GERMAN GRIP TIGHTENS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 151, 22 March 1939, Page 11

GERMAN GRIP TIGHTENS

Wholesale Arrests Of Czechs Continue

BIG ESTATES TO BE BROKEN UP Gain To Reich In Gold And Industrial Equipment By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received March 21, 7.00 p.m.) LONDON, March 21. It is officially announced in Prague that equality of the German and Czech languages has been established and the amalgamation of the National Bank and the Reichsbank completed.

The reorganization of banking is proceeding. A number of directors of the larger Czech banks have been replaced. The Nazis have closed Jewish organizations and are banning Jew? from factories. There have been wholesale arrests.

The Prague correspondent ol “The Tinies” estimates that the arrests now total 18,000, including a large proportion of (lie Com niunists and Jewish leaders.

Two squares in Prague have been renamed after Adolf Hiller, and Wilson Square has become Goering Square. The production of the Skoda annament works is to be reserved exclusively for the German army and navy, and other factories are to supply the army of the Slovak protectorate. The “Daily Express” states that. 1000 Czech plane's escaped German seizure and flew to Poland, Rumania, and Yugoslavia. Formulas for steel alloys, special concrete for fortifications, and blueprints of a new automatic rifle and of many other secret Skoda productions were taken from the country, though the swiftness of the German occupation was intended to prevent this.

£17,000,000 in Gold.

The Berlin correspondent of “The Times” says that Germany has acquired from Bohemia and Moravia £17,000,000 in gold and foreign exchange belonging to the Czech National Bank, small quantities of ammunition and a limited number of modern aeroplanes from the 1500 confiscated. The greatest gain to the Reich is in agricultural, armament, and industrial equipment, which is superior to the Austrian, and raw materials taken are worth £250,000,000. It is understood that tlie Germans are preparing to break up the big estates and distribute the land among the peasants in tlie hope of winning their support, and simultaneously to launch a “drive against corruption in high places” by bringing many Czech agrarian and manufacturing leaders to trial on charges of enriching themselves at tlie expense of the people. In case these tactics fail to win popular support, plans are ready to move 100.000 of the most brilliant Czecli workers to different parts of Germany and to replace them with Germans. ULTIMATUM A “LONDON MANOEUVRE” (Independent Cable Service.) BERLIN, March 20. Official quarters allege that tlie story of au “economic ultimatum” to Rumania on March IS was merely a London manoeuvre to disturb the German trade talks in progress between Rumania and Germany.