Evening star., 1934-04-05
Germany, 1917-and 1884.

Germany, 1917-and 1884.
This weeks seventeenth anniversary
of the United States declaration of
war against Germany lends timeliness
to a couple Of current American pub
lications on the subject of the Reich S
rearmament activities. They are q
report by the Foreign Policy Associa-
ton and an article in Harper's Mag
azine for April by Ludwig Lore, until
1881 editor of the New York Volks-
Zeitung. The Foreign Policy Associa-
tion report appears to be based upon
the French dossier of Germanys re-
armament plans. Mr.. Lore's material
was gathered by him in the course of
journey last Fall through Germany,
Austria and Czechoslovakia.
Both publications tell a startling
chapter-and-verse story of the tre-
mendous extent to which the Nal
Reich has succeeded in reconstructing
the German war machine. The For
eign Policy Association quotes the
Berlin government as estimating the
strength of Herr Hitlers private
army" at about 2,5Oo, 900 men between
the ages of eighteen and sixty. On
the basis of such figures, rearmament
in Germany has already far exceeded
the limits imposed by the Versailles
treaty.
Mr.. Lore'S article in Harpers goes
into far more disturbing details. Under
Capt. Roehm. "Nazidom's new war
lord" Mr.. Lore states that the COM
pletion of Germany's plans for .
unified system of mobilization will
place about 5,5OO,OOO men outside the
Reichswehr under military orders" :"
Such a force will be incomparably
the most powerful army in Eu-
rope. It comprehends Storm Troops,
Schutzstaffel, Steel Helmets and other
politico-militarist organizations sub
sidized by the state and maintained
on regulation army lines in a high
state of training and preparedness.
Mr.. Lore says it may confidently be
expected that another seven to ten
months will see Germany far in ad-
vance Of its neighbors in fighting
strength"
In every conceivable direction, &C
cording to the Harper's publication,
Germany is feverishly making ready
to become formidable and invincible
in war. Munition works, though nor
mally engaged in the arts of peaceful
manufacture, are busily turning out
weapons and ammunition for use on
land, on sea and in the air. There
are necessarily heavy imports of all
required raw materials. Germany's
own extensive chemical industry is
generating vast quantities and be-
wildering varieties of poison gases.
Mr.. Lore quotes terrifying book en-
titled German War Science" by
Prof. Ewald Banse of the Techno-
logical Institute of Brunswick, in
which there is unbelievably candid
discussion of the advantages of "bac-
THEOLOGICAL warfare" through the
spread of disease germs of all de-
scriptions. The article tells of Ger
man laboratories and archaeological
institutes, under the leadership of the
Robert Koch Institute at Berlin, pool
ing their skill in the field of germ
warfare.
The wealth of circumstantial details
with which Germany's military prep
arations are discussed in the two pub
locations herein referred to compels
the conviction that there must be
much, If not entire, substantiation
for them. Viewing them in the light
of the militant new national spirit
with which the Nazi movement has
fired the German people, the outside
world now understands two things
with crystal clearness-why the Reich S
neighbors live in a state of perpetual
alarm, and why the League of Ma
tons hope of any reduction of arma-
ments in Europe is condemned to be
an idle dream.
At this moment, when the American
people, in anniversary reveries, have
their thoughts attuned to the fateful
step they took on April 6, 1917, they
contemplate the state OF affairs in
the Old World with mingled dismay
and anxiety. 1t is depressing situa-
ton that they envision lover there
seventeen futile years after.