A GERMAN AIR FORCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22058, 14 March 1935, Page 10

A GERMAN AIR FORCE

By informing the, British Air Attache at Berlin of its intention to give military status and equipment to certain fliers, the German Government has officially announced a ' policy of rearming. This information doe 3 not precisely mean the creation of a German Air Force, but it has no ; meaning at all, as a national statement, unless Britain and the other Powers to which it has been communicated are to understand that Germany is planning to establish such a force. For the German j Government is under no obligation ! to transmit information concerning j civil aircraft, and nothing i 3 at presI ent farther from its known thought j than to waste official words. The so- ; called Reich Air Sport Federation, I the officers of which have been com- j 1 missioned with military rank, is by | so much an Air Force. In the air I j clause of the Treaty of Versailles is ! | an explicit provision against the j i retention or creation of any military j | or naval air forces, and only until j j October 1, 1919, were a limited num-j ! ber of service aircraft allowed for the ! | exclusive purpose of searching fori submarine mines, these craft being | prohibited from carrying war equip- j ment of any kind. The complete j demobilisation of aircraft personnel! on the rolls of the German land and j sea forces wa3 also exacted, except j for the limited purpose to which | the named date —October 1, 1919 I expressly applied. Thus the announced departure in now giving service rank and equipment to these particular fliers of the Air Sport Federation is a direct challenge of the treaty obligations, and it-3 official announcement has a meaning that all the world is meant to read. In itself the departure may seem trifling, and the German Government may be thought to have no sinister intention. Its own attitude in the matter, however, precludes that view; its object is manifestly to press the German case for rearmament to a practical issue. Hitherto, the absence of official admissions has made the whole subject one for dispute as to facts rather 'than for foreign action, although, as a Labour spokesman has declared in the House of Commons during the defence debate, that party acknowledges that Germany is rearming and preaching war. Now that an official admission has been made by the German Government a new urgency has been given both to efforts to end what Mr. Amery has described as "make-believe" in international politics and to take defensive precautions. Doubtless this announcement to the British Air Attache at the beginning of March played an important part in producing the British White Paper on defence.