Germany to scrap all rules of war
Poison gas attacks predicted in Sweden
LONDON, England (UP) – European dispatches said today that Germany has proclaimed her intention of scrapping the rules of war for a “no-holds-barred” fight to the death as a result of the Big Three’s Crimean declaration.
The new policy was said to have been set forth yesterday by Paul Schmidt, official spokesman for the German Foreign Office, in an angry outburst at the Wilhelmstrasse over the joint statement of President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin.
Stockholm sources speculated that Schmidt’s statement might foreshadow German use of poison gas.
Cites death sentence
The death sentence outlined for Germany in the Crimean declaration frees the Reich of “all moral obligations” to abide by the rules of war, the Nazi-controlled Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau quoted else as saying.
“The Germans henceforth will conduct the war with all suitable means, no matter how grim their effect,” Schmidt said.
The STB dispatch, published in Stockholm newspapers, said mention of the Crimean declaration caused “by far the worst explosion” foreign correspondents ever have witnessed at a Wilhelmstrasse press conference.
The Swiss Telegraph Agency said the official German Foreign Office publication Diplomatische Information commented that the Red Army in eastern Germany already had “placed itself outside any moral qualification.”
Nazi arms stolen
“There would be no surprise if such a plan of destruction as the Yalta statement revealed would bring the complete ‘demoralization’ of war,” the publication said.
It contended that the statement, far from hastening Germany’s defeat, would steel the spirit of resistance inside the Reich.
The publication said:
Every doubter and every optimist throughout Germany now understands that Germany as a nation and Germans as individuals could not fare worse than if they capitulated now.
Reliable reports reaching Stockholm from Berlin said Nazi authorities were concerned over extensive thefts of arms from Volkssturm (home guard) barracks outside Berlin.
The Nazis were said to fear that foreign workers, war prisoners and native anti-Nazis may try to stab the German Army in the back as soon as military events force the Gestapo to loosen its grip on the German home front.
A Berlin dispatch to the Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter said German authorities had ordered that all guns, rifles, pistols, machine-guns, tommy guns, signal pistols and hand grenades must be registered by February 20.
The arms are needed for the Volkssturm, the dispatch said.