-3-
about his policy. England might be able to look lightly at the
ravages of Communism elsewhere, or indeed to regard its spreading
with relative equanimity. If Spain went Bolshevik, followed by
France, England could withdraw and rely on her Empire. We Germans
had no Empire. For us the spread of Communism was a question of
existence, to be or not to be (sein oder nights sein).
That was the reason for their Four Year Plan to achieve a relative
independence. How could anyone believe that his attitude to
national Spain was in any shape or form anti-English. He wished
that England could do something more positive to assist the people
of Spain, but this attitude on the part of England was no barrier
to Anglo-German understanding, so far as Germany was concerned.
He did not believe that Italy had any intention of setting itself
down (fest setzen) in Spain. It was unfortunate this divergence in
the British and German attitude, but time alone would say who
was right. The Chancellor deplored most profoundly "the fantastic"
stories in the British Press regarding supposed German action in
Guernica. (It was clear that these tendencious reports in The
Times and other papers had greatly upset the Chancellor, and accounted for
the rather heavy atmosphere during the first hour of the discussion.
T he Golonial Quest|0n.
The Colonial Question.
The Chancellor then proceeded to refer to what he
regarded as another cause of estrangement- the colonial question.
His manner became even more grave. He directed Dr. Schmidt to
pay particular attention to the accuracy of the translation at this
stage.
"l am not going to trouble myself with expounding the
case for our own claims for colonies. I am not going to do
this. It is sufficient to repeat that England says about our
claims, and that is for us scarcely tolerable (schwer ertraglich).
"England says: America needs a large vast area to
feed its people. Precisely. Absolutely correct.
Russia needs a vast area to feed its people.
Correct.