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Show Europe's Underground Press Defies Death To Keep Free CLINTON CONGER United Press Correspondent Europe's underground press, risking lives to J the mental quarantine through which Goebbels nlf. numb the spirit of the occupied countries ,11 adopt the msthead !ts ne llborutbit"-ruthsMU llborutbit"-ruthsMU sot mo free." rornuw propaganda ma- 'r since the Nazi first nnir over their borders r5 tato Austria, has to control the minds and L of the subject populations ne method which so 7 contributes to keeping the 52ns docile: control of all in- information or by the Jte suppression of all outside te Germans want to rob f 'occupied countries of hope, confusion and despair, un-p un-p the resistance movement, concerted action by :S with the United Nations. ' editors of Europe's myriad ground newspapers, from Smitten bulletins up to pro-ionally pro-ionally printed papers, are nul-Goebbels' nul-Goebbels' policy by their S" despite the certainty, if Lk of the Painful intluisition li death numbers of their col- 1 he hide the gravity of the German defeats In Russia. The readers of the underground press are better informed than the German sof-diors sof-diors who, brought as prisoners to the United States, refused to believe be-lieve they had been landed at Boston Bos-ton and New York because Boston and New York have been ravaged by air raids. The papers have been a valuable valua-ble adjunct to the radio propagan-' da of the United Nations. Many people in Nazi Europe are unable to hear the broadcasts from the British Isles because they live in thin-walled apartment houses or because their sets are not powerful enough to pick up the foreign transmissions in the face of German Ger-man jamming. The underground papers try to monitor the programs pro-grams daily and print the broadcast broad-cast news in full for their readers. For the time being, until news wires can return to the continent on the heels of the invading armies, ar-mies, the London broadcasts are pinchhitting for the American and . ones spring up to take their places. The editors in self-defense have turned to spy-ring methods for protection; only one or two key men know the entire personnel of the staff, and distributors know only the one marfrom whom they get their copies and the three or four assistants to whom- they pass them on. Even such precautions as these are not always enough; in Denmark, Den-mark, when the "model protectorate" protec-torate" was swarming with unauthorized unau-thorized papers, the Germans made almost the only use they have ever made of the handful of Danish Dan-ish Nazis to uncover the writers of the leading publications. Some of these Quislings were newspapermen newspa-permen capable enough to identity writers by their styles; since then all the writers who were in the game before the war have been careful to disguise their writings, while one of the spies had plenty of explaining to do when the entire staff of one underground newspaper news-paper began to duplicate with great accuracy the highly individualized individ-ualized style he himself had made well-known before the occupation. Punish Betrayers ... Other Quislings, in a position to contact the underground, were ordered or-dered to get on the staffs of the newspapers and thus identify as many of the patriot editors as possible pos-sible to enable simultaneous arrests ar-rests of the entire staff. Some succeeded suc-ceeded in betraying a large portion por-tion of the staff; others are mourned by their few friends; there is no death penalty in Denmark, Den-mark, but the underground is not bound by the constitution when dealing with traitors. The press that remains free in the face of tyranny and death extends ex-tends even into Germany itself. In Berlin shortly before Pearl Harbor, Har-bor, smokers were likely to find - a flimsy, tightly folded news sheet of the Communist or Socialist party par-ty wrapped inside their cigarette package until cigarettes became scarce and were no longer sold by the package but in daily rations of three to five. There were also larger pamphlets that passed from hand to hand along with the furtive fur-tive circulation of leaflets dropped by the R. A. F. Lead Resistance ... The free and fighting press of occupied Europe is especially active ac-tive today in Poland, Denmark, the Low Countries, and France, bringing bring-ing the people news, instructions and encouragement. Passive resistance re-sistance and non-cooperation is led as much by these papers as by the broadcasts sent out by the BBC and the exiled governments in London. Successful sabotage, is detailed as an example to others there are even occasional exchanges exchang-es of news between clandestine editors as far apart as Warsaw and Brussels. And day after day, the growing victories of the United Nations are reported in full and the people are told to make ready (or invasion day, when their services ser-vices will once more be required. For this reason, Goebbels was unable to convince the occupied countries that St. Nazaire and Dieppe were actual invasions repelled re-pelled by the Germans, nor could British wire services which formerly for-merly supplied the news of the world for continental clients. . Naturally some of the Gestapo's greatest efforts are directed against the underground press. It is little short of a miracle that tightly controlled newsprint can be obtained and flatbed presses operated without detection as is occasionally the case with Poland's veteran newspapers. How one Polish Pol-ish paper was able to get the colored col-ored printing ink for a red banner-line banner-line in one issue should make a good story after the war. Any' abnormal ab-normal purchases of paper or ink are almost sure to bring a gestapo raid, and possession of a mimeograph mimeo-graph or other duplicating equipment equip-ment practically signs the death warrant. In view of such methods of control, con-trol, the mortality rate of the underground un-derground press has naturally been high. But as fast as editors are shot and papers stamped out, new |