NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 151, 23 December 1940, Page 8

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

BOMBS ON BERLIN

IMPORTANT TARGET

ATTACK ESSENTIAB

When British bombers fly over Berlin and release their deadly freight there must be few people in the Empire, who do not feel satisfaction at the fact that the capital of the Nazi empire is being attacked. Perhaps, however, there are some who feel doubts about whether the raid is worth the effort involved. They may be assured that it is well worth while.

| In fact, Berlin is so important a target that no air war on the Reich could be complete if it were omitted from the schedule of R.A.F. objectives. The first problem of a war of this kind is the selection of the targets which are worth attacking. The destruction of even one industry may demand unremitting attention to a wide .variety of targets. j Here are some of the things which are made in or around the capital of the Reich: aero engines, high exploj sive and incendiary bombs, auto-pilots, night-flying equipment, airframes, machine tools (some famous firms which helped to fit out the shops of the British aircraft industry are there), duralumin, arms, uniforms, gas masks, gas shelters and anti-gas equipment, steel helmets, calcium carbide, compressed air, blind-landing equipment, telephones, cables, accumulators, parachutes, training aircraft, airscrews, .sights for A.A. guns, heavy trucks for carrying troops, bomb racks, radiators, observer apparatus, oxygen apparatus, aero instruments. Works Like a Town. Among the firms engaged are Siemens and Halske, whose works at Siemenstadt are a town in themselves; Daimler-Benz, whose motors take German aircraft over Britain week after week; Henschel, the great locomotive builders at Cassel, who five years ago began making airframes outside Berlin; A. E. G. Bucker,~who build elementary trainers for future Nazi pilots} the Heine airscrew plant, and the Argu3 aero-engine factory. In the year that Hitler came to • power the Siemenstadt plant had 45,000 workers but capacity for 135,000, and the Nazi re-armament plan quickly filled it to that capacity. Plants of this size are vulnerable if the canteens which feed the workers are assailed, because a large proportion of the staff live in houses on the firm's "estate" and depend on company supplies for their food. • Laid Out for Protection. Even the Henschel factory, which was laid out to give protection from air attack, with each building having its own power, light, water, and antiaircraft protection, and with wide spaces between the "staggered" structures, is vulnerable. In this instance the bombing of the railway which links Schonefeld, where the factory stands, with Berlin would interfere with production. These things serve to show how varied is the problem of air assault on Berlin and how flexible must ba the method of the R.A.F. in attacking it. The key to a successful offensive is obviously proper target selection, and in the application of this principle Britain must depend very largely on her intelligence organisation. Hitler's Arch-Spy. Otto Abetz, the German Ambassador in Paris, who went to Vichy to straighten out the Laval-Flandin tangle to Germany's advantage, is Hitler's arch-spy of the underworld. Abetz likes to call himself the "Uncrowned King of France." He assisted Laval when he tried to spin a web to decoy Marshal Petain to Paris. "But," says a special correspondent of the "Daily Express," "he is most unlike a spider. His carefully-parted fair hair, his wide-set expressionless cold blue eyes, his perfectly-tailored suits, and his graciousness do not suggest the German. Yet his eyes look dangerous. "He was originally a poor teacher of French at Karlsruhe. He married a beautiful Frenchwoman and mada friends with industrialists, deputies, and journalists, an 4 with Ribbentrop. "The latter, when he became Ambassador to London, remembered Abetz, who understood France, and after that things happened /quickly. Abetz has been living in Paris hotels, but took x a salon where he entertained lavishly and formed the Franco-German Committee. "Many distinguished Frenchmen visited the palatial house which Abetz mysteriously acquired in Berlin," adds the "Daily Express." "Madame Bonnet, whose husband was then Foreign Minister, became a great friend of Abetz and his wife. M. Bonnet became a shareholder in German dye works. Abetz was then spending £2000 a month bribing French newspapers and winning over industrialists by playing upon their fears of Bolshevism and organising Fascism in France. His espionage workers included two titled women. , "Daladier expelled Abetz from France in June of last year, but his work of breaking down unity was then finished. We slow old British did rather better. Abetz arrived by air at Croydon four years ago, but next day, after a visit from Scotland Yard officials, departed."