EUROPE UNDER GERMANY

Grey River Argus, 31 July 1940, Page 8

EUROPE UNDER GERMANY

“REGIME OF PRIVATION”

“The Times’ 1 Picture

[British Official Wireless]

RUGBY, July 29.

In recent weeks, newspapers have pr.nted occasional dispatches regarding the conditions in countries under German occupation.

“The Times” says: “News comes in slowly and sparingly from the prisonhouse, where peoples, enslaved by Nazi occupation, are held under a regime of privation, hard labour and silence. Every one of these countries is now faced by the gaunt spectre of • hunger. Food and stock have been requisitioned in bulk, or purchased for worthless currency, by tne invading troops. In most of these unhappy lands, harvests have been seriously uamaged, and transport disorganised for some time to come by military’ operations. Everywhere, a strict rationing system has been imposed, everywhere, exploitation of men and resources is in full swing. It is not only with the physical resources of ■ rhe occupied territories that rhe Germans are tampering, but also with , their moral and spiritual ties. The occupied countries were deluged with a stream of propaganda from the local press and radio stations, which were compelled to follow the behests and model themselves on the methods of Dr. Goebbels, and the ban is not yet as strictly enforced' as the occupying authorities would like. Listening to foreign broadcasts completes a picture or physical hardship and demoralisation, but there is very little evidence to suggest that the efforts to undermine or break the spirit of independence in the conquered countries is succeeding.” In connection with these observations of “The Times” it is relevant to note that the serious food situation which threatens particularly Belgium and Northern France, will be attributed by Nazi propaganda to British contraband control. The seriousness i of that claim, as far as the countries seized and ravaged by German armies are concerned, is well known, and its inversions of the truth, in the particular cases of Denmark and Norway, is again exposed to-day in a letter which Dr. Koht addressed to “The Times.”

Dr. Koht points out that “the initiative to complete the stopping of overseas commerce to the northern countries was with the Germans, not with Britain.” The Nazis in their very first ultimatum to Denmark and Norway demanded that they should cut off all kinds of commerce and communication with all countries west of the North Sea.

Dr. Funk’s exposition of the Nazis’ } schemes for a new economic order in j Europe have not had very favourable press comment in countries where comment is still free, according to summaries reaching London. The Swiss newspaper “Democraft' says: “Many economists consider that the driving of Britain from Europe, and the construction of a separate European bloc, would precipitate the ' haemorrhage of a dying continent” — i which represents, in the view of experts here, a very shrewd view of the ' facts.

A Norwegian journal says: “Swedish and Danish papers write regarding this, that their countries’ culture is inseparably bound up with old democratic tradition, and the same can be said of Norway. We Norwegians have been accustomed for generations to think and talk freely, and ourselves to choose who shall administer our affairs. If we lose these democratic rights, we lose our culture’s kernel. Perhaps we have pot paid heed to the value of the free word and free criticism, as we ought. We regarded them as a matter of course, but if we were one day to lose them a storm of indignation would burst forth.” U.S.A, ESTIMATE, FOOD SHORTAGE. (Received July 30, 10,30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 30. The U.S.A. Agricultural Department reports that European supplies ol bread and grains are between five and ten per cent under peace-time needs, and that cattle feed supplies are ten to fifteen per cent deficient