LAWLESS ACTION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 239, 9 October 1942, Page 3

LAWLESS ACTION

PRISONERS SHACKLED

Nazis Warned British Will Take Counter Action Kec. 11.30 a.m. LONDON, Oct. 8. The Berlin radio has announced that the shackling of the 2500 British ana Canadian prisoners from the Dieppe raid began at noon to-day. The shackling was carried out because the British reply on the treatment of German prisoners was unsatisfactory. The radio said the German reprisals were the only possible answer to the enemy, who apparently was unimpressed by other arguments. Perhaps the German reprisals would make some Englishmen think carefully about the difference between a post-war Utopia and hard wartime realities.

The representative of Switzerland, which is the German protecting Power, this afternoon interviewed German prisoners from Dieppe. It is understood the Swiss representative sought permission from the British Government to interview the prisoners after the British announcement that the German protecting Power was at liberty to interrogate the prisoners about the truth of the British statement that none of them was bound during the Dieppe raid.

The Germans have not stated officially that the British prisoners have been shackled. The authority for the statement remains the Berlin radio.

There has been a quick retort from London, and Germany has been warned that an equal number of Germans will be shackled if the German authorities persist in their action.

A statement issued in London says that if the German Government puts into force its threat of illegal action the British would be compelled to take retaliatory measures. Unless the men are released from shackles an equal number of German prisoners of war will be manacled and chained from noon on Saturday.

Earlier it was stated that if the Germans did not desist from this action, which was expressly forbidden by Article 2 of the Geneva Convention, the only course open would be for Britain to take counter measures The Germans' threat was made yesterday following the raid by a small British commando force on the enemy-occupied island of Sark in the English Channel. The Germans, in their account of the raid, alleged that Germans captured on the island were bound. These allegations have been categorically denied by the British Government. Information obtained by the commandos confirmed that hundreds of Channel islanders have been conscripted for forced labour in Germany. The British Government, through Swiss channels, is seeking the names of those transported to Germany and their whereabouts. "The German statement that British prisoners taken at Dieppe will be placed in chains is regarded in London as a piece of pure blackmail," says the diplomatic correspondent of The Times. "The statement obviously was deliberately drawn up in such a Way that makes it impossible for the British authorities to comply with the stipulation before noon to-day. There is no reason to suppose that the enemy will not repeat such tactics whenever it suits him to do so. It therefore is not a matter for argument. The British conscience is clear. We are content to base our case on the hunrfne treatment we accord war prisoners, to which the Germans captured at Dieppe all paid a tribute." . , _. ~ The Dame of Sark, Mrs. Sybd Mary Hathaway, who had complete magisterial and legislative powers on Sark, Is reported to have been deported to a German concentration camp last year as a reprisal for youthful Islanders harassing the Germans.