GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22068, 26 September 1933, Page 8

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

REMONSTRANCE BY THE POWERS

INFRACTION OF TREATY DENIED.

(From Ode Own Correspondent.) LONDON, August 8.

An official anouncement issued in Berlin mentions that the French Ambassador called at the German Foreign Ministry, and in invoking the FourPower Pact recently signed in Rome, gave expression to the view of the French Government that certain recent instances of German propaganda directed against Austria were inconsistent with existing treaty obligations. The Ambassador was informed that the German Government did not consider the invocation of the Four-Power Pact in this form as proper; that there had been no treaty infractions of any kind on the German side; and that Germany therefore considered this interference in the German-Austrian dispute as inadmissible.

The British Charge d'Affaires, the announcement added, also called at the Foreign Ministry for the same purpose and received the same answer.

The issue of the struggle for Austria may very wejl be vital for the Nazis (writes The Times Berlin correspondent). It may well determine whether the Hitlerist state is to endure or not. It is, in the mind of the Nazis, essential that they should win. If the victory is theirs the immediate and inevitable impression on the public mind, in Germany and in the central European countries, will be that "Hitler has succeeded where Bruning failed." The Nazis do not believe that in the last resort France or Great Britain or Italy is prepared to go very far beyond remonstrance on behalf of Austria. The campaign is therefore likely to be pressed forward —possibly with local modifications, possibly in locally different forms.

Its object is to undermine the Austrian Government's position, to drive it into a position where resignation becomes inevitable, and thus to bring about the elections at which the great strength of the Nazi Party in Austria will become clear; and by the means already rehearsed with such success in Germany complete power will fall into the Nazi hands. The formal union with Germany would be unnecessary; a Nazi Chancellor in Austria would be as much a liege of Herr Hitler as the Nazi State president in Danzig, which is also nominally a free and independent city. It is contended that the Four-Power Pact offers no possibility of raising questions in dispute between one of itssignatories and a- fifth Power.