EXAMINATION OF VON NEURATH

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24912, 27 June 1946, Page 5

EXAMINATION OF VON NEURATH

ANTIJEWISH ACTION NOT REGRETTED PLANS TO DESTROY CZECH NATION NUREMBERG, June 25. Under cross-examinatioif by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe at the war crimes trial, von Neurath, the former German Foreign Minister, said that it was still his view that anti-Jewish measures were necessary for cleaning up public life in Germany, but they should have been carried out by different methods. Asked why he. stayed in a Government which was using murder as a political weapon, von Neurath replied: “Revolutionary mishaps are unavoidable and innocent people sometimes get slaughtered.” Few documents have been produced at this trial with such startling effect as two revealing plans to' destroy the Czech nation. One was prepared at the instance of von N6urath and the other by his deputy, Frank, who was executed at Prague recently. Both bore von Neurath’s signature. The aims outlined in Frank’s document included the abolition of Czech universities and secondary schools, the Czech tongue to become a mere dialect as in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and disappear as the official language; marriage only after racial examination; education in the German language and the “Reich idea”; and liquidation of “the irreconcilable intelligentsia.” Von Neurath flinched when Sir David Maxwell Fyfe asked if he agreed with “these dreadful, callous, unprincipled proposals.” Von Neurath replied: “No—not in the least.” Pressed further, von Neurath said it was not quite his aim to get rid of teachers and writers or singers who would hand on Czech traditions. It was his intention to “expel and assimilate” them. Sir David Maxwell Fyfe produced another document saying that “Hitler’s decision followed the lines of the memoranda presented by you and Frank.” Von Neurath said: “It is true that I at one time identified myself with those views, but not when they reached the Fuehrer stage.” SHIPYARD STRIKE IN SYDNEY EMPLOYERS’ ULTIMATUM TO WORKERS (Rec. 9 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 26. All the painters and dockers working in the port of Sydney will be laid off on Friday unless the strike ot ships’ painters and dockers at «the Balmain yards is called off and the union abandons the claim that the employers should engage labour under the roster system. This ultimatum has been presented to the union by the waterfront employers. About 70 employees are concerned in the dispute, but the ultimatum involves 3000 painters and dockers and a weekly wage loss of £21,000. The employers are taking a stand, because they consider that it is their right to select labour,