851.00/2414: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 25—7:10 p.m.]
5096. Your 4691, October 24, 8 p.m. Following the President’s statement on the German practice of executing hostages the Prime Minister as reported in the late press issued the following statement this evening.
“His Majesty’s Government associate themselves fully with the sentiments of horror and condemnation expressed by the President of the United States upon the Nazi butcheries in France. These coldblooded executions of innocent people will only recoil upon the savages who order and execute them. The butcheries in France are an example of what Hitler’s Nazis are doing in many other countries under their yoke. The atrocities in Poland, in Yugoslavia, in Norway, in Holland, in Belgium and above all behind the German fronts in Russia surpass anything that has been known since the darkest and most bestial ages of mankind. They are but a foretaste of what Hitler would inflict upon the British and American peoples if only he could get the power. Retribution for these crimes must henceforward take its place among the major purposes of the war.”