FRANCE'S "CHURCHILL",

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 30, 4 August 1939, Page 9

FRANCE'S "CHURCHILL",

SUED FOR LIBEL

ADVICE OF RIBBENTROP

(Received August 4,*1 p.m.)

PARIS, August 3,

Herr Otto Abetz, who was expelled from France early in July, is suing M. Henri Dekerillis for libel on the advice of the German Foreign Minister, Herr yon Ribbentrop, who feels that his personal dignity has been slighted.

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 was bared on July 13 by France's ■famous anti-spy squad, the Second Bureau. At least 150 cases of people suspected of acting as Nazi propaganda agents are already being investigated, stated a Paris message published on July 15. It is believed that Herr Abetz was the head of a German propaganda bureau originally started by the present German Foreign Minister, Herr yon * Ribbentrop, in his champagne-selling days. He had an entertaining allowance of £2000 a month, and employed unsuspected women and some socially prominent persons as go-betweens. M. Dekerillis, the "Winston Churchill of France," declares that over £ 100,000 was spent by Germans in propaganda payments during the Munich crisis. . •