HITLER'S FLAMS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21947, 15 February 1946, Page 3

HITLER'S FLAMS

GIBRALTAR BID PERSIA-EGYPT PUSH NUREMBERG EVIDENCE NUREMBERG. Feb. 13 Hitler planned to seize Gibraltar with the aid of Spain some time in 1941. This was disclosed in a captured German naval staff document, dated August. 1941. outlining Hitler’s proposed list of conquests which the Russian prosecutor. M. Zorya, to-day submitted to the war crimes tribunal.

Hitler expected to dispose of Russia in lightning thrusts and then planned to pass down through Turkey, whether she agreed or not. and develop twin drives to Persia and Egypt through Syria and Palestine. The German forces in North Africa would at the same time be strengthened for an all-out effort about the middle of September to smash the Australian garrison holding out in Tobruk and then drive into Egypt from the west. Red Army’s Achievement

Commenting on the document, Mr. Zorya said it would have been the turn of events if the Red Army had not stopped the Fascist aggressors. Then, pointing an accusing finger at the prisoners, M. Zorya declared: “The Red Army not only withstood and arrested the Fascist aggression, but, together with the Allied armies, brought Hitler's Germany to complete catastrophe and the Fascist war criminals to the dock.”

Another Soviet prosecutor, Colonel Pokrovsky introduced a report by M. Molotov, Soviet Foreign Minister, on the German treatment of the Red Army prisoners. It said: “Some Red Army soldiers have had their arms and feet nailed to stakes and five-pointed stars cut on their stomachs with red hot knives. Others were tied to two tanks and their bodies drawn apart. When the cold weather began Hitlerite robbers not only strioned warm clothes and boots from dead Soviet soldiers but divested the wounded men of their clothes, leaving them stark naked.” Colonel Pokrovsky also put in statements by the ex-German Chief of Staff, General Otto Haider, and the ex-Deputy-Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht operations. General Warlimont. Treatment of War Prisoners General 1-lalder had said that Hitlers demand that the Russians should be denied the protection ordinarily accorded to prisoners was made before the Nazis attacked the Soviet General Haider also attributed to Hitler the statement that Russia was not a signatory to The Hague convention and. therefore the Russians could not expect the treatment that was given to the prisoners of other nationalities. Colonel Pokrovsky described this as another Fascist lit-. Counsel for the defence asked that these two generals be brought to court for cross-examination. Lord Justice Lawrence assented but said that their appearance was a matter for the prosecution’s ’onvenience. Colonel Pokrovsky quoted from a letter addressed to Keitel found in Rosenberg’s file. It said: “Of the 3,500,000 war prisoners we have at present only a few hundred thousand are capable of work. The greater part has died of hunger or from the effects of inclement weather Thousands have died of typhus.”