TYRANNY IN GERMANY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24221, 13 February 1940, Page 8

TYRANNY IN GERMANY

When Herr Hitler boasted in his most recent harangue that he was the spokesman of a strong, united Germany, he was making a claim that was subject to obvious reservations. The new Germany, incorporating the territories which, in violation of assurances to the contrary, were seized or annexed last year, includes a large population whose presence in the Reich is embarrassing to the Administration and provides unceasing occupation for the Gestapo. Upon those who are comprised in this number —the oppressed minorities of Germany—the iron hand of the Fuhrer and his minions is descending with a severity and a ruthlessness which the world has unfortunately been forced, by the revelations that have reached it, to regard as entirely characteristic of the German rulers. One of their most recent decrees, it has been disclosed, reduces hundreds of thousands of workers—Czech, Polish and Jewish—to the virtual status of coolies, and a pleasant warning has apparently been issued to German workers threatening them that, if they incur the displeasure of the authorities, they may be similarly treated. That they will not. be entitled to overtime may not be particularly disturbing to these industrial outcasts, for it is generally understood” that, while the hours of work have been extended in Germany, overtime payment has been abolished, but the reduction on the rate of pay which this coolie class will recfeive must involve hardship under the conditions in which inferior goods are obtainable only at high prices in Germany. A fresh persecution of the Jews is announced in Czechoslovakia. The members of the Jewish race in that part of Germany will have been optimistic if they imagined that they would be left in undisturbed possession of their property. They are now being pursued with a vindictiveness that recalls the brutality with which the Jews in Germany proper were treated. The information on this subject which is contained In our cable messages shows only too clearly that they are to be despoiled —by a euphemism, to be eliminated from the economic life of the country—and that, when they have been stripped of all they have, they are to be driven out, homeless and moneyless. This fresh outrage will only deepen the stain which the German authorities are attaching to their names.