SWEDEN SHOCKED BY GERMAN DECISION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 294, 11 December 1943, Page 5

SWEDEN SHOCKED BY GERMAN DECISION

PROTESTS IGNORED

Oslo Students Removed In

Greatest Secrecy

N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, Dec. 10. The German decision to ignore the Swedish Government's protests against the deportation of Oslo University students has shocked Sweden, says the British United Press correspondent in Stockholm. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, demanding the closure of Swedish territorial waters to German merchant shipping, criticised the Government for failing'to back up the protest with concrete measures. The newspaper nevertheless expresses the opinion that the stoppage of iron ore exports to Germany is at present impracticable as Sweden is bound by contract until the end of 1944. "after which iron ore exports are likely to cease any way." Another newspaper carries a cartoon showing a huge clenched fist halting a train laden with goods for Germany, with the caption: "This sort of protest will be understood."

Trade talks between Sweden and Germany will be resumed in Stockholm to-morrow under these unfavourable conditions.

At the Point of the Bayonet The British United Press says about 600 students have been deported to Germany. Nearly 200 other Norwegians, including 20 professors and a number of policemen, have also been deported.

The students left for Germany under conditions of the greatest secrecy. Armed police guards accompanied the special train which took them from the concentration camp at Strafern to Oslo, where they were hurried aboard a ship at the point of the bayonet. So seriously does the Nazi governor of Norway, Terboven, fear strikes and demonstrations in protest against the deportations that he has forbidden the Norwegian Press to mention that the first contingent has already left. More Swedish Protests More protests from Swedish sources have followed the news of the deportation of several hundred of the Oslo students. The Swedish Academy of History and Antiquities expresses indignation and distress and adds that this blow against scholars in Sweden's brother country will cause the gravest damage to the relations between scientific circles in Sweden and Germany for an incalculable period. The Germans are now taking action against students in Denmark. Swedish reports say houses in the student quarter of Copenhagen were searched and several arrests made. Seven other people were arrested in Odense. The Germans claim to have found considerable quantities of arms and a few hundred Danish military uniforms in the houses of some of the students arrested.