HC Deb 07 September 1939 vol 351 cc569-70

GERMAN MEN AND WOMEN.

The Government of the Reich have with cold deliberation forced war upon Great Britain. They have done so knowing that it must involve mankind in a calamity worse than that of 1914. The assurances of peaceful intentions the Fuehrer gave to you and to "the world in April have proved as worthless as his words at the Sportpalast last September when he said: —" We have no more territorial claims to make in Europe."

Never has Government ordered subjects to their death with less excuse. This war is utterly unnecessary. Germany was in no way threatened or deprived of justice. Was she not allowed to re-enter the Rhineland, to achieve the Anschluss, and to take back the Sudeten Germans in peace? Neither we nor any other nation would have sought to limit her advance, so long as she did not violate independent non-German peoples.

Every German ambition—just to others— might have been satisfied through friendly negotiation.

President Roosevelt offered you both peace with honour and the prospect of prosperity. Instead your rulers have condemned you to the massacre, miseries and privations of a war they cannot even hope to win.

It is not us, but you they have deceived. For years their iron censorship has kept from you truths that even uncivilised peoples know. It has imprisoned your minds in, as it were, a concentration camp. Otherwise they would not have dared to misrepresent the combination of peaceful peoples to secure peace as hostile encirclement. We had no enmity against you, the German people.

This censorship has also concealed from you that you have not the means to sustain protracted warfare. Despite crushing taxation you are on the verge of bankruptcy. Our resources and those of our allies in men, arms, and supplies are immense. We are too strong to break by blows, and we could wear you down inexorably.

You, the German people, can, if you will, insist on peace at any time. We also desire peace and are prepared to conclude it with any peace-loving Government in Germany.

12. Mr. Mander

asked the Prime Minister why the Ministry of Information refused permission for the publication in this country of the leaflet distributed by aeroplanes in Germany?

Sir S. Hoare

I think that there is some misunderstanding. I am informed that the leaflet in question has been passed for publication by the Ministry of Information, and that a translation of it has, in fact, already appeared in the Press.

Mr. Mander

Is the Lord Privy Seal aware that the first information received in this country about the leaflets was telegraphed from Amsterdam, and will he be good enough in future to arrange for earlier publication in this country?

Sir S. Hoare

I am not aware that that happened.

Sir Archibald Sinclair

Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries as to whether it is not a fact that the Press asked for this leaflet, that they were refused, and that publication was then made of a translation of the leaflet which came from Dutch sources?

Sir S. Hoare

I understand that the misunderstanding which arose was owing to the fact that application was made to one of the sections of the Ministry which was not the section responsible for this class of work. I think I can give an assurance that that is not likely to happen again.

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