GERMANS IN SLOVAKIA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 94, 21 March 1939, Page 7

GERMANS IN SLOVAKIA.

MOUNTAINS NOT PENETRATED. CZECH VOLUNTEERS SOUGHT. LONDON, March 20. An Independent Caule Service message from Prague states that German troops have occupied western Slovakia, but have not yet penetrated the snowcovered Tatra mountains leading to the east. Prague reports that all Germans in the protectorate are asked to volunteer for army service. They are offered compensatory exemption from the “volunteer” labour service. If the appeal does not succeed, it is understood that all Germans aged between 26 and 40 will be called up. This is expected to produce 400,000 men who will be equipped with Czech arms, with which most of them have been trained. The British and American Ministers in Prague have under discussion the formation of a refugee camp at Gdynia, on the Baltic, for Czechoslovak fugitives, pending their departure for England and America. Three hundred who were furnished with British visas and labour permits are hiding in the woods fearing arrest, while Britons who provided them with the permits refuse to disclose their addresses to the Germans. NOT SURRENDERING CONSULATE The Czechoslovak Consul-General at Jerusalem has informed the German Consul-General of “his irrevocable determination not to surrender the Consulate.” FRENCH TO DENOUNCE PACT. The Independent Cable Service says the French Cabinet is reported to have decider! to denounce the recentlysigned commercial treaty with Czechoslovakia on the grounds that it will merely facilitate German exports. ARMS FOR GERMANS. The production of the Skoda works in Prague is to be reserved exclusively for the German Army and Navy, while otlier factories are to supply the protectorate.

NAMEPLATES REMOVED. A Johannesburg report states that the namoplates on the Czechoslovakia Legation have l>ecn removed and a swastika drawn on the door, there has been a police investigation. It is stated that the Consulate is not being handed to Germany.

WHOLESALE ATTESTS The Nazis in Prague have closed Jewish organisations, and are banning Jews from the factories. 1 here have been wholesale arrests, including a majority of Jewish leaders two squares have been renamed Adolt Hitler, while Wilson Square (named alter President Woodrow Wilson) has become Oocri’i" Square. , , \ A Bratislava report says it is stated in official quarters that Herr Hitler | and Or Tiso have signed a Vienna treaty whereby Germany guarantees Slovakia’s frontiers for 25. years and Slovakia will be independent with her own army, money and diplomats. The German troops will withdraw when the Czech soldiers evacuate. 1