A NAZI AIM

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 35, 30 March 1942, Page 3

A NAZI AIM

BALKANISING THE BALKANS

Nazi propaganda Ims long been shouting about the "de-Balkanlsing" of Europe- The Ralkanisation of Europe, it says, was the fault of the peace treaties, and only the Germans can set Europe in order again. A good deal of water has flowed under the bridge since they first discovered this argument. The Germans have lost no time in putting their precept into practice, with the result that Europe is now more Balkanised than it has ever been bf' fore. In the years after the last war the expression "Balkan" lost its meaning of reproach because the Balkan States tried successfully to put their peninsula in order. Greece made up her old quarrels with Turkey, so that in the end both countries became real Allies; Yugoslavia improved her relations with Bulgaria: the relations between Greece and Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia and Rumania, Rumania and Greece, became extremely friendly. Such delicate questions as remained in the Balkans were fomented either byi foreign propaganda, first from Italy and later from Germany, or by the revisionist policy of Hungary. Today we may say that the Balkan States would have become a pattern of peace and order if it had not been for the intervention of disturbing influences from outside. The German "peace and order" which has dawned in the Balkans to the accompaniment of German tanks, bombers, the Gestapo and firing squads, has turned the peninsula back into the proverbial powder magazine Avhicli it used to be before the last war. Conditions in this part of Europe arc completely chaotic; murder and execution are the order of the day, the hatred of the different Balkan people for one another increases steadilj", though al! are united in a common hatred of Germany, with whom only their Quisling Governments are co-operat-ing-