Survival by G. S. Willmott

Author:G. S. Willmott [Willmott, G S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction - Historical, Fiction - War
ISBN: 9781925280067
Publisher: Garry Willmott
Published: 2015-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

Millions of leaflets were dropped over Germany. On 3rd September alone, 6 million copies of ‘Note to the German People’ were dropped in just one night − the equivalent of thirteen tons of paper. The main result of these initial raids was that the Germans stepped up their anti-aircraft batteries. While some politicians believed that the raids served a purpose, others in the military did not.

The English translation of the leaflet was:

Warning: A Message from Great Britain

German Men and Women: ‘The Government of the Reich have, with cold deliberation, forced war upon Great Britain. They have done so knowing that it must involve mankind in a calamity worse than that of 1914. The assurances of peaceful intentions the Fuehrer gave to you and to the world in April have proved as worthless as his words at the Sportpalast last September, when he said: ‘We have no more territorial claims to make in Europe’.

‘Never has government ordered subjects to their death with less excuse. This war is utterly unnecessary. Germany was in no way threatened or deprived of justice.

Iron censorship

Was she not allowed to re-enter the Rhineland, to achieve the Anschluss , and to take back the Sudeten Germans in peace? Neither we nor any other nation would have sought to limit her advance so long as she did not violate independent non-German peoples.

Every German ambition – just to others – might have been satisfied through friendly negotiation.’

President Roosevelt offered you both peace with honour and the prospect of prosperity. Instead, your rulers have condemned you to the massacre, miseries and privations of a war they cannot ever hope to win.

It is not us, but you they have deceived. For years their iron censorship has kept from you truths that even uncivilised peoples know.

Minds imprisoned

It has imprisoned your minds in, as it were, a concentration camp. Otherwise they would not have dared to misrepresent the combination of peaceful peoples to secure peace as hostile encirclement.

We had no enmity against you, the German people.

This censorship has also concealed from you that you have not the means to sustain protracted warfare. Despite crushing taxation, you are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Our resources and those of our Allies, in men, arms and supplies are immense. We are too strong to break by blows and we could wear you down inexorably.

You, the German people, can, if you will, insist on peace at any time. We also desire peace, and are prepared to conclude it with any peace loving Government in Germany.

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