NAZI SPIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 102, 3 May 1939, Page 9

NAZI SPIES.

S.W. AFRICA RIDDLED. BUSINESS SMOKE-SCREENS. STUTER UNION AXTITUIKB. (From Our Own Correspondent.) JOHANJfESBURG, April 6. According to a newspaper correspondent from Windhuk, South-West Africa is riddled with Nazi spies. There is little that goee on in the territory politically, commercially, socially or from an administrative point of view which is not known to these people and, in due course, correlated and passed on. The presence of these Nan spies is not unknown both to the police and the Department of Justice officiate who are, in fact, singularly well-informed of Nazi activities in South-Weet Africa.

In both the police and the Department of Justice offices are numerous files of 'frozen' dossiers on Nazi agents against whom nothing can be done. Many of them cloak their activities by affecting to represent German businesses or scientific institutions. Others, pretending to serve the commercial or agricultural interests of the territory, are in reality Na« agents working only for the benefit of Germany.

The barter agreement between South Africa and Germany gives them plenty of scope for their subversive activities. In certain instances these persons are born in ths territory, and are British subjects by automatic naturalisation. They can therefore, in the light of the German claim to dual nationality, pretend to be loyal South Africans while working wholeheartedly in the interests of a foreign Power. Tolerance on the part of the Union Government has been interpreted as weakness by the Germans, and they have been taking advantage of the onion Government's' attitude. Reports . ars» prevalent, however, that the Union R*" , - Urnment is stiffening in its attitude 'towaids Nazi propagandist*.