NAZI ACTIVITY IN URUGUAY

Southland Times, Issue 24161, 25 June 1940, Page 5

NAZI ACTIVITY IN URUGUAY

DRASTIC MEASURES DEMANDED BREAKING OFF OF RELATIONS WIDE RAMIFICATIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received June 24, 6.30 p.m.) MONTEVIDEO, June 23. A deputy, Senor Ricardo Techera, representing the powerful Colorado Party, told a United Press of America representative that he will propose the suspension of diplomatic relations with Germany, also drastic measures against arrested Germans.

Public opinion in Britain has followed with interest and sympathy news of the recently unmasked Nazi intrigues in Uruguay, with ramifications in neighbouring South American States and implications for the whole American continent. Comment in the Press has shown admiration for the vigorous action taken by the authorities.

Reports of public indignation in Montevideo arc well understood. There is little surprise that the German Legation has been, as The Daily Telegraph said a few days ago, “abusing its diplomatic privilege to fill the subversive role which is now the principal business of German Legations everywhere,” and it is noted with satisfaction that the German Minister’s attempted denial was immediately exposed by irrefutable proof in documents published by El Dia.

The Spectator, reviewing these events, says: “That such activities with which neutral European countries have long been familiar have been pursued with equal zeal in South America is evident that there are no limits to Nazi ambitions. Hitler thinks not .in terms of a single continent, but of the whole world. America’s danger is beginning while Europe’s is at the height of its crisis.” BROAD SCHEME The Daily Telegraph also sees the Nazi plot in Uruguay as designed to fit into a broad strategic scheme by which Hitler, too optimistically counting on early success in shattering the last resistance in Europe by subduing Britain, is already calculating the moment when he will be ready for an onslaught on the Western Hemisphere. To this end he must prepare his advance port on American soil. Most commentators relate these re-

velations of secret Nazi machinations in Uruguay to Hitler’s recent interview with an American journalist in which he said that he believed in “America for the Americans”—“Hitler’s Monroe Doctrine” as the journal The Economist calls it sarcastically, adding: “The extent and ingenuity of Nazi intrigues in Uruguay, where fully organized shocktroops have been discovered, is an apt illustration of Hitler’s pledge.”