GREENLAND'S FUTURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 August 1940, Page 7

GREENLAND'S FUTURE

POSSIBILITIES OF AVIATION GERMAN HOPES OF CONQUEST. MONROE DOCTRINE GUARANTEES STATUS. Soon after German troops entered Copenhagen the President of the United States issued a declaration which escaped public attention, because at the time all minds were fixed upon the military campaign in j Norway, writes Walter Tschuppik in ] an exchange. President Roosevelt was . speaking of Greenland, and he said _■ that it was part of the western hemi- ( sphere, and came under the guaran- ( tees of the Monroe Doctrine. Like ( Iceland, where British troops have ; already landed. Greenland is a Danish . possession. Why did President Roosevelt thus emphasise the interests ot j the United States in Greenland? ; The year 1928 was to prove a decisive year in the history of Green- ■ land, 'in that year a well-known , American explorer and airman, named Bert "Fish” Hassell, conceived the j idea of using the route via Greenland for a flight, from Rockford, in Illinois, to his ancestral home in Sweden. A glance at the map of the Arctic regions will show this is the shortest and most convenient route, provided that an intermediate landing can be made in Greenland. Hassell was informed by his experts that, except for its coastal fringe of mountains. Greenland was as flat as a pancake, and consequently ideally suited for landing fields. "Fish" Hassell, however, missed his mark, and came down in the sea off the south coast of Greenland. He was picked up by a Danish steamer and brought to Copenhagen. There, at the invitation of the German Institute of Geopolitics. and its president, General Haushofer. he visited Berlin and Munich. With the rapid advance of aviation. Germany fully realised the importance of Greenland to Arctic flying. The Arctic routes considerably reduced the distance between the continents. Following lectures by Hassell in Munich on Arctic flying routes. Germany decided to put his experiences to practical use. It was not. of course, for purely aeronautical reasons that German "exploring parties" shortly afterwards set out for Rejkiavik, the capital of Iceland, and for Godthaab and Sydproven, in Greenland. These parties consisted not only of aviation experts, pilots, teachers of flying, and geologists and geographers from the institute, but of political agents, whose part it was to pave the way for "peaceful penetration” by Germany. HITLER’S PLANS. Since Hitler came to power he has always been interested in Iceland, : either because it appeals to his ro- ■ mantle fancy or because his plans ■ from the beginning reached thus far —there has been a marked increase in the number of German tourists visiting Iceland. In the same way, Hitler’s envoys have found their way to Greenland to Fredrickshaab, Upernivik, and Sydproven. They came in the guise of harmless professors who were anxious to win the friendship of the Lapps. The Icelanders were suspicious and declined all requests from the Germans to help them build aerodromes at Rejkiavik. On Greenland, however, that vast continent of ice and snow, with its few scattered settle- . ments. they met with little or no op- . position. The 838.000 square miles of ; Greenland’s surface contain only some 15,000 inhabitants. The largest settle--1 ment, at Sydproven —larger than God- . thaab, the "capital”—has a population I of 900 souls. But, since Hitler in- ; vented his "fifth column” technique, these 900 have included some dozens , of Germans, who,- whilst pretending to 1 be engaged in peaceful trading in t sealskin and blubber, have really been ; promoting Hitler’s political plans. > These plans seemed for a long time 5 too fantastic to be taken seriously, but 1 the fate of Denmark, Norway. Holland, and Belgium has shown their grim reality. WHAT AMERICANS FOUND. At the orders of President Roosevelt. Mr Norman Davis, president of the American Red Cross, has recently sent an auxiliary expedition to Greenland, which, cut off from Denmark. ’ can no longer obtain the foodstuffs „ and other articles it formerly received from Copenhagen in exchange , for its whale oil and furs. ’ The American delegation was much j surprised to find among the Greenlanders men with German names, like j Mueller and Moritz, and many others. The presence of Herr Moritz, a near relative of Dr Moritz, the German economic expert at present with Dr Clodius’s delegation in Bucharest, is evidence that Hitler has long cherished plans for world domination which extend far beyond the old dreams of pan-Germanism. A glance at our map shows the importance of Greenland in the event of the United States being drawn into the war. This map gives the route followed by Bert "Fish” Hassell in 1928 and the airway contemplated by Germany as a link with America.' j This route passes over Iceland, now 3 fortunately under British protection. 1 German aeroplanes will have some _ difficulty in landing there. ] It is typical of the mixture in Gers man policy between medieval ro- _ manticism and lust for conquest, that r Dr Fritz Hausleiter, of Hamburg Uni- ’ versity—General Haushofer’s pupil in 1 geo-politics—has bestowed upon the I countries and islands of the north new names taken from German legend. Just as the Polish port of Gdynia r has become "Gothenhafen." Greenland - is to be rechristened "Kriemhildsland.” This is the name designed for e it by Dr Hausleiter, after Queen - Kriemhild. Siegfried's wife in the Nie belungen saga.