Regettable But Nazis Not to Blame; Colonial Questions Raised at Leipzig Fair Leipzig, Mar. 5.
DMISSION that the financial and economic situation in Germany was "regrettable" was made in a speech delivered here today on the occasion of the opening of the Leipzig Fair by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Reich Propaganda Minister. However, he added, National-Socialists were in no way responsible for this state of affairs, Political facts should predominate over economic ones, he said, adding that the Reich condemned all international measures oppos~ ing normal economic exchanges.
Furthermore, the world must know hata population of 80,000,000 inhabitants cannot remain indifferent'
ils economic base is too narrow allow it to live and work", Commencing his address, Dr. Goebels declared that Germany's decad-fence until 1933. was due to false "The German debacle of 1918, re~ sulted in the country no longer enjoying the powerful protection which a nation gets from a strongly organ ized government. while responsible personalities committed the error of believing that order can be brought' Into an economic situation without the nation Itself possessing necessary and decisive strength, alone capable of ensuring this result," the Minister continued, This viewpoint Is all the more important now that Germany finds her-Self in a "closely limited" economic situation and "it is dificult for us to furnish the German people with "This scarcity exists not because we did not show sufficient application of intelligence and activity, but because, In the distribution of the. earth's riches, Germany did not find continued. found herself among the non-possessing nations, a. situation which compelled the leaders of the estate to take "a seri of unpopular measures the reasons for which often escaped the public."
Dr. Goebbels then criticized the attitude of the Western democracies, particularly Great Britain, "which maliciously Jeered at these measure 'The democracies, he added, are in the "happy situation of being able to dispose of rest riches In many raw materials and vast eoloniat territories without the necessity of a superior intelligence' or of extraordinary plication,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.