CHANGE OF NAME

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1943, Page 5

CHANGE OF NAME

FASCIST PARTY

DECREES BY MUSSOLINI

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.) Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 15.

The German-controlled Fascist radio, announcing that Mussolini had resumed the direction of the Italian Government, read five orders which purported to have been signed by Mussolini, as follows:—

"1. To all comrades faithful to Italy, I resume today the supreme direction of Fascist Italy.

"2. I appoint Signor Pavolini (former Fascist Minister of Propaganda) temporary secretary of the National Fascist Party, which from today will be called the Republican Fascist Party. "3. I order all military, political, administrative, educational, and other authorities which were deposed by the Government of capitulation to resume their posts and functions.

"4. I order the immediate reconstruction of all bodies of the party, with the following tasks:—To co-oper-ate fraternally1 with the German military forces fighting on Italian soil against the common enemy; to give practical and immediate material aid to the people;, to examine the position of members of the party regarding the coup d'etat and the capitulation and to inflict exemplary punishment on the traitors. >

"5. I order the reconstruction of the volunteer militia for national security."

I Cairo radio says that the radio station at Milan, which is apparently in the hands of sympathisers of Marshal Badoglio, last night broadcast an appeal to Italians to continue the fight agains-t the German invaders. The Swiss radio stated that the military governor of Rome, General Bergola, has appointed commissars to the Italian Ministries. He decreed: "The present military situation does not permit of the normal functioning of the various Ministers, and calls for immediate intervention by the military authorities. Commissars have been chosen from yarious departments of [ the administration and will exercise the [technical, administrative, and disciplinary functions of the Ministers they are replacing." The Swiss radio stated that the Germans arrested all the Ministers of the Badoglio Government who remained in Rome.

SHADOW OVER NORTH ITALY.

The German occupation of northern Italy hangs like a huge shadow over the people, declares Aldo Forte, British United Press correspondent in Switzerland, who has just returned from a visit to Italy. Mr. Forte, with a guide, cut a wire fence on the Swiss frontier and entered Italy 'to. darkness, disguised as a mountaineer. They reached Como after daylight and found the city more or less normal, although hatred of the Germans smouldered under the surface. Everyone wanted to know when the Allies would be arriving.

A man who had just arrived from Milan said that the city had been a hell since the Germans entered. He added: "The Germans are killing and plundering. I saw soldiers in the streets stripping men and women of their jewellery, watches, and money. German youths patrolling the roads outside Milan were men between the ages of 18 and 50 and takirig them to the central railway station, which was heavily guarded, and shipping them to God .knows where in closed trucks."

Berlin radio quoted a joint JapaneseGerman statement issued in Tokio saying: "The treachery of the Badoglio regime by no means shakes the ' Tripartite Pact, which remains in force without alteration. Japan and Germany are determined to continue the war to a successful conclusion with all the means at their disposal." Berlin radio, claiming the occupation of Kotor, says the entire Dalmatian and Albanian coast is now in German hands, and that the Germans have reinforced the coastal batteries and fortifications with artillery units.