NAZI BRIBERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1939, Page 7

NAZI BRIBERY

ESPIONAGE AND INTRIGUE IN FRANCE

Exposure of Widespread Network LARGE NUMBER OF SUSPECTS BEING EXAMINED FIRST HINT FROM AMERICAN PUBLISHER (Independent Cable Service.) PARIS, July 14. A network of' Nazi bribery, intrigue and espionage which in war time might have brought a score of prominent Frenchmen before the military courts to answer for their lives was laid bare last evening by France’s famous anti-spy squad, the Second Bureau. At least 150 eases of people suspected ol acting as Nazi propaganda agents are already being' investigated. The first hint of the military swoop pending came at the end of June, when Luce, the proprietor of the American magazine “Time,” was sued by a syndicate of Paris journalists for publishing a report that Paris newspapers were receiving money from foreign countries,' and that the Paris Press was “the sewer of the world.” Luce apologised, but it is believed he instructed his solicitors to prepare evidence to fight. Ihe case. The dossier of facts they collected was handed to the military authorities last week. Two newspaper executives—one a member of the administration of a French morning paper and the other the news editor of an evening paper—are held in Cherehemidi prison, accused of acting as Nazi propaganda agents for the Press. These arrests were followed by the expulsion from France of Iferr Otto Abetz at the beginning of July, ft is believed Abetz was the head of a German propaganda bureau originally started by the present German Foreign Minister, Herr von Ribbentrop, in his champagne-selling days. lie had an entertaining allowance of £2OOO monthly and he employed unsuspected women and some socially prominent persons as gobetweens. M. Henri Dekerillis, the “Winston Churchill of France,” declares that over £lOO,OOO was spent by Germans in propaganda payments during the Munich crisis.

HOMES SEARCHED

SCANDAL EXPECTED TO ASSUME CONSIDERABLE PROPORTIONS ESCAPE OF BEAUTIFUL COUNTESS (Received This Dav, 10.25 a.m.) PARIS, July 14. The Press scandal is expected to assume considerable proportions. The police searched the homes of a number of persons believed to have been in contact with Herr Von Rib- . bentrop and Dr Goebbels. Further arrests may be expected. The “Paris Soil'” states that 150 journalists are implicated; also that a beautiful Austrian countess, who was the brains of the organisation, has escaped to Germany.