BIG ROUND-UP

Wanganui Chronicle, 25 February 1947, Page 5

BIG ROUND-UP

NAZIS UNDERGROUND IN GERMANY London, Feb. 23. Many Nazi underground leaders ar now being arrested in the British and American zones in Germany. A joint Anglo-American operation began last night and is still going on. Reuter’s Frankfurt correspondent says that members of the Nazi group Uave new secret weapons, one of which they could use for bacteriologi. cal wrafare. Those arrested include 10 former German, army officers and Hans Georg Eidmann, a fortner officer of the German High Command’s bacteriological section. A high British intelligence officer said that Martin Bormann, formerly Hitler's deputy, might be connected with the movement. "We cannot discount the pass bility that Bormann is still alive,” he said. MOVEMENT’S MAIN AIMS. An official United States’ Armystatement says that the main objective of the round-up was “a rather nebulous movement that has been under observation for some months. The individuals concerned are bound by a common background of Nazi ideology and a mutual belief that they and others of their ilk nave been chosen to remould Germany into a powerful nation. The movement’s main aims were to stop the dismantling of armaments factories for reparations, to release Nazis from internment camps, to

stop the export of coal from Germany, to end the socialisation of Germany’s key industries and to urge the return of East Prussia and Silesia to Germany.” The statement continues: “The movement operated mainly in the British zone. It was not politically powerful, but there was a danger that it would attract followers from nationalistic fanatics. Clever leaders might form these fanatics into a powerful organisation, capable of becoming a serious threat to the Allied occupation of Germany.”