EXPLOSION A PUT-UP JOB?

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 266, 10 November 1939, Page 7

EXPLOSION A PUT-UP JOB?

Attempt To Rally People

WIDE SUSPICION

Hitler Says Must Be Foreign Agents' Work

POSSIBLE REPRISALS

(Tinted Press Association.— Copy right,—llec. 11 a.m.) ZURICH, November 9. Reports from Germany indicate that the people are puzzled why the bomb that exploded in the Munich beer cellar was not timed to explode in the middle of the meeting, leading to the suspicion that it may be an attempt to rally the country similar to the burning of the Reichstag. It is known that anti-Nazis are already being rounded up and that Herr I limmler, head of the Secret Police, desreo a trial on the lines of that following the Reichstag fire to demonstrate that the explosion was the work of a foreign country. Monarchists have fallen under suspicion, and according to a report from the German frontier the Crown Prince was arrested and has been on parole for the past fortnight as a result of demonstrations in favour of restoration of the monarchy. A special commission of the Gestapo is investigating the explosion, and a great purge is progressing throughout Germany. people fear a Gestapo reign of terror, and are anxiously wondering on whom the Nazi revenge will fall. Police Squads On Duty Day And Night. Hitler has resumed his duties at the Chancellery, but did not appear on the balcony in response to repeated calls from the crowds. Special squads of police are maintaining a vigil throughout the day and the night. The evening newspapers and the radio echo the fury of the morning Press indicting Britain for attempted murder, but not a shred of evidence ha. been produced to support the fantastic charge that the Hritish Secret Service was responsible. It is alio suggested that air attacks on Britain may follow as a reprisal. Hitler was told of the explosion while he was on his way to Berlin. He was deeply distressed, and said that it must be the work of foreign agents. Wn mil- th k t t at n r a °/ attem P*« on Hitler's life has been published, though there have been at least three previously. The Basle "National Zeitung" says it is difficult to resist the auspicion that the explosion was an attempt to justify the opening ot the totalitarian war against Britain.