GERMAN DOCTRINES
SPREAD TO EUROPE MINORITIES STIRRED The Gorman National Socialists Lave started a powerful propaganda offensive to enlist the aid of Teutonic minorities in Europe, in building a vast empire in the heart of the Continent that would include all members of the German race (writes Henry C. Wolfe from Belgrade to the ‘ New York Times ’). These Teutonic minorities are scattered through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, and' Czechoslovakia. As the Reich’s rearmament programme gains greater momentum Nazi propaganda grows bolder, causing increasing apprehension to the Governments under which, the minorities live.
In Hungary Adolf Hitler’s agents aro busily engaged in creating support for German policies and in arousing the national consciousness of the Teutonic minority. While Hungarian revisionists hail with admiration Hitler’s treaty-smashing tactics, there is some uneasiness in Budapest among those who wonder what might happen to an independent Hungary _if the boundaries of the third Reich should reach the Magyar frontier. But most Hungarians, in their determination to revise the peace treaties, offer a receptive ear to the emissaries of German National Socialism. Some of the Fuhrer’s satraps even speak of Hungary as a Nazi “ colony.” PAN-GERMANISM STRONG. Although the German minority in Hungary is only about 7 per cent, of the population, it wields a considerable influence. Most of these Teutons have adopted! the Pan-German viewpoint, and consequently are receptive to the propaganda which flows into Hungary from Nazi outsiders. German agents, sometimes in the guise of tramps or peddlers, have been busily carrying on their work in the Schwabian villages and in every section where there is any group of the Teutonic minority. Such organisations as t!*o Gross and Sickle and the Arrow and Cross are variants of the Nazi movement, though most of the peasants who comprise them may be Magyars. As in every other area where German National Socialism is penetrating, the campaign in Hungary is violently anti-Semitic from the start. In Yugoslavia the German minority not only is the largest, but by reason of its relatively high cultural and l economic level, is by far the most important. About a half million Germans are scattered throughout the South Slav kingdom, though the majority aro located in the Batohka, in the Banat, and north of the Sava. Despite the kingdom’s distance from Germany, Nazi agents have been at work among its Teutonic groups. Anti-Semitic agitation—previously unknown in the South Slav State —is a symptom of the campaign directed from the Reich. Nazi infiltration into the minority’s Kulturbund has led to dissolution of certain of its branches, notably those in Velika Kikinda, Novi Sad. and Maribor, in each of which the younger elements of the Hitlerites got out of hand. AGENTS AND PROPAGANDA. However, Germany’s most effective propaganda in Yugoslavia is the economic arm of the Reich. Active German commercial interests in Belgrade are helping the Fatherland extend its influence in the land of the _ South Slav by means of a combination of economic and political espionage. The Rhineland salesman carrying the bulging brief case not only sells steel products to Yugoslav industry, but at the same time spreads German Nazi propaganda among his clients. But of all the Nazi fronts the Rumanian sector is witnessing the most intense National Socialist _ offensive. Bucharest is the scene of riots, antiSemitic violence, and destruction of property. Former Prime Ministers of the kingdom arc ranging on opposite sides; political parties are either proNazi or anti-Nazi. Every leading figure in the country is tagged as belonging to one camp or the other. No question of internal affairs can be debated without injection of the Nazi argument. The three-quarter-million German minority is only one group of the proNazi coalition in Rumania. Though Herr Fabrizius, the Transylvanian Hitler, and his lieutenants are busily carrying on their agitation among the Teutons in the Banat, in the Saxon cities (Siebenburgen) of Transylvania and in Bukowina, the real struggle is in Bucharest, where the Gqgas, the Cnzas, the Jonescus, and their fanatical partisans wage turbulent warfare. VIOLENCE EMPLOYED. Young men wearing brown, blue, or green shirts (depending on which proNazi faction they represent) and armband swastikas swagger through Bucharest streets. bullying Jewish shopkeepers, assaulting political opponents, and burning publications that displease them. The mild-mannered Deputy Ton Mihalache, head of tbc National Peasant party, believes, that there are between 50 and 60 Rumanian papers directly subsidised by German National Socialist money. “If the National Peasant party comes to power,” he says, “ wo shall drive the Nazis out of Rumania.” Many observers believe that whenever Hitler decides to strike across one off the Reich’s “bleeding frontiers” the German minority in the country to be attacked will provide the excuse for invasion. Those observers are convinced that the Nazi _ campaign among the Teutonic minorities is being conducted with that purpose in mind.
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Evening Star, Issue 22463, 7 October 1936, Page 1
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802GERMAN DOCTRINES Evening Star, Issue 22463, 7 October 1936, Page 1
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