GERMAN PEOPLES OF BALTIC

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20070, 17 October 1939, Page 7

GERMAN PEOPLES OF BALTIC

CHARGES AGAINST NAZI CHIEFS UNRESISTING SACRIFICIAL RESIGNATION FINNISH APPEAL TO HITLER REJECTED “INTERESTS NOW OUTSIDE SPHERE” (Elce. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Get, 17. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Oet. 16. Under the sub-headline “Nazis sell out in the Baltic.” The Times gives prominence to messages, from, its special correspondent at Riga, who cpiotes the opinion in infoimcd circles at Riga that the withdrawal of Germans from abroad means Herr Hitler has sold to M. Stalin the German European colonial interests. Herr Hitler needed gold immediately and M. Stalin would not pay in.advance without an irrevocable relinquishment of the German hold in the Baltic, so Berlin precipitately ordered the repatriation from the Baltic States. It is considered that these ancient outposts of the German empire are paying with their bodies and freedom for Herr Hitler’s conquest of Poland anti the war in the West. Their price in gold, which, it is suggested, was represented by the consignment valued at between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 sent from Moscow to Berlin last week, enables HenHitler to purchase ores from Sweden and other war materials wherever procurable. The first irrevocable step having been taken, Germany sees the distress caused and is now trying to alleviate it by slackening the pace. Like Voice of God Since Bishop Poeleau, the head of the German Lutheran Church in Latvia, likened Herr Hitler’s voice to the voice of God, the spiritual distress of the more mature evacuees has deepened to a sort of unresisting sacrificial resignation. Indeed some murmured: “We were sold like live slaves for Red gold and forcibly transported to live on stolen Polish farms.” A message from Helsinki says it is now revealed that representatives of the Finnish Nazi Party recently went to Berlin to put the Finnish case before Herr Hitler but it is said they returned crestfallen, having seen neither Herr Hitler nor the Foreign Minister, Herr Von Ribbentrop, but only a minor official, who told them that while Herr Hitler sympathised witn their case, Finnish interests were now outside the German sphere.

A Rome radio broadcast announced that the Soviet forces to be stationed in the three Baltic States will total 70,000 of Which 20,000 will enter Estonia on Wednesday for naval and air bases, 5000 following later. The garrison in Latvia will number 25,000 and that in Lithuania 20,000. / ~ • A.message from Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, states that. 11 Russian warships are anchored in Tallinn Bay.