RIDDLED WITH SPIES

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 206, 12 July 1939, Page 1

RIDDLED WITH SPIES

- NA’ZI AUTIYTTY SOUTH 'WEST AFRICA _ JOHANNESBURG, April 2.—According to a newspaper correspondent from AVindhuk, South-West Africa is riddled with Nazi spies. There is little that goes on in the territory politically, commercially, socially or from an administrative poinfj of view which is not known to these people, and, in due course, correlated and passed on. The presence of these Nazi spies is not unknown both to the police and the Department of Justice officials who are, in fact, singularly well-informed of Nazi activities in South-West Africa. In both the police and Department of Justice offices are numerous files of “frozen” dossiers on Nazi agents against whom nothing can be done, by affecting to represent German businesses or scientific institutions. Others, pretending to serve the commercial or agricultural interests of the territory, are in reality Nazi agents working only for the benefit of Germany.

The barter agreement between South Africa and Germany gives them plenty of scope for their subversive activities, in certain instances these persons are born in the territory, and are British subjects by automatic naturalisation They can therefore, in the light of the German claim to dual nationality, pretend to be loyal South Africans while working wholeheartedly in the interests of a foreign Power. Tolerance on the part* of the Union Government has been interpreted as weakness by the German, and they have been taking advantage of the Union Government’ss__a.ititude-....-Jie-pr.rts are prevalent, however, that the Union Government is stiffening in its atfitude towards Nazi propagandists.