Purchased at $10 p. month, When Herr Hitler makes his expected speech before the Reichstag, either on Thursday or Friday, he will already know the attitude of the British Government towards the peace offensive which he launched following the capture of Warsaw. For that reason it may be a very different oration from what the world expects at the moment, for it has been suggested that if Mr. Chamberlain is as forthright in the House of Commons on the subject as Mr. Winston Churchill was in his broadcast on Sunday night Herr Hitler will know beforehand that his overtures for peace will be rejected. It is expected by some that if this is the case he will desist from his peace offensive. That does not appear to be very likely, for he has to consider the psychological effect of a peace offensive upon the people over whom, unfortunately, he rules. It is just as necessary, now, as it has been all along, to convince the propaganda-fed German people that they are indeed victims of aggression, and that the Reich has been fighting only in self-defence. The vamped up tales of atrocities by Poles against Germans in the Press campaign which preceded the invasion of Poland was necessary for the same purpose. Some sort of thin veneer of alleged right has to cover the forays of the German Government, and it will be necessary for Herr Hitler to formulate his peace terms, so that, if they are rejected, he will be able to show his people how his own pacific ideas are thwarted by the Allies who are bent upon the destruction of the German nation. With such a fiction he will hope to whip the whole of Germany into a state of indignation which will bring to him a rather warmer support for war than it is alleged is apparent within the confines of his country. He is not likely then to abandon his peace offensive, for, even if he realizes there is little chance of its success, it still would have a certain propaganda value which could not lightly be disregarded. He has to continue endeavouring to fool the German people all the time, and one of the best methods of doing that at present is to delude them into thinking that instead of fighting a war of aggression they are indeed fighting in self-defence.
The firm attitude which the Allies have adopted, towards this latest manceuvre of Herr Hitler is reported to be seriously disconcerting official quarters in Berlin who, at any rate for a while, believed in the possibility of an early peace as a sequel to the German bluff. No other word can be used Call and see it at
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.