RUMANIAN GOOSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 October 1943, Page 4

RUMANIAN GOOSE

DEMANDS OF GERMAN BUTCHER FLEECING THE COUNTRY ECONOMY BEING DESTROYED The church bells tolled in Rumania on the first day of “total mobilisation of European auxiliary resources” for Hitlerite Germany, states V. Spiru, m “Soviet War News.” Antonescu had ordered masses in every town and village for Rumanian soldiers dead on the Soviet front. The officiating priests were in a hurry. Some of them had to rush along to join the army after the service. Others had to replace mobilised school teachers. The bells rang that day. They rang for the last time. Mass said, they were removed to be re-smelted into arms. Clodius, Hitler’s economic dictator in south-eastern Europe, gave the Rumanian Minister of National Economy a list of enterprises to be closed down. First to be axed were the textile mills. The equipment of the closed enterprises, Dr Clodius advised, must be sent to Germany or scrapped. The closing down of all enterprises not directly serving Germany’s war needs would release thousands of Rumanian industrial workers for the army or for I German war factories. ANTONESCU’S SLAVE MARKET According to official data, in 1941 Antonescu sold Hitler 10,000' Rumanian workers. In 1942 he agreed to supply him with 16,400 young workers and apprentices, 5,000 adult skilled workers and 2.000 women for domestic service or the chemical industry. This year Hitler expects to screw even more out of Rumania. All enterprises which can be adapted for the production of war material are to be “unified,” i.e., placed wholly at the disposal of Goering, Krupps, Mannesmann and other German plutocrats who have seized entire Rumanian industries. German capitalists have already taken over the big iron and steel plants of Resica, Malaxa, the Astra Aircraft Plant in Brasov, the Anina coal mines, the Moravica copper mines. The oil industry is to be “rationalised”—that is, recklessly exploited, threatening the best wells with rapid exhaustion. Oilfields belonging to British, Dutch and American companies were appropriated long ago by the German robbers, who are now demanding that all the Rumanian oilfields, without exception, be transferred to them. Several more S.S. units have recently been sent to the oil districts. NAZI WOLVES The handicraft industries so important to Rumanian economy are being mercilessly destroyed in the “total mobilisation” process. A special commission has been set up to preside over their liquidation. These enterprises have until now been allowed an infinitesimal part of Rumanian raw materials, such as leather, flax and cotton. Now they will get nothing. The Rumanian artisan is told to go to work in Germany. All ores, all oil and coal mined in Rumania, all metal stocks are now at the sole disposal of Germany. Without the permission of the Hitlerite agents lurking behind the signboard of the “German-Rumanian Economic Mission,” not a single Rumanian industrialist will have the right to use even the smallest amount of iron, steel or copper, not so much as a nail or a screw, on pain of 25 years’ penal servitude. Window hinges, metal door knobs, clamps and many metal household utensils were confiscated long ago and sent off to Germany. Now another comb-through of Rumanian kitchens is proposed. Rumanian agriculture is plundered systematically by an army of socalled “agricultural delegates,” “experts” and “advisers” from Germany. All grain, wool, cotton, flax, soya beans, rice, hides, fruit and dairy produce is registered and turned over to the “State"—that is, Hitlerite Germany. Antonescu tries to cover his gigantic budget deficit by means of more taxation and loans. The Rumanian banks’ gold reserve was sent to Germany long ago on the pretext of air raid danger. Rumanian paper money is printed in Germany without any control whatever. Antonescu is trying to stave off financial disaster by means of "total mobilisation" of the people’s money. INCOME TAX MAN Passive resistance to the authorities —default in paying taxes and debts to the State —is punished by confinement in prison or concentration camp. Officials were threatened with dismissal without pension for failure to collect all tax arrears and other debts to the State by a certain date. Rumania now has virtually no foreign trade. Even her exports to Italy pass through German middlemen who compel Italy to pay in foreign currency for Rumanian goods, but who pay Rumania—if they pay at all-in worthless paper, the so-called foreign marks. Rumania exports to Germany far more than she gets back. She pays astronomical prices for what she gets, while Germany buys her goods for a song. This one-sided principle is being proclaimed quite openly under the slogan “total mobilisation of European auxiliary resources.” Rumanian national economy is being destroyed at the very root. In the military sphere, total mobilisation, designed to replace the army smashed on the Soviet front, threatens Rumania with the physical extermination of the remnants of her male population. In 20 months of war Hitler has so exhausted the material and man-power resources of his Rumanian vassal that “total” mobilisation threatens to kill the goose that has hitherto provided him with golden eggs in the shape of grain and oil. THE GOOSE OBJECTS The Rumanian people are not at all keen to commit suicide. Their protests are becoming more and more audible. So Goebbels’s Bucharest agents are conducting a campaign for the “ideological total mobilisation of the people.” As a reward for their “total sacrifices,” Hitler promises a revision of the so-called Vienna arbitration decision which took north Transylvania from Rumania. Meanwhile they read in their newspapers appeals to “leave large cities of your own free will. Save your children from air raids.” The Hitlerites realise the shakiness of their propaganda, and hurl abuse at the “saboteurs,” “defeatists” and “trai-1 tors,” who in their thousands write anonymous letters to demand that Ru-! mania withdraw from the war. i