NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 8

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

PARIS, GERMANY

IN OCCUPIED FRANCE

TYRANNY OF THE

NAZIS

When the Nazis overran France it might have been held that they strengthened their position by the elimination of an important opponent, the capture of supplies, and the improve-

ment of the strategic situation.

But what they also did was to expose the weakness of their own social structure and their

inability to handle a subject

people with success,

In spite of the Nazi censorship much evidence of the condition of France has become available to the outside world, and it has served to show that in the occupied territory there is an amount of hardship and an agony of spirit which will lead the French to take dreadful revenge on their conquerors when their turn comes in the next few years. There is, for example, much evidence of systematic looting by the Nazis. The old system of pillage used to be carried out by the individual soldiery. The. new plan, under the.. Germans, is to do it by units and with the assistance of army trucks.

Not only milk, mutton, .sweet champagne, surgical instruments, and machinery have been taken away, but linen, Gobelin tapestries, and old furniture. The whole of one side of a street has been looted of household linen to be sent back to Germany. Everything had to be surrendered save two pairs of sheets, one blanket, and one mattress.

Machinery Stolen.

Industry in occupied France has been systematically robbed. Ninety million francs' worth of machinery in the Hispano-Suiza plants is reported to have been taken for shipment to Germany, the French Ford plant has lost machinery valued at 50,000,000 francs, and at Lyons, the fine textile centre of Europe, looms have been confiscated. The great French dressmakers, who have built up an industry employing literally hundreds of thousands of people, have been invited to work in Berlin.

What is not taken is bought. The German army of occupation (the numbers are unknown, but in Paris the troops are estimated to total about 20,000) swarms everywhere and buys up all it can. The Germans in occupied France are now paid at about the rate given New Zealand soldiers in the World War and fifty times what the French soldiers were paid in the war from which they recently endeavoured to retire. With money in their pockets for the first time in their lives, the Nazis have swarmed over the city consuming all the things which France produces.

New to Them.

Many of these things have never been seen by the younger soldiers before. The consequence is a campaign of unbridled acquisitiveness. There are stories of soldiers spreading butter on their chocolate bars, or cramming bananas into their mouths without bothering to skin them, of an Austrian who had exhausted the pleasures of Paris when he had eaten tinned pineapple and seen Napoleon's tomb. So great have been the purchases of the troops that the High Command recently set about saving what remained for the German people. They did this by decreeing that all the big Paris shops should close from noon until 2 o'clock, the time when the Germans are consuming their largest meal in barracks, and also the time when Frenchmen have their lunch and would be able to go about and buy.

Bureaucratic Methods,

The French are also being pinned down by the German passion for bureaucratic methods. They have to conform to the German demands foxwritten forms, files, statistics, and lists. In the past some Frenchmen have suspected that what was the matter with their democracy was its excessive bureaucratic organisation. They find the l Nazis even worse. Even fishermen who wish to fish in the Seine must have written permission, though the catches there are reported to. have been nothing worth mentioning for many years past.

The Nazis have been at pains to impress the French with their special sense of social justice. This takes the form of depriving the French of silk stockings, while letting a German purchase a dozen pairs. The reasoning is that the Germans have a right to the stockings today because of the years in which they went without and the French had plenty. Occasionally the Nazis give something back, but only for publicity purposes, and they quickly stop the concession if there is not a satisfactory result; * that is, if the publicity is not received. As the French,put it, the Germans occasionally take 11 potatoes and give back 12 grains of rice. But if they are not praised for giving 12 of something small and taking only 11 of something large, they take both rice and potatoes, and "then the score is 23 to -0."

Merely Figurative,

The commodities mentioned are merely used by way of illustration. Rice is not given out save on a doctor's certificate; pure starch is already ranked with drugs for scarcity. As for potatoes, the Germans were guarding the crops as far back as August. Milk is now sold only to babies, pregnant women, and people over 70, and consequently there is a brisk trade in borrowed babies and adopted grandparents.

The well-known German habit of emphasising that the conquered nation is inferior to the conquerer is also being displayed. At Fontainbleau, it is reported, a small boy tripped a German soldier with his foot. Consequently all citizens of Fontainbleau are now compelled to step into the gutter whenever a Nazi soldier approaches. French heart specialists are now compelled to practise as ordinary physicians, and special pleaders in the law courts to handle petty litigation.

Press and Radio.

The newspapers are in Nazi hands, of course. The Paris "Soir," the 2,500,000 circulation of which was the largest on the Continent, had its keys handed over to the Germans by a fifth column liftman. Prepared for any emergency, however, the Nazis had brought along with them fonts of spe-cially-made French type, easily distinguishable from French-manufaciured type, and this is now used to print their official daily, "Les Dernieres Nouvelles." Most Frenchmen, bow-