LAVAL’S APPEAL TO AMERICA

Southland Times, Issue 24446, 28 May 1941, Page 5

LAVAL’S APPEAL TO AMERICA

ANXIETY TO WORK WITH . GERMANY DEMOCRACY CONDEMNED (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, May 27. M. Pierre Laval, broadcasting to America from the Paris radio, said that by enjoining France to reject Hitler’s outstretched hand—a gesture unprecedented in history—the United States had shown a willingness to see France annihilated or torn to pieces. “You on the other side of the ocean perhaps do not realize that this war is not a war like other wars,” said M. Laval, “but a revolution, from which we shall rise rejuvenated, reorganized and prosperous. Our failure was to a certain extent due to democracy. We do not want to be armed to fight for democracy. France cannot go back. She must fulfil two tasks with the great powers of Europe; make peace and then overcome unemployment, poverty and disorder. Is the United States going to paralyze our reconstruction?

“France can be an intermediary between the New World and the New Europe, but only if she totally collaborates with Germany. This collaboration astonishes you, but it is as indispensable to France as it is useful to Germany. If America tore part of France’s Empire from her it would be like tearing part of our living flesh. It is impossible in the hour of France’s greatest defeat that the United States flag should be substituted for the Tricolour in far-off lands.” GERMANY’S PLANS The Times says that the Free French headquarters have obtained possession of a document signed by General Doyen, chief of the French Armistice Commission at Wiesbaden, in which the general reports that Germany, if she wins the war, intends to annex the whole or part of the nine departments in north and north-eastern France. According to General Doyen’s report, the terms of which were broadcast to France by a Free French spokesman, Nord Pas de Calais, part of the Somme, part of the Aisne, also Ardennes, Meuse, Meurthe et Moselle, part of Haute Saone and part of Doubs would not only be annexed to Germany, similarly to Alsace-Lorraine, but would also be colonized by Germans. This project presumably, explains why every inducement is at present being offered to French workers in these departments to leave their homes and seek work in Germany. The territory involved stretches from the Channel to the Swiss frontier and includes all the industrial portion of Lille, also Rheims, Verdun and Besancon. General Doyen’s report is dated February 5, 1941, and is addressed to the Vichy Minister of War, General Charles Huntziger. The Lisbon correspondent of The Times says that travellers from Occupied France speak about the German habit of sending groups of emaciated prisoners to their homes for a few days. They are intended to provide object lessons of further privations in the event of France’s refusal to collaborate with Germany.