NAZIS IN STYRIA

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 12290, 2 March 1938, Page 3

NAZIS IN STYRIA

NOW OUT_OF HAND BADGES OPENLY WORN INTERNAL PEACE THREATENED London, Feb. 28 The Graz correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says that Styria is now an Austrian province, where the Government writ runs in consonance with Nazi permission. One man in seven, one schoolboy in three, and one woman in 15 openly wear the forbidden swastika. One in 12 wears the badge of the Fatherland Front. The streets until Sunday were filled with hawkers selling swastika badges and postcard portraits of Herr Hitler. Men and women who refused to buy were insulted. The shop windows of booksellers were crammed with his pictures. Nazi demonstrations were not reported in the Vienna papers. Schools have been closed in order to prevent Nazi teachers from spreading propaganda among the children. Vienna, March 1 The future of the Austrian Nazis and of the internal peace of Austria will depend upon the visit to be paid to Graz to-day by the Minister of the Interior, Dr. Syss Inquart. It is expected that at a conference with the police, members of the Fatherland Front and Nazis, Dr. Inquart will emphasise that he is determined to suppress the activities of the Nazis. Also he is expected to point out the danger of civil war if the hostility of the Nazis does not cease. Preparations are being made forcibly to put down trouble-makers, should Dr. Inquart’s appeal fail, and 6000 troops and several hundred members of the Air Force from the Vienna district have been concentrated at Graz. Nazi handbills complain bitterly of this and announce that the Government is not able to stem the “Brown tide.’’ Also they claim that Graz garrison is proNazi.