PERIL FOR NAZIS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20093, 13 November 1939, Page 11

PERIL FOR NAZIS

UNDER-COVER WORK

INTERNAL DISCONTENT

REICH’S ILLEGAL GROUPS

CELLS IN EVERY PAY-ROLL

Efforts on the part of the Nazi Government of Germany to place the blame for the Munich beer-hall bombing on their enemies abroad are not likely to carry much weight with those who have any acquaintance with the under-cover activity of thousands of anti-Nazis within the Reich.

The attempt upon the life of the Fuehrer and his chief lieutenants in Nazism serves to give especial point to circumstantial stories of this undercover agitation, which even among the clerical workers in the Reich ministries is reported t.o have gained an enormous degree of co-operation.

Those who have been puzzled by the apparent optimism of the British Government in its campaign of pamphleteering, by the aid of the R.A.F.. simply are not aware of the good chances that exist of these air-distri-buted messages failing upon fertile ground. They have not had the advantage of studying, for instance, the bulletins which come out of Germany regularly, by secret means, explaining the activities of those opposed tooth and nail to the Nazi regime. These carry ample evidence that the first revelation of weakness on the part of Germany's present rulers may be the signal for a rising of democratic sentiment and power within the Reich. Six Years’ Activity One of these bulletins, received in New Zealand weeks before the commencement of war, declared that for more than six years activity on illegal lines —illegal in Germany, where the official “Deutsche Arbeitsfront” is supposed to control all labour organisations —has been carried into every possible corner of Germany’s industrial front. The work is not political, in the sense that it takes no account of party factions, but it is political in a very profound sense in its unyielding opposition to the Nazi system, and in its attempt to line up freedomloving men and women in the fight against serfdom.

Quoting a few examples of how the work is proceeding, the bulletin refers to the experience of workers in an important banking concern. Prior to 1933 these workers had been well organised, and consequently the persecution of their former guild officers by the Nazis was all the more persistent.

The workers are preparing for a new order by getting their men into posts in the “labour front,” and by keeping a check on the accounts of well-known Nazi chiefs, who have enriched themselves in a degree out of all proportion to their official salaries and allowances. They also see that the methods by which firms and private individuals are forced to contribute to loans’ is made known abroad, and the plundering of savings banks, insurance companies, and State insurance institutes for war purposes is noted and recorded. Whispering campaigns are maintained, to give the widest possible publicity to the actions of the Nazis. Clerks Taught Dishonesty

From a big department-store, formerly owned by a Jewish firm, and now transferred to the control of a Nazi Aryan, the bulletin quotes a report that all the good-quality stocks were exhausted long ago, and not a scrap of woollen material remains. Salesclerks are taught to dupe the customers as to the quality of the remaining stocks and replacements, to evade direct questions as to their manufacture, and to practise dishonesty in order to maintain their sales volume. ’

In this case, the Nazi code is being turned against the system, as among clerks compelled by authority to be dishonest, there is a fertile field for propaganda directed against authority. Women clerks, formerly ardently pro-Nazi, have been alienated by recent decrees forbidding wage increases or individual betterment for women workers.

The invasion of the Ministries byNazis who, without any prior training, are given preference in- major posts is having its effect on the permanent staff's of these State institutions. Civil servants and salaried employees with good qualifications are to-day the unrestricted opponents ol the regime, it is stated, corruption on an enormous scale, and almost unconcealed, having disgusted them more than anything else.

Corruption in High Places

The Stale department officers know of this corruption, but on instructions from "higher up” they cannot prosecute. The system cannot afford to have its rottenness shown to the public. In the words of an anti-Nazi in one Prussian Ministry, “the system is destroying itself.” . An office in the armaments industry provides further evidence of illegal activity on the part of the workers. The system has endeavoured to seal off the clerical from the manual workers, in order to prevent a comparison of situations and the co-ordination of information which might bring discredit upon the Nazis. Despite this effort, however, information is exchanged on bad material and workmanship, into which sabotage enters substantially, and the destinations of shipments of munitions and weapons. The conclusions reached by the workers regarding preparations for war had long given rise to a growing anger against the regime.

“An armament factory in the Third Reich is a prison-house for its workers,’’ the bulletin stales. “The work is not done by free men, but by terrorised employees.” Summing up the position, the bulletin adds: “The network of illegal activity is better developed in some places than in others. A circle of supporters of our ideas exists; the necessary intellectual contact exists but is not visible. The day when the state of illegality ends will show how effective the work has been, and with what clear-sightedness the clerical workers have understood their task.”