PRETENCE ENDED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1942, Page 3

PRETENCE ENDED

GESTAPO 'TAKES CHARGE IN FRANCE GERMAN AMBASSADOR WITHDRAWN. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON. December 29. Herr Ottoa Abetz, German Ambassador to Paris, has been recalled to Berlin and the office of ambassadoi abolished, says Swiss newspapers. Henceforth, the Gestapo headquaitexs in Paris and the sub-headquarters in Vichy will control the whole German administration throughout France. „ The correspondent of ‘The Times on the French frontier says this momentous change is the logical outcome of the fiasco of the last Berchtesgaden conference between Hitler, Count Ciano and Laval, which failed because of the irreconcilability of the German military and the Italian political demands and French national interests, in spite of Laval’s almost unlimited willingness to accept any feasible compromise. „ , , . . Germany was thus forced to take the extreme measure of installing' the Gestapo, to which all French local authorities will henceforth be respon sible. The recall of Abetz. who is the personal deputy of the Minister foi Foreign Affairs, Herr von Ribbentrop, constitutes a personal defeat for Ribbentrop and a triumph for the Gestapo chief, Himmler. The Germans’ evident intention is to give France a political status resembling Denmark’s. __