QUESTIONS ASKED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23965, 15 May 1941, Page 9

QUESTIONS ASKED

HOUSE OF COMMONS STATEMENT PROMISED DUFF COOI'F.It'S COMMENT LONDON. May K» In referring to Hess, the Piime Minister, Mr. Churchill, said in the House of Commons: "1 have nothing to add at present to the statement issued. Obviously a further statement will be made in the neai future on the flight to this country oi this very high and important Nazi leader."

This assurance was given in response to a number of questions. One member asked Mr. Churchill to see that the .Minister of Information, Mr. Dull Cooper, "dealt with the news of Hess flight with skill and imagination." After an outburst of laughter, Mr. Churchill replied: "I had the opportunity of being in company with the Minister of Information up to a verv late hour last night, but L think this is one of these cases where imagination is somewhat baffled by the facts as they present themselves." Hess' arrival, said Mr Duff Cooper to-day, showed the first break in the Knzi party since Hitler murdered a huge bloc of his followers on June <SO, 193-4 "Here is a man," Mr. Puff CoopOr -added, "who was so close to hihn, a' man obviously in the possession of his faculties since he was able to accomplish his flight successfully, a mar who, with the advantages he must have been enjoying in Germany—-and we all know what the advantages are of a tyrant's friends—yet prefers to leave that unhappy and miserable country and fly at tremendous risk to himself to land on what is still a country of the free." . HESS' SUCCESSOR BERLIN, May 13 Hitler has issued a decree saying:— "The former office of the Fuehrer's Deputy henceforth will bo known as the Party Chancellery and it will be personally responsible to mo. Its leader will he Martin Bormann." Hermann, leader of the National Socialist party, who had been chief of staff to Hess.since 1933, is 41. He was sentenced in March, 19-J4, to a year's imprisonment for his share in the Bierkeller Putsch.