within it.”