RESTIVE SLAVES

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 45, 17 November 1941, Page 7

RESTIVE SLAVES

Reich’s Worries Over Plane Output FRENCH STRIKERS Mass Reprisal Carnage In Yugoslavia (By Telegraph. —Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Received November 16, 7 p.m.) LONDON, November 15. The Germans have stopped the manufacture of aircraft in unoccupied France and have ordered all plane-building material to be handed over to the German Armaments Commission for use in Germancontrolled factories, reports the “Daily Mail’s” Madrid cot respondent.

French industrialists, he says, believe that the Germans are genuinely alarmed over the tremendous wastage of war materials in Russia and over the British and American industrial expansion, which has resulted in a rapid overhauling of 'the German production. Everything indicates that Germany is straining every nerve to maintain the lead.

Meanwhile, a fresh series of strikes has broken out among the French workers in German-controlled factories, and the Germans have again threatened to withdraw their ration cards from the strikers, many of whom have been arrested.

A Vichy message states that the representative of Vichy in occupied France, Count de Brinon, told newspapermen in Paris that two Spaniards have been arrested for the assassination of the German major in Bordeaux.

The Yugoslav Government in London has learned that the Germans in the last two weeks shot 2300 civilians of Kragujevac, including many schoolboys, many intellectuals, and a prominent priest, Jovan Knezevic, who was the brother of a Yugoslav Minister of King Peter’s Court. The shootings were a reprisal for the killing of 26 German soldiers.

The Belgrade newspaper “Obnova” says that civil war reigns in Serbia, and. mass arrests of hostages have been made. In a 60-hoUr battle In central Serbia between Serbian volunteers and Government troops 103 volunteers and 10 Government soldiers were killed, it says. Finland’s Position.

The Germans are not risking a Finnish acceptance of the United States’ appeal to cease fighting, says the “Daily Telegraph’s” Stockholm correspondent. Dr. Terboven, Reich Commissioner in Norway, has arrived in Finland with the object of impressing the Finnish leaders with the necessity of continuing the offensive. Dr. Seyss Inquart (the notorious Nazi administrator, first of Austria and latterly of Holland) is also preparing to visit Helsinki ostensibly as a Reich trade commissioner. Terboven and Seyss Inquart recently conferred in Berlin, after which they recommended to Hitler a firmer policy in the countries under German control, particularly Scandinavia, and also the adoption of measures to bring Finland closer into the new order, the correspondent says. In Norway Terboven has increased the severity of the German rule and decreed that food will be refused to non-co-operators. In a broadcast to the Belgians from London, yesterday, M. Pieriot, the Belgian Premier, said that to gain control over the administration the Germans dismissed most of the permanent heads of the Ministries, and among those appointed in their places are some who are undoubtedly traitors.

Virtual political dictatorships have been set up through the Belgian National Socialist M. G. Romsee, who has been made secretary-general of the Ministry of the Interior, and has appointed over 400 burgomasters. The Independent Belgian news agency says that General Falkenhauseu has decreed the death penalty for anyone in Belgium or Northern France attempting to join the army of any country fighting against Germany. It is learned that the courts in Brussels are sentencing nearly 500 smugglers a month, and it has been publicly stated that without the smuggling trade the population would have died from starvation long ago. Difficulties at Home.

The wide sabotage and other forms of resistance in occupied Europe have made administration most difficult for the Nazis, and this has increased the difficulties caused by the blockade. Even in Germany itself, where till recently the regulations concerning food supplies have on the whole been effective, there is evidence that irregularities are becoming more frequent. Recent reports point to increasing evasions of orders, the charging of excessive prices, hoarding, falsification of ration cards, illegal slaughterings and occasional large-scale frauds. A provincial newspaper complains that people coming from the big towns “on holiday” induce producers of rationed agricultural foods to sell them without coupons at exorbitant prices. The resuit of these widespread “black sales,” says the newspaper, is chaos in the distribution of foodstuffs.

In Italy people have been arrested for selling copper sulphate at 300 lira per quintal, when the controlled price is 365 lira. Connivance and participation in fraud by officials and occupying troops are not uncommon. The growing opposition has necessitated extensive purges among the administrations and the Germans are finding it more and more difficult to work with local officials and to keep the machine running smoothly.

CHURCH OF NAZISM

Charge Against Hitler (Received November 16, 9.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, November 15.

Speaking at Philadelphia, the Benedictine Father Damascus Wiuziu, who left Germany in 1938, said that President Roosevelt’s assertion that Hitler was creating a State Church to supplant Christianity was absolutely true. The Nazis, he said, were using castles to train the new elite, substituting the figure of an athlete for the crucifix and “Mein Kampf’ for the Bible.