-5- on the biggest armament program of its entire history so that "no agreement like Munich would ever again be necessarily accepted by the British Government". (I did not remind the Minister that neither Duff Cooper, Eden nor Churchill was at that time in the British Cabinet. ) From this moment on in the Minister's monologue, the word "England, England, England" punctuated his speech like the toll of a funeral bell. I could not help but think of the "Got Strafe England" of the years 1917-1918. The keystone of Hitler's foreign policy had been the creation of close and cooperative relations with England. From the year 1933 on Hitler, time and time again, had consulted England on the steps he had intended to take, and time and again England had not only repulsed his overtures with scorn--and the German ward "Hohn" came out like the hiss of a snake- but had with craft and with guile done her utmost to prevent the German people from once mare assuming their rightful place in the family of nations. Hitler had no ambitions which conflicted with the maintenance of the integrity of the British Empire; on the contrary, he believed the integrity of the British Empire was a desirable and a stabilizing factor in the world. For that reason he had entered into the naval agreement of 1935 with Great Britain, voluntarily pledging Germany to a minimum naval ratio, as a pledge to England that Germany had no designs upon the Empire. Until the last moment Hitler had sought peace and understanding with England, always to find hatred, scorn and trickery as her reward. Germany had offered to guarantee the frontiers of the new Czechoslovakia agreed upon at Munich. But he could this commitment be carried out? The new Czech authorities had |