GERMAN TRICKS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 31, 6 February 1943, Page 7

GERMAN TRICKS

RIVAL SATELLITES RISKY PLAY IN BALKANS - ANKARA. : The new Bulgarian Quisling, Gabrovski, Minister of the Interior, seems to be much in the limelight and is displaying great activity. He has toured Western Thrace and Eastern Macedonia, visiting the fortifications constructed there against an ; eventual Allied landing and inspecting the Bulgarian reinforcements dispatched to those provinces. He also keeps an eye on Bulgarisation there, which is making rapid progress thanks to the ruthless and unscruplous policy of the Bulgarian officials. Their latest trick is to deliver food cards only to persons who can produce documentary evidence that they are Bulgarians or of Bulgarian origin—in other words, to those who sign a declaration to that effect. After completing his tour Gabrovski went to Bucharest to sign a non-aggression pact between Bulgaria and Rumania—another illustration of the German policy in the Balkans of playing off countries against their neighbours. A few months ago Bulgaria and Hungary signed a similar pact, supposed to be secret, which was sponsored by Germany and was directed against Rumania. The Germans use it as a menace against Rumania to obtain the dispatch of more Rumanian troops to the Russian front. Now the Bulgarians have been induced to cancel that pact and sign a new one with Rumania, which will be used as a means of breaking the spirit of independence in Hungary and compelling that country to submit to German demands for Nazification of the Hungarian political regime and a more active contribution to the war against Russia.