WHO ARE POLES?

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 150, 21 December 1940, Page 12

WHO ARE POLES?

GERMAN DEFINITION

VIOLATION OF CONVENTION

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received December 21, 2 p.m.)

RUGBY, December 20.

A damning indictment of Germany's violation of international law is provided in an official statement by the Polish Government, dealing with new regulations issued by the Nazis in Poland. One of these, defining who is to be regarded as a Pole in the territories incorporated into the Reich, recognises as non-Polish all the masses of Polish citizens inhabiting Silesia, Pommorze, and Gdansk, even though they are of Polish origin. This regulation, it is declared, brutally violates international law and, in particular, The Hague Convention of 1907, which was signed by the Reich itself. Another regulation imposes on all persons engaged in the public service not only an obligation to fulfil public duties faithfully and conscientiously in obedience to the German administration, but also an obligation not to regard themselves as bound by any oath of allegiance or service to the Polish State or its organs.