HUNGER SPECTRE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21178, 30 July 1940, Page 5

HUNGER SPECTRE

THE INVADED COUNTRIES REGIME OF PRIVATION SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE (OfTlcial Wireless) (Received July 30, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, July 29 + In recent weeks the newspapers have printed occasional dispatches on conditions in the countries under German occupation, but, as the Times says:— “ News comes in slowly and sparingly from the prison-house where peoples, enslaved by 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. Food and stock have been requisitioned in bulk of 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, and everywhere the exploitation of men and resources is in full swing.” Allegations by Nazis In connection with these observations of the Times it is revelant to note that the serious food situation which threatens particularly Belgium and Northern France will be attributed by Nazi propaganda to the British contraband control. The speciousness of that claim, as far as the countries seized and ravaged by the Geiman armies are concerned, is well-known and its inversions of the truth in the particular cases of Denmark and Norway is again exposed today in a letter which Dr. H. Koht, Norwegian Foreign Minister, addressed to the Times. Dr. Koht points out that “the initiative to the complete stopping of overseas commerce to the northern countries was with Germany, not with Britain.” The Nazis in their very firm 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 adds: “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 were deluged with a stream of propaganda from the local press and radio stations, which were compelled to follow the Behests and model themselves on the methods of Goebbels, and the ban is not yet as strictly enforced as the occupying authorities would like. “Listening to {Foreign broadcasts completes the picture of physical hardship and the demoralisation, but there is very little evidence to suggest that the efforts to undermine or break the spirit of independence in the conquered countries, are succeeding.”