CZECH ’PLANES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 95, 22 March 1939, Page 9

CZECH ’PLANES.

1000 ESCAPE FROM GERMANS. LONDON, March 21. The Daily Express states that 1000 Czech ’planes escaped from German seizure and flew to Poland, Rumania, and Yugoslavia. Formulas for steel i alloys, special concrete for fortifications, and blue-prints of a new automatic rifle and of many other secret Skoda productions were 'taken from the country, though the swiftness of the German occupation was intended to prevent this. The Berlin correspondent of the Times says that Germany has acquired from Bohemia and Moravia £17,000 000 in gold and foreign exchange belonging to the Czech National Bank, small quantities of ammunition and a limited number of modern aeroplanes from the 1500 confiscated. The greatest gain to the Reich is in agricultural, armament,. and industrial equipment, which is superior to the Austrian, and raw materials taken are worth £200.000000. It is understood that the Germans are preparing to break up the big estates and distribute the land among the peasants in tlie hope of winning their support and simultaneously to launch a “drive against corruption in high places” by bringing many Czech agrarian and manufacturing leaders to trial on charges of enriching themselves at the expense, of the . people. Tn case those tactics fail to win > popular support, plans are. ready to move 100,000 of the most brilliant Czech workers to different parts of Germany and to replace them with Gcrnians. A Prague report says that the Germans have demobilised 49,000 of the Czech Armv. Barracks at Prague have been opened. There are 35 field kitchens in the city, but they are being largely boycotted by the Czechs.