1940-04-24 — Page 14

PAGE 4-HONGKONG, TELEGRAPH

YESTERDAY Sir Nevile Henderson, Britain's pre-war Am- bassador, to. Germany, told you about

the *sinister and menacing impres sion" he received at the Nazis' Nuremberg rally: Hitler's coolness when he tried to revive. the plan for a friendly visit to London by Baron von Neurath ;.

b

Goering's hint that the Nazis might decide to revise the Anglo-German Naval Treaty despite Sir Nevile's warning: "That would lead inevitably to war."

F

*VÉDESANY

Of all the big Nazi lenders,

Hermann Geering was

for me by far the most sym- pathetic.

He may have been the man who was chiefly responsible for the firing of the Reichstag in 1933, and he certainly was the one to whom, as his most trusted adherent, Hitler con- fided the task of cleaning up Berlin at the time of the Roehm purge in 1934.

In any crisis, as in war, he would be quite ruthless. He once said to me that the British whom he really ad- mired were those whom he described as the pirates such as Francis Drake, and he re- proached us for having become too "debrutalised."

He was, in fact, himself a typical and brutal buccancer, but he had certain attractive qualities and I must frankly say that I had a real personal Iking for him.

I liked Frau Goering as much as her husband, and possibly for Absolutely better moral reasons, unaffected, she was all kindness and simplicity.

He would not

Sir Nevile Henderson

TO-DAY you read about Goering at home. his playroom, stocked with mechanical toys his wife, simple and kindly, his jovial hospi- tality to Sir Nevile on a hunting expedition. a man with certain attractive qualities, but all the same a brute, a buccaneer.

BOMBING

BRITAIN:

GOERING'S

PLEDGE

part which he had played in the Nazi revolution.

by Everything bad been done Hitler, all the credit was Hitler's, every decision was Hitler's, and he himself was nothing.

sense of have

He had a Falstaman humour, und was said to made a collection of the innumer- able jokes which were made about his foibles by the Berliners.

In this respect he was quite un-. Uke Dr. Goebbels or Hitter.

Most of the stories about Goering were, however, good natured, and ns the following, generally, such made fun of his love for decorn- tions.

filter went one day to visit God. The Almighty said, 'I am always plat to see you, Adolf, but I wish you would stop that fellow Ifermann from coming up here. Every time he conica -he takes away another star." "

car

have Risked War Brought

'The

first time I met her was when she came with her husband to a big lunch at the Embassy to invet the Prime Minister of Cana- da, Mr. Mackenzie King, who was paying a visit to Berlin after the conclusion of the Imperial Con- ference in June, 1037.

At the end of lunch there was a dish of cheese on pastry, which she refused on the ground that her doctor did not allow her to eat pustry.

I suggested that it was a ques- tlon of her excellent tigure, and her reply was "Oh, no. Hermann likes women who are fat."

I apologised to her, saying that

I was not trying to be personal, and that I thought it only right that woman should consider their Ögures,

Vanity was, in my opinion, I said, just as charming in women as It was repugnant in men.

It was possibly a tactless remark to make to her as her husband's vanity, though harmless and child- ish, was notorious. But her only comment was "Do you really think so? I approve of vanity in a man." She said it so simply and natur- ally that one could not have helped liking her, and the more I saw her. the more I did like her.

Had she been politieally minded she and her baby could have been and possibly were a good influence in Goering's life.

I would like to

express hers

my bellef that the Field Marshal, if it had depended on him, would not have gambled an war as Elit- ler did in 1930,

As will be related in due course he came down decisively on the Ride of peace in September, 1938. was rumoured to have lost much of Hitler's favour on that necount, and it is possible that it it had not been for his efforts in 1038 he would have played the same role in 1939.

Once Was an experience, but twice would have been regarded by Hitler as vice.

Collected Jokes

Another was about a motorist, who ran into the Field Marshal's on a dark night, and

was before the judge on a charge of reckless driving He pleaded that it was not his fault, but that of the Field Marshal, who, he said, had forgotten to dim his decorations. He was acquitted.

Played alone with

Toy Bombers

However little compassion Goering may have had, like so many Germans, for his fellow-men, he loved animals and children, and

neither easily took nor lightly gave offence, and he was quick to seizo the point at which one was driving. I do not flatter myself that, in the long conversations which I had with him, I ever modified his opinions, but he was always ready to listen and eager to learn.

66

"Military

Objectives only'

He was always, for instance, ask- Ing questions about England and Engilsh personalities, about whom he was very fully, though often in-

INSTALMENT THREE-

Big Three of Nazi Germany bend their heads together. Centre is Joseph Goebbels whom Goering may yet have to fight before inheriting the Fuehrer's mantle..

son of the present German com- mander-in-chief.

Stag-shopting in the dense forests

of Europe is not like deer-stalking in Scotland. The deer cannot be spied from a distance, and their whereabouts be

can

discovered only when they roar during the the rutling season. In the evening stag comes out into some favourite clearing in the forest, where the grass is sweetest, and the easiest way

to shoot him is to wait at some suitable spot on its edge til he doca so.

to do nothing to hinder her legi- timate expansion.

It was the theory of the free hand "for Germany in Central and Eastern Europe, and in substance was identical with the last pro- posals handed to me by Hitler on August 23 two years later.

Its very simplicity made it the more plausible, but it left out of all account not only the national conscience and international idealism of the Western demo- cracles, but also the methods and exaggerated pretensions of Nazism.

