GESTAPO RULE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 308, 31 December 1942, Page 5

GESTAPO RULE

INTRODUCED IN FRANCE RECALL TO BERLIN OF NAZI AMBASSADOR (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Recd. 9.3 U p.m.) London, Deo. 2.-> Otto Abetz, German Ambassador in Paris, has been recalled to Berlin and the office of Ambassador abolished, say Swiss newspapers. Henceforth the Gestapo headquarters in Paris and sub-headquarters in Vichy will control the whole German administration throughout France. The Times’ correspondent on the French frontier says this momentous change is the logical outcome of the fiasco at the last Berchtesgaden conference between Hitler, Ciano and Laval, which failed because of the irreconcilability of the Germans military and the Italian political demands and the French national interests, despite Laval’s almost unlimited willingness to accept any feasible compromise. Germany was thus forced to take the extreme measure of installing the Gestapo, to which all French local authorities will henceforth be responsible. The recall of Abetz. who is Ribbentrop’s personal deputy, constitutes a personal defeat for Ribbentrop and a triumph for Himmler.

The Germans' evident intention is to give France a political status resembling Denmark’s.