THE SAAR

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 8

THE SAAR

GRAVE EEVELATIONS

THE GERMAN YOUTH

CAMP TRAINING SCHEME

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, September 5.

, Certain documents seized at the offices of the Voluntary Labour Service attached to the Deutsche Front in the Saar were forwarded by Mr. G. C. Knox (president of the Saar Governing Commission) to the Secretary of the League of Nations. These documents, comprising letters between the Deutsche Front in the Saar, the National-Socialist Party, various German labour camps, and German Government Departments, have now been issued to the members of the League Council, and have been published.

In the view of the Commissioner, as set forth in a letter, the documents afford further proof of the menace to tEe impartiality of the plebiscite, and are an additional argument for an international police force and gendarmerie for the preservation of peace during the plebiscite period. They afford a striking indication of what the training comprises and the coercive methods employed. The area of training has been cleverly selected to circumvent the provisions of the Peace Treaty and the Saar Commission's regulations against military training for the Saarlanders. In forwarding tho documents, Mr. Knox states that their examination, although still incomplete, already shown that officials of the Governing Commission have been led to commit acts or to abstain from legal proceedings aa the result of acts of intervention which constitute no less than attempts to corrupt or exercise pressure. Other documents show that organisations or agents of the Deutsche Front are maintaining constant relations with all kinds of services and authorities of the Keich, and are promoting their interference in Saar affairs. ILLUMINATING LETTER. • The aim pursued by the Voluntary Labour Service of the Eeich is indicated in a letter dated October 6, 1933, addressed by the head of the Propaganda Department of the Ministry of Labour to Herr Spaniol, which contains the following passage:— "We jvill submit a request to the Prussian Government and to the Beich Government to the effect that the Eeich directorate be empowered to admit a total .of about 10,000 Saar Germans into the German Voluntary Labour Service and keep them there beyond their period of training until they are recalled by the Saar territory in the plebiscite year 1935. We suggest that these young men should be divided up into camp groups and quartered east of the 50 kilometres zone, east of the Khine, and west of- the generai line Stettin-Frankfurt-on-the-Oder-Dresden, and that in addition to the ordinary service prescribed by the Voluntary Labour Service they should receive special attention and instruction with c view to the Saar campaign." A mass of correspondence between the various labour camps and the_ organising offices in the Saar sheds light upon the methods adopted. The men selected were destined either for a leadership course or for activity under trained leaders. The type required is indicated in a letter asking that future candidates for leadership posts should be ■ only experienced soldiers. As au example, one is mentioned who had served in the Beichswehr and had an encounter with a Frenchman, whom he bad handled rather roughly, and was wanted by the police. The camp at Coblenz was therefore requested to call him up as soon as possible. Another document says, "We shall send chiefly S.A. and S.S; men." The training is described as "Wehrsport" (defensive); but a further document shows that it also includes aviation, and that arrangements are made for enrolling young men with suitable technical knowledge of aeroplane engines. An unpleasant picture is also given of the discipline to which the young Saarlanders are subjected once they are in the camps. PREVENTIVE MEASURES. In view of the abuses discovered (writes the Geneva "Times" correspondent), the Governing Commission have prepared —as a preliminary preventive measure in view of the grave and menacing circumstances —a draft ordinance banning the Voluntary Labour Organisation in the Saar and compelling the young men who were enrolled in it, together with former S.A. and S.S. men, to report to the police, with the possibility of being placed under surveillance. The hope is expressed by Mr. Knox that these documents will suffice to convince the Council of the League of the gravity of the situation and of the need for according its urgent support by approaching the States members of the League with reference to the recruiting of police forces and gendarmerie in accordance with the resolution of June 4, 1934. The Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" states that although the letter of Mr. Knox is criticised in Berlin newspapers no reference is made to the documents themselves and the enlightening- details contained in them about the numbers, disposition, and treatment of young volunteers from the Saar. The inspired commentary in the semi-official journal concludes a somewhat meagre reply to the accusations and supporting documents published at Geneva with the following ambigious observation: —A "putsch" in the Saar territory will not be prevented by the prescribed surveillance of former Labour Service Volunteers, or by other police measures of the Governing Commission, but by the clear knowledge of the Saar population of its situation and its future. An act of violence can only be desired by those who want to aggravate the present tense situation and endanger the future of the Saar.