With a Germany

Lo prepared admit the equality of rights of others, and to solve problems by negotiation instead of by forec, a gentleman's agreement Buch lines would have had much recommend it. his

"Hochstande" (literally high- stands, or a sort of platform some 20 to 30 feet high) are sometimes erected at such spots, and all the sportsman has to do is to climb it and walt an hour or so before the яtog usually appears with harem.

I had arrived early in the morn- - ing, and at about 4 p.m. arrange- ments were made for me to go to such a pince to shoot a big 14 pointer which Was known to frequent It.

I

was rather

correctly, informed, but in respect Nervous

of whom he often niso expressed shrewd judgments,

Nor, except on the last occasion on which I over saw him, did he ever make those tiresome speeches to which one had sometimes to listen from, others,

I spent two hours in his company on August 31 last, while the Polish Ambassador was seeing Ribbentrop, and a few hours before the advance of the German army into Polish territory and the dispatch of his airmen at dawn to bomb the Polish aerodrome.

At that moment the order for the aggression had not yet finally been signedby" Hiller, "and"every=" thing was believed to hang upon the nature of the interview be tween Lipski and Ribbentrop.

Goering, though absolutely ready fo press the button, still seemed at

"Frau Goering and her baby could have been, and possibly were, a good influence in Goering's life."

before ever he had a child of his own, the top floor at Bis home at Karinhail, 40 miles from Berlin, contained a vast play room fitted up with every toy dear to the heart of the modern child.

Nothing used to give him greater pleasure than to go and play there with them.

The toys might, it is true, in-- clude models of acroplanes drop- ping heavy bombs which explod- ed on defenceless towns or vil lages, but, as he observed when I reproached him on the subject, it was not part of the Nazi con- orption of Ife to be excessively olvllised or to teach squeamish- new to the young.

Falling children he would romp with one of the baby lion, of which there was ono in the house

About Himself until his daughter Edda arrived.

Goering was the absolute servant

of his master, and I have never seen greater loyalty and devotion than ha to Hitler.

In all the very trank talks, which I had with Goering, he never once spoke of himself or of the great

In spite of his innumerable nell- vities, Goering would always find time, not only to see one but to give one on apparently unlimited amount of his time.

He was a man to whom one could absolutely frankly. He

sprakt

least half hopeful

of a peaceful is- suc.

Incidentally, he gave me the most categorical assur- ances that, in the event of war with Britain, his air- men would not bomb anything except definlicly abjec- military

橥

tives.

When I pointed out that, owing to the height and speed of modern aircraft, that not pre- would vent bombs, dim- ed supposedly at military target, falling in residen- tial London, and that would

much object to being hit on the hend by "any such present from Hermann Goering," his immediate answer was that, if that did hap- pen, he would certainly send a special aeroplane to drop a wreath nt my funeral.

And, if it did happen, I have no doubt he would do so.

Before starting off, Goering re- marked that Englishmen, however good they might be with shot guns, were no good with a rifle. He had once invited an English sportsman to shoot a stag and he had missed it three times!

It was not an encouraging start, and made me feel as if I had got to defend the whole sporting honour of the Brillsh Isles..

Nor was

dl- my nervousness ninished when I found that I was to be accompanied by Scherping and Menthe as well us by the regular keeper on whose beat this particular stag lived."

I could not help reflecting that my companions were all feeling rather contemptuous-of-a-poor- damned diplomat, and one at that.

British

Fortune was, however, with me on that occasion. We mounted the high stand, and after a wait of over an hour, tie stag and his harem appeared quite ü different place from that at which they were expected, and a good half-mile away.

Goering's

Peace Terms

03

There was nothing for it but to

stalk descend and attempt a

more or less Scottish lines. That mennt walking some distance, then a long crawl on hankis and knees and finally creeping all alone on the lot of my face till I, reached a hundred small knobble about a yards from the herd.

When I got there the sing was kindly standing broadside on, and I shot it through the heart.

on

to

Any attempt to achieve it was bound to fail as long * Hitler

und his Nazi regime persisted in employing outside Germany the same methods used to secure their position within Germany.

[Copyright

all countries through Raymond Savage Limited, London. Reproduction in whole or in part strictly prohibited.]

TO-MORROW you will read of peace moves, then a dramatic warning-"It is not an army but the whole German nation which is being prepared for war."

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From that moment my reputa- tion as sportsman was secure.

Goering was, I felt, delighted and, when his people told him that I had had to crawl on my stomach (a rare event in a German forest) he remarked, with a Kuffaw Inughter, that that was the right way for diplomats to get about.

Incidentally I shot a second stag the next morning, again with one shot, and once more in the course of stalk instead of on scl "highstand." which always gives one the impression of shooting at a

After that

considered worthy to become, as I did later, an honorary member of the Ger man Jagerschaft,

Challenged Met

at Stag-Hunt

My first experience of his hos- sing-hunting. pllality was at a party at Rominten, his estate in East Prussia.

The house itself was simple shooting-box with a thatched roof, but fitted · Internally with every comfort.

As for ng I was aware, the house- hold consisted solely of maids with one manservant, and there was no ceremony of any kind.

One of his Swedish brothers-in-` law, Count Rosen, was the only other quest, and the rest of the party consisted of Oberstinger- metster Scherping. Observtjhger- meister Menthe, and a young Alr

· OMeer `A.D.C., Von Brauchitsch, a

I

was

I left Rominten with regret. I had had one long political talk with Goering. Very shrewd and astuto as fut men so often are, his mind was simple and dealt only, with essentials,

III idea of an understanding between Great Britain and. Ger- many was an agreement, Rimited to two clauECE,

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By to second, Great Britain would recognise the predomin- ant continental positions; of; Ger- many in Europe, and undertake

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