RUHR HORROR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1943, Page 2

RUHR HORROR

LEGIONS OF LOST

GRIM GERMAN LAMENT

GERMAN FRONTIER,

Germany is confronted with yet another problem which she never expected to face. That problem is the rehousing of the bombed-out legions of the Ruhr, now spreading themselves over the country. To counter lack of enthusiasm in the new "reception" areas, a twopoint propaganda campaign has been launched. Its methods are:— 1. "Horror" broadcasts designed to arouse pity in the raid-free areas —and to warn residents there of what may yet befall them. 2. Decrees compelling Germans in all areas to give up surplus rooms in their homes—or even whole residences if the owner has more than one—for housing evacuees. The Fearful Truth In the first category comes this broadcast given over the Deutschlandsender station by a German officer, Heinz von Plato, who returned on leave to his Ruhr home. "When my railway train approached my home town we were alarmed by the wailing of sirens and soon we heard the roar of our anti-aircraft guns," he told his listeners. "It was a terrific night for us—a thousand times worse than I have yet experienced in this devastating war. "I saw Warsaw immediately after its collapse; I took part in the storming of Calais when it was a heap of ruins; I have seen scores of ruined towns and villages in Russia. "But I have never seen such crashing demolition as I have seen in Western Germany, and as I went from one town to another I saw the same scenes everywhere. "The fearful truth is that we have in Western Germany a people who are really in the front line of a raging battle. And, in addition to all the hardships the people have to suffer, there is a feeling of utter helplessness." Funeral music was played before and after von Plato's broadcast.