IN THE NAZI GRIP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 July 1940, Page 5

IN THE NAZI GRIP

PLIGHT OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES MENACED BY SPECTRE OF FAMINE. EXPLOITATION IN FULL SWING. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 29. In. recent weeks the newspapers have printed occasional dispatches on the conditions in countries under German occupation, but. as “The Times” says in a leader, “the news comes in slowly and sparingly from the prison-house where peoples enslaved by the Nazi occupation are held under a regime of privation, hard labour, and silence. Every one of these countries is now faced with the gaunt spectre of hunger. "The food stock has been requisitioned in bulk or purchased for worthless currency by the invading troops. In most of these unhappy lands the harvests have been seriously damaged and transport disorganised for some time to come by military operations. Everywhere a strict rationing system has been imposed. Everywhere exploitation of men and resources is in full swing.” In connection with these observations of "The Times,” it is relevant to note that the serious food situation which threatens particularly Belgium and Northern France will be attributed by the Nazi propagandists to the British contraband control. The ■ speciousness of that claim as far as the countries seized and ravaged by the German armies are concerned is well known, and its inversion of the truth in the particular cases of Denmark and Norway is again exposed today in a letter which Professor Koht, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, has addressed to "The Times.” ULTIMATUMS RECALLED. Professor Koht points out that "the initiative to complete the stopping of overseas commerce to the Northern Countries was with Germany and not with Britain.” The Nazis, in their very first ultimatum to Denmark and Norway, demanded that they should cut off all kinds of commerce and communication with all countries west of the North Sea. "The Times,” in the leading article already cited, goes on to make the point that it is not only with the physical resources of the occupied territories that the Germans are tampering, but also with their moral and spiritual ties. "The occupied countries,” it says, “are deluged with a stream of propaganda from the local Press and radio stations, which are compelled to follow the behests and model themselves on the methods of Dr Goebbels, and the ban —not yet as strictly enforced as. the occupying authorities would like —on listening to the foreign broadcasts completes the picture of physical hardship and demoralisation. “But there is very little evidence to suggest that the efforts to undermine or break the spirit of independence in the conquered countries is succeeding.” NAZI’ AIMS CONDEMNED. The exposition by the Nazi Minister of Economic Affairs, Dr Funk, of Nazi schemes for a new economic order in Europe have not had a very favourable Press comment in countries where comment is still free, according to summaries reaching London. The Swiss newspaper “Democrat” says: “Many economists consider that the driving of Britain from Europe and the construction of a separate European bloc would precipitate the haemorrhage of a dying continent” —which represents, in the view of experts here, a very shrewd view of the facts. A Norwegian journal says: “Swedish and Danish papers write regarding this that their countries ’ culture is inseparably bound up with the old democratic traditions, and the same can be said of Norway. We Norwegians have been accustomed for generations to think and talk freely and it is for ourselves to choose who shall administer our affairs. If we lose these democratic rights we will lose the kernel of culture. Perhaps we have not paid heed to the value of the free word and free criticism as we ought. We have regarded them as a matter of course. But if we were one day to lose them, a storm of indignation would burst forth.”