Answer on Security?

What the French General Staff most fears is a successful policy of peace by Adolf Hitler for the next few years, until Germany is strong enough to fight and win. Last week Chancellor Hitler flung down the velvet gauntlet of Peace in a significant interview with Comte Fernand de Brinon of Paris' Le Matin.

"Tell me, Herr Graf," said the Chancellor, "what I can do to insure French security and I will do it willingly, if it does not bring dishonor or menace to my country."

Prudently M. le comte did not tell Herr Hitler what they both knew, that France's first postulate of Security is that Germany agree to verification of her armaments by an international commission, something which Nazis contend would be "dishonorable."

"Alsace and Lorraine?" continued Chancellor Hitler. "I have said often enough that we have definitely renounced them. . . . How many times must I repeat that we do not seek to absorb what is not ours or to make ourselves loved by those who do not love us? ... I am convinced that once the question of the Saar, which is German,* is settled there will be absolutely nothing which can estrange France and Germany. Those who say I want war insult me. I am not that sort of man!"

"Germany will not return to the League of Nations," her Chancellor went on. "The League of Nations is an international parliament in which groups of powers oppose each other and agitate. Misunderstandings are increased instead of being removed. I am always ready, and I have given proof of it, to undertake negotiations with those who wish to talk with me."

Because Comte Fernand de Brinon is a personal friend of onetime French Premier Edouard Daladier, his interview with Chancellor Hitler drew a direct comment from the French Foreign Office: "We are ready to talk through Ambassadors. The question is whether Chancellor Hitler is willing to submit to supervision of the armaments we know he is building. We are willing to learn the answer through diplomatic channels."

Two clays later the French Ambassador to Germany, Andre Franc,ois-Poncet, called on Chancellor Hitler in case he wished to answer the question of France. Their talk was secret. Germans hailed what they called a victory for Herr Hitler, in that he had drawn France into direct conversations on the issue of Security, whereas she has always before insisted that it should be raised only in the open forum of the League.

Leaks from the Hitler-Poncet parley suggested that the Chancellor: 1) did not answer France's question: 2) proposed that the Saar question should be settled at once by Franco-German negotiation instead of by the scheduled Saar plebiscite in 1935: 3) offered, if permitted to increase Germany's armaments substantially above the limits set by the Treaty of Versailles, to pledge the German Government not to exceed the new limits. According to Ambassador Franc,ois-Poncet's entourage, Chancellor Hitler exclaimed during their conversation: "Two things must at all costs be removed. One is the French sense of uneasiness. The other is the German sense of imposed inferiority. I am now directing my whole policy toward removing these two obstacles to peace!"

* Now held by France under the tutelage of a Leasnie commission, the Saar is scheduled to decide by plebiscite two years hence whether it will rejoin Germany or join France.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.