GERMAN YOUTHS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 November 1933, Page 8

GERMAN YOUTHS

THOUSANDS OF TRAINING CAMPS

NO SECRET MILITARISM.

LONDON, November 17

Herr Hitler lias discovered an effective way of dealing with superfluous youth, too old for school and family control, who do not know the discipline, of work owing to unemployment, says Mr Ward Price, in an article published in the Daily Mail, describing labour camps, where 250,000 young men, aged from 18 to 25, are doing “labour service.” Mr Price denies that the 4000 camps scattered throughout the country are secret centres for militarism. Although the trainees wear military uniforms, lie. says, they do not receive systematic military training. On the contrary, they are engaged in afforestation and drainage tasks,' such as cleaning out mud from ponds on which villages- rely for their water supply in the event of fire, which were neglected'during the depression. An insurance company has contracted with the labour camps to clean 3000 of these. The writer adds: Inspection of two camps, which I chose myself, showed that they are doing what the Government claims, namely, training youths in habits of hard, methodical manual work, creating a spirit of comradeship among the different classes and improving the productivity of the country.. ‘‘Tile inmates receive 5d a day. They are wMI-fed, clothed and lodged, and attend physical training, games, lectures, and indulge in hobbies when their six-hour day in the fields has ended. “The Government also is training 30,000 girls, aged from 16 to 22, in similar institutions, to enter agriculture.”

NAZI POWER SPREADS. ITS STRENGTH IN RUMANIA. LONDON; November 17. Nazism is spreading eastward, writes’ Mr R.. Bernays, a Lberal member of the House of Commons, in the News Chronicle, on his return from a visit to Bucharest, the Rumanian capital. The Nazis in Rumania polled 200,000 votes in the elections of 1931, but since Herr Hitler’s advent- to power, heavily subsidised agents liave arrived to reorganise the Rumanian Nazis, ‘ who draw their strength from almost identical sources with the German. The. main driving force, is anti-Semi-tism. Tihe same tirades are heard against the Jews, who number in Rumania 800,000. It is alleged that the Jews have got all the best jobs, that they control the newspapers, monopolise the Bucharest Bar and dominate entertainments.

The Nazis similarly declare that they are riot' opposed to Jews inhabiting their old kingdom in Rumania, but to Polish and Russian immigrants, who are buying the estates of farmers who wore ruined by the war, at starvation prices.

Also, the Nazi s attack the politicians, and in this they are on fairly safe ground when, they allege corruption and tax evasion, and the diversion of public money to party funds, with the result that the Treasury is perpetually insolvent.

Mr Bernays adds that th e most alarming feature of the movement is pan-Germanism, especially among Ger-man-speaking Transylvanians. Residents cf Transylvania, which formerly wag part of Hungary, now regard themselves as “Germania Irredenta.”

Nazi agents are secretly teaching them to look to Germany for deliverance, as they are teaching Germans in Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and Czecho-Slovakia, which i s all part of the German plan for a country stretching from the North Sea to the Black Sea.

Nevertheless. King Carol of Rumania realises that this new ‘-‘Drang Nadi Osten” endangers his monarchy. He is determined to make every effort to frustrate it.

The Week-End Review draws attention to the accumulation of reports that the Chancellor of Austria, Dr. Dollfuss, i s secretly negotiating with the Nazis in Austria and in Berlin. Dr. Dollfuss is Nazi at heart'and lie is beginning to realise that he cannot long maintain his own brand of Fascism against Nazi pressure.