HITLER YOUTH

Evening Star, Issue 25226, 13 July 1944, Page 5

HITLER YOUTH

FANATICISM ON WESTERN FRONT

BULLYING AND SADISM COMMON

LONDON, July 11. " Hitler Youth units, are fighting with grim, fanatical determination and utter ruthlessness," stated the ' Daily Telegraph's ' Caen correspondent dealing with the fighting in that area. " Their morale has been whipped up by reports that a colossal counter-attack is imminent, in which the British will be driven into the sea, and also that Hitler is coming to take personal command. They looted in Caen, and raped and pillaged. Many of them were only six or seven years of age when Hitler came to power. One boy of 17 or 18, after having a wound dressed yesterday, struck the man who dressed the wound.

" There are many examples of the bully and the sadist among the Germans. There were 60 or 70 French political prisoners in Caen gaol when tho Allies landed in France. A German officer visited the gaol and ordered them to be marched to an open space and dig their own graves. They were then shot in the back of the head and tossed into the pit. " Friends later disinterred the bodies and found each corpse bruised across tho breast and between the legs. The French assert that it was the custom of the Germans, when they wanted to extract information, to pass a chain across the breast and under the legs, and twist it in the form of a tourniquet. This was confirmed by a representative of the Geneva Red Cross Convention at present in Caen."