THE WESTERN MAIL

Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales

25 April 1939

(page 6)

Impressions From Berlin.

I spoke to-day to Major-gen. J. F. C. Fuller, the military expert, whose presence with Lord Brocket in the tribune of honour at Herr Hitler’s birthday parade has been criticized in the British Press and eulogized in the German. He told me that he was very impressed with the display of Germany’s armed might which he saw in Berlin. Undoubtedly the Germans had made tremendous progress with the mechanization of their forces since last he saw them. The much-debated outsize A.A. guns were larger than anything he had seen before. The 200 tanks in the parade were all modern and good machines, but undoubtedly the Germans did not show their latest arms. The military show was meant to impress, and it did. Major-gen. Fuller, about 5ft. 4in. in height, wears steel-rimmed glasses. His manner on the platform is rather that of a professor than of a professional soldier. “Debating mediocrities,” he considers, are no match for men of action like Napoleon and Julius Caesar in the past and Hitler in the present. On the merits of discipline versus democratic debate he has never tried to hide his views.