UNREST IN BALKANS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 40, 18 February 1943, Page 5

UNREST IN BALKANS

BULGARIAN OFFICIAL FATALLY SHOT EVACUATION OF BUCHAREST ORDERED (Recd. 11 p.m.) London, Feb. 16. A high Sofia police official was fatally shot this morning. After the incident the Gestapo took over the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior and the police, and cordoned off a large area in Sofia, reports tne Bntun United Press Ankara correspondent. It is now established that the victim of the assassination on February 12 was General Lukov, former War Minister, not General Lukasch, as cabled on February 14. The Bulgarian Government has been disbanded for “a fortnight’s holiday” while Cabinet drafts a law to send 60,000 workers to Germany, and also a decree Imposing the death penalty for sabotage. The Ankara correspondent of The Times says General Lukov was most prominent among Bulgarian Nazis. His murder at a time when the Gestapo completely controls the police is considered an unmistakable sign of the hatred and revolt against the Nazis which is bristling throughout the Balkans. (Recd. 11.50 p.m.) New York, Feb. 17. Bucharest and other large Rumanian cities have ordered the evacution of non-essential civilians, women and children, reports the New York Times’ Berne correspondent. Similar measures have been ordered in eastern Hungary. Uneasiness is growing throughout the Balkans, where conservative circles believe their countries are on the eve of becoming front-line defensive positions subject to intensive Russian bombardment and possibly an Allied invasion. It is also realised that the Germans would not defend these exposed positions for the sake of prestige alone, under the new strategy demonstrated in the withdrawals from Kharkov and Rostov.