GERMANY LOSES GOLD

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 148, 20 March 1934, Page 9

GERMANY LOSES GOLD

Difficulty of Paying for Imports HOME-GROWN SUBSTITUTES By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. (Received March 19, 10.15 p.m.). London, March 19. The British United Press correspondent in Berlin says that the excitement resulting from (he announcement that Germany has lost £6,000,000 worth of gold since the new year is interpreted in some quarters as meaning that home-grown raw materials will shortly lie substituted for materials of foreign origin which Germany is unable to import owing to exhaustion of foreign currency. A similar substitute system enabled Germany to carry on during the war and can be applied to tobacco and_ textiles. An alternative to the substitute system is depreciation of the mark in order to stimulate exports from Ger'many or a complete moratorium in Regard to Germany's foreign debts, which are now £750.000,000. “FRANKLY INHUMAN” Nazi Concentration Camp London, March IS. Conditions in the concentration camp at Oranienburg, near Berlin, from which he recently escaped, were described in London by Gerhardt Seger, formerly secretary of the German Peace Society, and a Socialist member of tlie Reichstag until his arrest last year on no charge, but owing to his political , opinions. The first thing Seger heard on his arrival in London was that his wife and baby had been arrested as hostages because of his book dealing with his experiences, tlie circulation of which is forbidden in Germany. "There are 4800 prisoners at Oranienburg,” he said, “and the conditions are frankly inhuman. The food is bad, and there are no prison rules. All are left to the tender mercies of the guards, who, returning drunk and quarrelsome to camp, treat the prisoners so ferociously that half the inmates are victims of brutality. Like many others I was belaboured with rubber truncheons until the blood flowed.”

Seger, who detailed revolting punishments in the camp, is publishing in English a book on his experiences "in order that the world may learn something of the freedom Germans enjoy to-day.” PERMANENT BODY German Secret Police London, March 18. The “Observer's” Berlin correspondent reports that General Goering has issued a decree giving the secret police an official permanent character instead of their functioning, as hitherto, chiefly ns a Nnz.i body- in stamping out Social Democracy and Communism. ANTI-JEWISH CAMPAIGN (Received March 19, 7.30 p.m.). Berlin, March 18. The anti-Semitic campaign is well launched in Nuremberg, where banners at the entrances of small towns announced no admittance for Jews. It was announced on March 13 that a fortnight's anti-Jewish boycott would start on March 23 on the same lines as the inauguration of the anti-Jewish campaign a year ago. AIR SPORT ENCOURAGED (Received March 19, 7.30 p.m.). Berlin, March 19. Handbills distributed throughout the country point out that while the Treaty of Versailles forbids Germany (military aircraft, the use of State money for the furtherance of air sport is not forbidden. Men and women are urged to join this association.