FLIGHT FROM ESTONIA

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LX, Issue 89, 9 November 1939, Page 5

FLIGHT FROM ESTONIA

GERMANS ORDERED TO FATHERLAND BEWILDERED, AND FUTURE UNCERTAIN (From The Guardian's London Correspondent) LONDON, October 14. As the Russian troops marched into Estonia, thousands of Germans left that country and Latvia for the Fatherland most' of them have never seen, in obedience to the command of Herr Hitler. Many were bewildered and heartbroken at

being uprooted from homes where their families had been settled for hundreds of years. Most had received only 48 hours' notice to quit. Few had any chance of disposing of property acquired after many years of hard work on meagre soil. Except for those few personal possessions which they could carry, they left everything behind in their locked houses. What is to happen to their property they do not know. They hope that the authorities will sell it and send the money back to Germany—but even then they are not sure of getting it. Still less do they know what is to happen to them. They are to go back to the Fatherland. That is all they have been told. But they find it difficult to reconcile this hew move of the Peuhrer with his constantly repeated demand for more "living space" for the Greater Germany. The younger men and women, though somewhat bewildered, do not doubt that he has some good reason for the evacuation but the majority, especially the older people, are bitterly opposed to leaving their ' homes. Many of them were seen in tears as they trudged along. They and their ancestors have lived in the Baltic States for so long that they have no patriotic feelings for Germany, looking upon it as a foreign land. The majority are Latvian or Estonian in everything but name, speaking the language, marrying into native f.amil-! ies and voting as citizens of the j countries in which they have lived so long. Like those married to Jews ' and those holding democratic opinions, they fear the future. Only a ; hint of what it holds for them is i contained in a statement of the offi- | cial Diplomatische Korrespondenz. ' They are "to do useful and necessary 1 work within the provinces won ! back to Germany," it says, and inJ dicates that Hitler's ultimate inten- > tion is to transfer them to his share >of conquered Poland, probably the | Corridor. > All men of military age will, it is ) believed, be shipped direct to Danj zig and Gdynia for immediate mili- > tary service. About 60,000 Germans ) living in Latvia and 18,000 in Es- , tonia are affected. Lithuania, where 5 a similar transfer is to be initiated ? soon, has 40 000 Germans. The I speed with which the evacuation is !> being carried out bears all the b marks of flight, and seems to rel veal real fear of a wholesale Rusr sian invasion. Hitler also wants to ? bring many thousands more back ;> to the Greater Germany which he <j has Insisted in the past is overb crowded.