-9- My offer, continued the Chancellor, of a non aggression Pact to Czecho-Slovakia still stands, but the essential condition of its conclusion would be full satisfaction of the claims of the German minority. Lord Lothian raised the question of the possibility of armament limitation. The Chancellor asked rather ironically would England agree now to limitation. Did we Germans start? asked the Chancellor. Germany began re-arming from the height of the small little hill the Kreuzburg (outside Berlin) and England from the Zugspitze (the highest mountain peak in Germany in Bavaria). The Chancellor went on: he had made several important offers of armament limitation, in 1934 April, air limitation, and he described the proportional strength he then offered, abolition of bombing, and of pffensive weakness, he then referred to the economic Russian armament with its 7000 tanks etc. England alone, continued the Chancellor, had accepted one of these offers in the Naval Treaty. The Chancellor proceeded to say that in spite of everything he was convinced that Great Britain would wish to be on friendly terms with Germany and cooperate closely with her. After the Spanish affair was over he hoped that England would be mmmmmmm convinced of German loyalty in this respect. He wished to say that he the Chancellor welcomed England's Gentleman's Agreement with Italy. He was of the opinion that friendly relations between England, Italy, Japan and Germany were of the greatest value to each of these countries. He expressed the view that Japan's new position in the Asiatic Continent harmed England less than if ht had pushed its expansion in other directions. Japan with a population of 90 millions had to expand in one or other direction. English interests were better served by the present position. He liked to think float the old traditional friendship between Japan and England would continue. He, Hitler, would like to encourage the friendship - he hoped that the British Government realised that his policy in this field had this aim- |