Abstract

Paying Ransom to Hitler

There are encouraging signs both in England and in France that German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's speech of January 30, 1937 is being more and more recognized as what it was, one of the most sinister that he has yet made. As the "Journal des Nations" put it, "The hands held out by Eden, Neville Chamberlain, and Leon Blum remain suspended in the void." To all the questions implicitly put to him by Eden in his speech in the House of Commons on January 19 Hitler replied with a categorical no. He will have nothing to do with any general European settlement, he will accept no international control of armaments, he will have nothing to do with the League of Nations or any similar system of settling disputes by arbitration or international mediation. Germany must be the sole judge of its own requirements in the matter of armaments and everything else.