GERMANY AND BULGARIA

Southland Times, Issue 24548, 24 September 1941, Page 5

GERMANY AND BULGARIA

NAZI THREAT TO OCCUPY STATE ACTIVE AID SOUGHT (Rec. 11.20 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 23. An Ankara report says the Germans have threatened the complete occupation of Bulgaria unless the Bulgarian Government enters. the war actively on the side of the Axis. A curfew has been imposed in Sofia and the Black Sea ports of Burgas and Varna, which are stated to be full of Germans, are blacked out. Bulgarian troops who were previously on the Turkish border have been removed to an unknown destination.

A rupture between Bulgaria and the Soviet is now expected within a few days. A vital decision is expected to be reached at. a conference between King Boris of Bulgaria, Hitler, Baron Franz von Papen, German Ambassador to Ankara, and the German Army chiefs at Hitler’s headquarters on the Eastern Front.

The Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Professo’- Bogdan Filoff, in a speech in Sofia said: “We ought to add our efforts to those countries who are com-

bating Bolshevism, which still threatens Bulgaria.” Informed quarters in London believe that a decision to go to war may lead to revolt in Bulgaria. It is rumoured that an understanding has already been reached between the Bulgarian “People’s Leaders” and Moscow for the deposition of King Boris if he commits his country to war. The Associated Press correspondent in Berne reports that the Bulgarian Government has executed communist deputies and interned Peasant Party deputies. The Russian Information Bureau denies the Bulgarian allegations that Russian parachutists and saboteurs have landed in Bulgaria. The bureau states that the allegation was obviously an act of provocation by Hitlerite agents.