GRIP OF NAZIS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 153, 25 March 1938, Page 11

GRIP OF NAZIS

Arrest Of Priests In Austria EVICTIONS OF NUNS Staffs Of Catholic Press Superseded ANTI-GERMAN DOCTRINES 3y Telegraph.—Press. Assu.—-Copyright. London, March 23. The Holy See has been informed of the arrest of Monsignor Waitz, Archbishop of Salzburg, after his arrival in Vienna to confer with Cardinal Innitzer, on charges of possessing proof of his complicity with French and Belgian Communists, states the “Daily Telegraph.” Five other priests were taken into custody, one of whom, Canon Steinwonder, was struck in the face by a policeman. Monsignor Pavilovski has been placed under protective arrest. Father Wilhelm Schmidt, scientific director of the Lateran Museum in Rome, has been served with a summons while in Austria charging him with writing on anti-German racial doctrines, and remains in a convent under surveillance.

The police have evicted nuns, priests, and other inmates of the Roman Catholic Artisans’ Institution at Salzburg and seized 'the funds of this and another organisation. All Catholics employed in the Salzburg Catholic University have been dismissed, and all Catholic lay institutions have been abolished in the Linz Diocese. The Catholic Press no longer exists; the entire staffs have been superseded by German Nazis. Habsb’irg Arrested. The latest arrests at Linz include the Archduke Josef Ferdinand of Habs-burg-Lorraine, aged 64, head of the Habsburg line of Toscane, and greatuncle of the pretender Otto, and a former Colonel-Geueral’ in the AustroHungarian Imperial Army, Baron Karl von Werkmann, aged 60, secretary to the late Emperor Karl. It is alleged that the Archduke Josef Ferdinand verbally insulted the Nazi regime in Austria. The “Daily Telegraph” Berlin correspondent reports that Germany Is admitting Austrian products duty free as from March 26. The census due in Germany on May 17 has been postponed in order to include the population of Austria. Herr Hitler has ordered Admiral Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, to- take over Austria’s fleet of Danubian patrol ships and organise a Danube squadron within the framework of the German Navy. Britons Advised To Leave. The “Star,” London, says that, consular officials are advising British subjects in Austria, particularly in Vienna, to leave the country, at least until the plebiscite is over, unless they have urgent business interests. Already there have been regrettable incidents due to misunderstandings. For instance, when British subjects innocently entered Jewish shops watched by Nazis and others, they experienced curt rebuffs when they attempted to communicate with Austrian friends who have come under Nazi displeasure. Most of the British visitors to the winter sports have already left Austria, and only a few hundred remain in Vienna. A Warsaw message states that after a week’s anti-Semitic campaign, 3000 Jews living in Austria entered Poland from Danzig. A thousand Jews who have lived in Austria for 15 to 20 years are also flowing in, creating an acute problem. WORK FOR JEWS Scrubbing Out Street Slogans (Received March 24, 9.10 p.ra.) London, March 24. Since the time of the German grip on Austria many Vienna correspondents of the Press have had their headquarters at Prague, whence they are sending their dispatches. The Vienna correspondent of “The Tinies” reports that the Nazi “joke” of making Jews kneel on the pavements and scrub out the Schusehnigg plebiscite slogans was carried out on a large scale to-day in fashionable streets in the centre of Vienna. Shopkeepers and passers-by of both sexes who betrayed their Jewish descent by. not wearing the swastika wfere the victims. After an hour or more they were given a “receipt” for sufficient scrubbing for one day and were permitted to go.