GERMANY’S WESTERN FORTIFICATIONS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 272, 13 August 1938, Page 11

GERMANY’S WESTERN FORTIFICATIONS

16,000 More Workers Drafted PERMITS TO ENTER FRANCE CANCELLED By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. BERLIN, August 11. The strictest secrecy is being maintained regarding the fortification of Germany’s western frontier, but it is known that the permits have been stopped of many hundreds of German miners who formerly crossed the frontier daily to work in French mines. They are now forced to find work in Ger-

It is learned that 16,000 additional workers have arrived from Westphalia and MechlenburgSchwerwin for the construction of fortifications.

Tank traps are reported to have been completed along the frontier, and barbed-wire barriers erected every quarter of a mile. According to Marshal Goering’s newspaper, '‘National Zeitung, published at Essen, the autumn army manoeuvres will be on a small scale, and will be particularly concerned with co-operation between the army and inhabitants, “so that the resemblance to war-time conditions may be as close as possible.” The newspaper adds that there will be no plan of defending against an enemy from a neighbouring State. Germany, it is stated, does not require such political demonstrations which are so much loved in London, Paris, Prague, and Moscow.