GERMANY'S NEXT MOVE [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, —In

you issue of September 16th there appeared an article under the above title, in which the writer, after referring to Herr Hitler's speech of the 12th inst., says : " He said that conditions in Czechoslovakia are intolerable ; which is untrue. He said that the Sudeten Germans had been deliberately ruined economically and then handed over to slow extermination ; which is untrue. He said the Sudeten Germans were being oppressed inhumanly and unbearably ; which is untrue."

Might I ask on what facts are these categorical denials based ?

My own experiences, as a traveller through certain Sudeten areas, are that conditions are appalling. Mentioning this to a friend, who had made a close study of these conditions in 1936, he said :

" In one large city I found a single Sudeten German hospital with 75 beds and 142 patients—surgical cases, contagious cases, &c., and even three sick children in one bed. There was one surgeon and one assistant in charge, helped by a few nuns. Everything was deficient and ghastly." - I am further informed, on good authority, that in the Sudeten areas is to be found the highest death rate, suicide rate and infant mortality in Europe. Are these statements true or are

they lies ?

I would not have encroached on your space had not the writer of this article made another assertion, namely : " But Russia in her foreign relations since 1920 has had as good a record as any country in Europe. She has committed no aggression and threatened none."

Has the writer accidentally overlooked Spain ?

In 1933 M. Yvon Delbos, then Vice-President of the French Chamber of Deputies, published a book (since rigorously

suppressed) entitled L'Experience Rouge, in which, on pages

185-186, he writes :

" In short, a special room (in the Museum of the Revolution in Moscow) is consecrated to the future Communist revolution in Spain with copies of the journals La Bandera Roia, La Palabra, portraits of Bolshevic Castillians and pictures of strikes and riots. From which it is evident that the Soviets anticipate their first successes of contagion amongst our friends on the other side of the Pyrenees."

What does The Times Riga correspondent say on

September 15th, 1938 ?

" Until yesterday, Soviet messages implied that an Imperialist War was certain (conditions were developing as foretold and pro- nounced desirable in the ' foundations of Soviet international policy ' drawn up in Moscow in 1933—a copy of which I have before me)— but today Mr. Chamberlain's visit is represented as a disturbing factor, and the general tone of Soviet messages is more despondent, apparently reflecting the fear that now there may be no Imperialistic War at all."

Would the above-mentioned writer justify his assertions ? It is important that he should, or else withdraw them, for I am of opinion, and I imagine others also, that no unnecessary fuel should be added to the present crisis.—I am, yours faithfully, 37 Cheyne Court, S.W.3. J. F. C. FULLER, Major-General.

[ (i) Sudeten Germans have certain grievances which might have been remedied earlier ; no one has ever denied that. But conditions in their territory arc not and never have been intolerable. Herr Henlein and other leaders never claimed that themselves till the present (i.e., post-Anschluss) stage of the agitation. The Sudeten Germans were never deliberately ruined " economically, any more than the special areas of England and Wales were ; part of their economic troubles was due to the restrictions Germany laid on imports from Czechoslovakia and other countries. Till the Austrian Anschluss and the fear it inspired three Sudeten German parties, representing nearly a million people, were supporting the Czechoslovak Government and had Ministers in the Cabinet —a relationship hardly consistent with " inhuman and unbear- able oppression." (2) The unidentified Sudeten German hospital was presumably either a private institution or a public institution in a Sudeten German commune. In either case its condition would appear to be the affair of the Sudeten Germans them- selves. (3) Finally, Spain had not been overlooked. There is nothing improper in Russia's assisting the legitimate government of Spain or any other country to fight an internal rebellion. —ED. The Spectator.]