THE PRAGUE ARRESTS

Evening Star, Issue 24005, 2 October 1941, Page 7

THE PRAGUE ARRESTS

NAZIS PLAN DISSOLUTION OF REGIME BRUTALITIES THROUGHOUT PROTECTORATE LONDON, September 30. Czech circles in London express the opinion that the arrest of the Premier of Bohemia and Moravia, General Elias, and three members of his Cabinet may foreshadow the complete break-up of the protectorate. Dr Hacha secured some forms of autonomy, but the Germans have since cancelled many of them. The Germans _ have long planned to dissolve the regime entirely and incorporate all Czecho-Sloyakia iu neighbouring territories, leaving the centre of including Prague, as a German province without special rights. The arrest of members of General Elias’s Cabinet may now serve as an excuse to carry out this plan. Certainly the arrests suggest that the Germans have completely lost faith in their collaborators. ' The arrested members of the Cabinet were M. Krejci, Deputy Premier, M. Jezek, Minister of the Interior, and formerly a general in the Czech army, and Dr Havelka, who was expelled from the Hacha Administration six months ago. M. Jezek was regarded as completely subservient to the Germans, while Dr Havelka was an appeaser, who is believed to have inspired Dr Hacha’s policy. He drafted the Czech antiSemitic laws. M. Krejei was an eminent judge, and professor of law at Prague University.

A Stockhlom report • says General Elias' was accused of having contacted certain Polish and French circles for the purpose of secret collaboration. According to Czech-circles in London, the arrests in Prague are only part of the brutalities inflicted through the protectorate, and many thousands of Czechs who are being arrested face a concentration camp or death. Heydrich’s fury seems mainly to be directed against 70,000 legionaries who fought on the side pL.the Allies in the last war and have since gained positions of some importance in Ozecho-Slovakia. Baron von Neurath tried to break them, but did not succeed. Grave concern is also felt for .thousands of Czech students who were sent to concentration camps in Germany after the outbreak.

CZECHS UNDAUNTED SABOTAGE CONTINUES (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 1. Reports received in London suggest that the Nazis are now realising the dangerous possibilities of . the general unrest in European countries occupied by them. The appointment of the notorious Heydrich as murderer-in-chief —Deputy Reich Protector —in Prague appears to be a symptom of what a commentator calls a policy of wider and better synchronised ferocity. That brutality, however, may not prove a satisfactory answer to the will of the whole of thfe people is at present shown in Czecho-Slovakia, where the most irreconcilable element has been composed of workers whose acts of sabotage have been'both courageous and original. As the result of a go-slow campaign, production has often been reduced by from 40 to 60 per cent. Aircraft factories have provided a happy hunting ground for saboteurs, and. at one important works the staff was ordered to look for certain alloys which were stowed away. They caused such confusion in the storehouse that work in the factory was stopped for several days. In ithe same place a file containing cancelled orders was_ lost, and for two full months the entire works continued to fulfil useless orders. Another firm had 190 out of 200 pistons returned as defective. Sabotage on the railways has been so intense that the Germans are no longer able to send'trucks via Czechoslovakia. A hundred tanker trucks are now awaiting repair, and in most cases punctures in them were not discovered until all the oil had leaked out. The indomitable spirit shown by the Czech population, however, produces foreboding of a limitless campaign of cruelty and torture which the Nazis are likely to wage against them.

THREE MORE DISTRICTS STATE OF EMERGENCY EXTENDED (Rec. 1 p.ra.) LONDON, Oct. 1. The state of emergency has been proclaimed in three more districts in Bohemia and Moravia, states the Prague- radio. A further 256 Czechs were arrested and handed over to the Gestapd. The 58 executed persons included M. Reohlak, leader of the Sokol organisation. The German authorities have issued an-appeal to the Czechs to realise that their activities in seeking to restore the independence' of the Czech State are useless, adding: The Czechs must realise that the country is part of the German Reich; and that its only possible future lies in cooperation with Germany, which, however, desires to preserve the Czech language and culture.’’ GESTAPO METHODS BULGARIANS IN GREECE ' PRIST FLOGGED TO DEATH LONDON, October I. Giving evidence of the thoroughness with which the Bulgarians are emulating German methods in the occupied countries, the Cairo correspondent of the ‘ Daily Telegraph ’ says the Bulgars have imported a Bulgarian population into occupied Thrace and Macedonia, and the Greeks have been compelled to evacuate to the south of Greece or remain under humiliating conditions. They must also change their names to Bulgarian forms, while all shop natnes and notices are now in Bulgarian. Fines are imposed on any-* one speaking Greek publicly, and church services must be in the Bulgarian language. The Metropolitans of Komotini and Alexandroupolis have been removed from their sees and taken to Salonika. The Bulgarians flogged to death a Greek priest and four civilians charged with concealing arms in the village of Carianis, near Struma, but a subsequent search for the alleged arms revealed that they were nonexistent. The Vichy radio says Bulgarian police swooped on Varna ar*l made 844 arrests.