HIGHLIGHTS from THE CABLES

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 257, 31 October 1939, Page 7

HIGHLIGHTS from THE CABLES

BRUTALITIES IN NAZI PRISON CAMPS

U-BOAT HOPES SHATTERED.

WHO WILL CALL THE CATTLE HOME?

CAMOUFLAGE, the art that had to beso quickly developed on land during the last war. lias been frequently mentioned iii the dispatches of correspondents with Britain's new expeditionary force in France. It is an art that has been vastly improved in the years since the last Armistice, and it has been definitely proved that unless perfect it might as well not be there, for the air photograph will detect defences that the observer's eye has completely missed. Essentially a realistic race, the French have learned their lesson well, and latest air mail reports from London tell how part of the bii-»i-ness of the Maginot Line is dairy fanning.

NOTHING but horror will be felt .it tin- accounts of Nazi brutalities revealed in the White Paper published to-day. Varying accounts of the horrors of tlu- concent ration camps have been told from time to time, but nothing so well documented as the reports of the British Consuls-Genera! lias been published. Kloggings and torture were administered by the guards on tile smallest pretext, and one can realise why fear has In-come the principal emotion of all but the most ardent supporters of the regime.. Now it is reported from Paris that one thousand prisoners have been shot in the purge of gaols and camps in order to "exterminate suspects, impre-ss survivors and make room for further inmates."

•THE statement that the British Navy is romiiieed it has shattered German IT-lwMlt hopes will lie considered in the light of llip characteristic rant ion and reserve of tin , Sil<>nt Service. It may liavp been lured out liy the "fantastic exaggerations" of (lie Xa/is in their claims to have sunk 47">,000 tons of British shipping. With shipping to and from the United Kingdom running into hundreds of thousands of tons weekly. 1 lie loss of 21,000 tons in a week could

Above many a buried fortress graze '20 or 30 cows and a few goats, living camouflage and a source of food for the troops. An enemy airman flying over the fortress would see nothing but harmless cattle cropping the grass. Their pasture looks just like any other field. The troops in the line enjoy the creamy milk which the cows give every day, and they also enjoy the idea that their '"home farm" helps to hoodwink "las Bodies." If the Germans ever get within striking distance of the line a ramp leading to the inner galleries will open and the cows and goats will disappear into the earth. This is the sort, of camouflage that even the camera's eagle eye will not detect.

Tilt* question that naturally arises is what will happen when the Nazis have been defeated. A huge army of party officials administer these camps, and it is natural for those who have suffered to hope that the guards will in turn feel some of the physical pain and mental torment that they imposed on their helpless prisoners. But it is not as easy as that, and when the war is over the Allies may find that one of their greatest reconstruction problems centres round the discredited Brown Shirts. One can only hope that ConsulGeneral Smallbones was wrong in his estimate that perhaps Hitler, who permits these atrocities, and therefore presumably approves them, really knows his Germans.

hardly be a matter for joyful celebration for the enemy, and is certainly a matter for satisfaction for Britain. Also it has to lie remembered that German shipping has been swept from the seas, her mercantile marine is lying , useless in foreign or home pons, and m addition the British Navy is stopping thousands of tons of cargo intended for Germany that is ln-ing carried in neutral Ifottoms and is considered to come within the clearly delined contraband regulations.