June 4.
On Thursday, according to the United Press, a German military spokesman alleged that the Reich had just received reports that] British soldiers in Crete had tortured! captured German parachutists. He said that] the British soldiers had tied hand grenades to their captives, and then exploded them, and threatened that reprisals would be severe. This journal at the time pointed out] the absurdity of the story indicating that the British soldiers, to whose character such, behaviour is completely foreign, were too busy fighting the German invaders to engage in any such foolish behaviour. It was a silly lie, likely to convince no one. and atter tion was only pald to it en passant. On 'Sunday, however, the local enemy pro paganda rag sought to bolster up the fable, suggesting that after all it might be the Cretans who were responsible for the alleged atrocities, and seeking to lay blame upon' the British for associating with such people. The answer to that latter is that there is} nothing but the Nazi word—and the world Knows precisely what that is worth—to support the atrocity story, and that superior} people like the Greeks and the Cretes are! far less likely to indulge in such horrible' practices than races so culturally immature as the Germans whose treatment of the Poles, to take but one example, is a standing reproach to their much vaunted civilization.
The Me it will be noticed had changed from a charge against the British to one) against the Cretans. Yesterday the enemy official news agency carried the following:
Berlin, June 3—(Transocean)—Many Get man soldiers have been tortured to death by native Crotes at Heraklion, it was revealed here lost. night.
The frightfully mutilated bodies of 12 German parachutists were found in the har-our district of Heraklion. The bodies were mutilated beyond all recognition and completely covered with blood.
The crucified mutilated bodies of three petty officers were also discovered near the German soldiers. were arrested on a charge of having murdered German parachutists. They had dressed themselves. in the uniforms of the éallen German soldiers and then ambushed scattered German solders by letting them approach 'a8 close as possible before fung at them=—Transocean.
So first it was the British, then the Cretan men, and now the Cretan' women who are alleged to be responsible for these atrocities which there is every reason to suppose exist only in the perverted minds of the German propagandists. The story of the Cretan Women dressed in German uniforms allowing the enemy to come as close as possible before opening fire upon them is a particular ly good one. The super-trained Nazi soldiers apparently are unable at a glance to recognize women dressed up as men, a peculiarity which probably only some expert) such as Kraft Ching could possibly explain. tis to be noticed that only by an association of ideas is it suggested that the women may have been guilty of the atrocities of torture and mutilation, but the suggestion is there and no sensible person for one moment would believe any of the three tales between which the Germans themselves are still undecided.
If reprisals are to be taken against the ten captured women for firing on the enemy' invaders it will be but another example of the brutality displayed so frequently by the] Germans. Not only that it will betray the! complete illogicality of German mental processes. If totalitarian war means the slaugh-. ter of civilian populations, and the wanton razing of towns, as it undoubtedly has in Crete as well as elsewhere, the civilians, if} they are provided with the wherewithal, are fully entitled to strike back, for the doctrine cannot be accepted that even in the Nazi conception of war the role of the civilian is to be killed but not to resist. The Nazi mind is a one-track affair. Tales of! atrocities have always preceded the obscenities which the Nazis have inflicted upon peoples unlucky enough to fall under their] control,—with the sole exception of France, from which Hitler hopes to gain a great deal. 'They, themselves on this occasion apparently. do not know exactly which tale to tell and' the only conclusion to be drawn is that this! story. is but another of their lies preparing, the way for reprisals for the very heavy toll which the British and their gallant Greek Allies made them pay for the capture of} Crete.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.