GERMANS DEPRESSED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 271, 26 August 1943, Page 4

GERMANS DEPRESSED.

THE PROMOTION OF HIMMLER. GRIP OF GESTAPO TIGHTENED. (Rec. 1.5 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 25. All reports reaching Sweden agree that Himmler’s promotion to Minister for the Interior has profoundly depressed the German public, which sees him virtually becoming tlie new Fuhrer even before Hitler formally goes, says the “Daily Express” correspondent at Stockholm. Himmler has never been a popular figure. Tlie Germans see the grip of the Gestapo reaching out to even those few branches of civilian life hitherto left untouched. Himmler, who besides controlling the Gestapo and Black Guards, is also a member of the Defence Council of the Prussian State Council, now holds altogether seven jobs, including control of the whole civil service. His first act has been to inaugurate a purge of all civil servants in the Home Officewhom be regards as politically unsound, replacing them from the Black Guards with a mixture of members of the Gestapo.

“The Times” correspondent on the German frontier says that neutral observers in Berlin regard Himmler’s appointment as initiating a. period of greater rigour and austerity which presumably is regarded as necessary for the application of many additional measures for the defence of the Reich in view of the intensified air raids, the Russian offensives and the prospective early second front.