PUPPET SET UP

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 140, 24 March 1944, Page 3

PUPPET SET UP

THE GOVERNMENT OF HUNGARY. ACTION TAKEN BY GERMANS. THREAT OF MARTIAL LAW. (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, Mar. 23. The resignation of the Hungarian Government is announced, and the Regent (Admiral Horthy) has asked the Hungarian Minister, in Berlin (Dome (Sztojay) to form a new Cabinet. Sztojay, who has taken the portfolios of Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, is an extreme pro-Nazi. He was a member of the Austrian, General Staff in the last war.

The new Hungarian Government announced by the Germans is headed by Major-General Sztojay, hitherto Minister to Berlin, and contains mostly men of little, if any, consequence in official and political circles.'The new Minister and plenipotentiary of the Greater German Reich to Hungary is Dr. Veehsen Mayer, who has been serving in Zagreb.

There are many signs of trouble between Germany and Hungary. Not the least of, these is a statement by a spokesman addressing leaders of the Arrow Cross and leaders of the German minority. The spokesman said that if politicians were unable to form a trustworthy cabinet in a position to guarantee loyal support of the broad masses of the Hungarian people the German military command would form a Hungarian-German military administration and place the whole of: Hungary under martial law. The Hungarian Minister at Stockholm is understood to have resigned on the grounds that Hungary* no longer possesses a legal government and must be considered an occupied country,—British Official Wireless.