NAZI TERRORISM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 October 1941, Page 5

NAZI TERRORISM

AND COUNTER=MEASURES BY ALLIES DECLAR’ATION BY CZECH government. SPREAD OF THE V CAMPAIGN. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. October 4. Though attention has recently been focused mainly on the German outrages in Czechoslovakia, information reaching London shows that the Germans are combating unrest in other occupied countries by ruthless oppression. There are stories of frequent sabotage in Holland in spite of drastic Nazi persecution of clashes between Norwegians and Nazis, of further wholesale executions in Czechoslovakia and of German military moves in Serbia to counter the activities of patriot irregulars. While the occupied countries suffer under this relentless terror, British radio propaganda repeatedly assures them of the release which is coming. Colonel Britton told his listeners tonight that a master plan for destroying the Nazis had been prepared for the "V” army. As Hitler, in one of his rare speeches, spoke of the extent of Europe under his control, the Czechoslovak Government, meeting in London, pledged itself to avenge German terrorism and asked for “strict justice against Germany after the war.” The proclamation stated that the Czechs would hold out in the struggle against German suppression till victory was achieved. It added: “The German rulers consummate their crimes by murdering innocent hostages, and it is the sacred duty of all decent people in the world not to forget the foul deeds committed by Germany.” The reasons for Germany’s terrorism campaign in Czechoslovakia were aptly stated by the Czech Foreign Undersecretary, M. Ripka. He recalled that one-third of Hitler’s war industry was now concentrated in Czechoslovakia, and said that any resistance on the part of the Czechs would deeply affect the Nazi war machine.

Sabotage and resistance said M. Ripka, were nowhere in Europe organised so systematically as in Czechoslovakia.

All the recent operations of Britain and the Allies have been part of the V campaign, said Colonel Britton in his eighteenth weekly talk to the peoples of the occupied countries. The mobilisation of the V army two months ago, he said, was part of a plan. So was the meeting of President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill, the inter-Allied conference in London, and the go-slow campaign in Europe, The master plan, Colonel Britton concluded, would unfold at the right moment.

“It will ask a lot of you, and it will ask a lot of us in Britain,” he said, “but I can assure you it is a good plan, with a good purpose.”