NAZI INTRIGUE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 13, 15 July 1939, Page 9

NAZI INTRIGUE

NETWORK IN FRANCE.

WIDE INVESTIGATION

PRESS SCANDAL

(independent Cable Service.)

(Received July 15, 10 a.m.)

PARIS, July 14.

A network of Nazi bribery, intrigue, and espionage which in wartime might have brought a score of prominent Frenchmen before the military courts to answer for their lives was bared last evening by France's famous anti-spy .squad, the" Second Bureau.

At (oast 150 cases of people suspected of acting us Nazi propaganda agents arc already being investigated, '"The first hint that a military swoop was pending came at the end of June, when Henry Robertson Luce, proprietor of the American magazine "Time," was sued by a syndicate o Paris journalists for publishing a report that Paris newspapers were receiving money from foreign countries and that the Paris Press was "the sewer of the world," Luce apologised, but it is believed that he instructed hi* solicitors to prepare evidence to fight the case. The dossier of facts they collected was handed to the military authorities last week. THE ARRESTED NEWSPAPERMEN. Two newspaper executives, M. Aubin, news editor of "Le Temps," and M. Loirier, of the "Figaro," are held in Cherchemidi prison, accused of acting as Nazi propaganda agents for the Press, These arrests were followed by the expulsion from France of JJerr Ottoj Abetz at .he beginning of July. It is j believed that Herr Abetz was the head i of a German propaganda bureau orig-! inally started by the present German Foreign Minister, Herr yon Ribbentrop, in his champaigne-selling days. He had an entertaining allowance of £2000 a month, and employed unsuspected women and some socially prominent persons as go-betweens, M. Henri DekerMis, the "Winston Churchill of France," declares that over £ 100,000 was spent by Germans in propaganda payments during the Munich crisis. POLICE SEARCH HOUSES. The scandal is expected to assume considerable proportions. Police searched the homes of a number of persons who are believed to have been in contact with Herr yon Ribbentrop and Dr, Goebbels, Further arrests are expected.

The Paris "Soir" states that 150 journalists are implicated, and that a beautiful Austrian countess, the brains of the organisation, escaped to Germany.