STRIKE AT NAZI MOVEMENT

Chronicle (Levin), 1 April 1946, Page 8

STRIKE AT NAZI MOVEMENT

great round-up made many arrests in germany Received Sunday, 10.5 p.m. LONDON, March 31. British and Ameiiean. nueiiagencc officers have smashed up a widespreatl niazi underground niovement which iias been gradually huilding up in the British and American Zones in Germany, states' an announcement from tne Control Commission's headquariers. Incelligence oijicers in a great silent swoop, i'Oilawing months of patient tracking, arrested six leaders and many memhexs Of the Hitler Y outh and League of German Girls who had been selected to reconstruct Germany on Nazi lines. Britain and Aiherica linxed up to track down the leaaers of the moye ment, which high oilicers of the Hitl-.r Youth and Girls' League forirud tnrough secret groups, which sprean graaually from Soutnern Germany in„o Northern Germany and the british Zcne. All information on subversive • activities was pooled as Secret Service ofiicers prepared for the operation. The first blow was struck at the New Year, when many arresfcs were carried oue in tne Britisn and American Zones. Ttere is no information ahout the nuLuierical strength of the movement, but tne announcement says that sabofca0e and actual violence agamst the occupymg forces were not envisaged. Its aims were poeitical and economic. It was hoped to estabiish through its economic deparfcment a network of iirms ' business contracts in weseeru ^•ermany v/ho would he in the good I graces of the Military Government and j | aole to provide jobs and money for tnei underground political secLon, which aimed at the rebirth of the Hitler Youth. Those arrested include Arthur Max-I mann (Reich Youth leader, who commanded the entire Hitler Youth and j League of Germ'an Girls) and Erns: Oberbeck (who held rank equivalent to | ! an army brigadier). The organisation had few traces in I the Russiah Zone, hut What detai'ls'were learned about it wei'e handed over Jto I the Russians. ' j The statement points out that it is ' noteworthy that the first major attempc! at resurgence came from the Hitler j j Youth. Their views were likcly to te 1 1 the hardest to eradicate, and they j 1 would eventually have become a power- j ! fiil influence in German affairs if the j organisation had not been smashed up. | Reuter says that arrests in the j American Zone are still proceeding. THREAT TO SECURITY. "This long-ra.nge plan, designed to : revive Nazi- ideology, is the most dan- 1 gerous threat to our security we have j met since the war," said the American j Intelligence chief, Brigadier General j Edwin Sibert. "The back of the move- j ment has been broken. One thousand] suspected ringleaders have already been j gaoied or are being rounded up by com- j bat . soldiers in a huge ittanhunt in , Austria and Germany in which counter- 1 espionage agents have seized Germans by the hundred. Armoured cars ha/e rumhled across Germany, raiding liomes' ; and hotels. The full outcome of the i dragnet is still unknown." } Brigadier Sibert said the downfall of I the movement had resulted from dis- j trust between tw.o' warring Nazi *ele1 ments. One-armed Archur Maxmann, ! aged 32, appointed1 a former Hitler Jugend colonel, Willi Heidemann, as j custodian of considerable Nazi cash, j ! with which Heidemann estafclished him j ; self as a trasinessman. He was suppossd ! j to organise Werewolf resistance, but I gave up the idea as foolish and turned i to a plan for influencing German po.i- ; tics toward Nazi principles. Heidemann 1 opened branches of his business, staffed j thein with former high-ranking Hitler | Jugend men and sent them ahrOad | under the guise of travelling salesmen, \ \ but .last autumn anothsr undercover group organised in Northern Germany under Willi Lohel, proposed a merger, giving it a cut of Hcidem&nn's financial backing. Heidemann declared that the merger was untimely and the subs3quent wrangling led to the exposure of the plot. Maxmann, Oberbeck, Heidemann and eight others were arrested in December and subsequently another 10007*some of whom were possibly not aware of the group' s aims and may later be released. Gun battles between Nazi fanatics and' Allied troops broke out at scattered points in Western Germany today as Allied troops rounded up members of the underground movement, says the Associated Press. The majority of the raids, however, were carried: out peacefully, although the Gernians, it is believed, had advance information of the intended raids. It is estimated that 6000 or 7000 Allied troops were engaged in the rotmd-up.