BEHIND NAZI LINES

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 246, 13 October 1939, Page 1

BEHIND NAZI LINES

WESTERN VERSION . 1 ‘TEARS ARE TJtEACH'KItY’ LONDON, Sept. 27.—What are described. as scones of grief, bewilderment, mull want behind Germany's Siegfried Line, arc reported by-M. Waltejr Schwartz, a. correspondent of the .Danish newspaper PoJitiken. He has made what is stated to be the first visit by a. foreign press leprcsentative to Germany’s Western Front. “Aachen (Aix-la-Chapclle) is almost without civilian life, like most of tlio towns along tin; Siegfried Line, especially in the territory around Saarbrucken and Snaiiantcin,” Jie states. “Countless trains have taken women and children, and also the aged and the crippled, to Maims and am-Main, whence they are distributed! in smaller groups throughout Germany. No gas masks are to be seen anywhere; people will not believe that there is any danger from the air. “Even when the wounded return from the froi.it no mention can be made of the cause of their wounds, because nobody is allowed to speak to them. Tears are treachery. 'There is no weeping, but there is grief on every face. All seem to be asking: “Why this wart” “Huge placards display lurid warnings about the methods of foreign espionage, and threaten with prison, and even with death, all who are caught making thoughtless or jll-eon-sidoredl reniarks. “Any expression of despair or of anxiety, and any form of panic, are also regarded as treachery, and arc punishable.”