Spoil, Spoilers

Two books appeared in the U.S. this week which may be copiously quoted before 1941 is out. One is a horror Baedeker to modern Poland, the Polish White Book (written in French), the other is The Spoil of Europe (Norton; $2.75), by a man with the pseudonym of Thomas Reveille. Both works make out the Nazi as the most ruthless and cunning of the human species.

The Spoil of Europe is no hammock reading. It describes the Nazi technique of politico-economic rape of occupied countries. A ponderous tome, its almost every paragraph is studded with ferroconcrete facts and charges that are almost too heavy. Random samples:

> The City of Paris was fined 20,000,000 francs ($400,000) because somebody replaced a swastika flag flying from one of the hotels with a Union Jack.

> Costs of occupation (France: 400 million francs a day) are not fixed in relation to what the German military spends in an occupied country, but on the basis of the country's maximum war budget prior to German conquest.

> In areas they intend to organize as exclusively raw-material and agricultural domains of the Reich, e.g., Poland and Rumania, the Nazis close all factories not engaged in extracting natural products. The closed factories' machinery is sent to the Reich.

> During the seven years from 1924 to 1931, when the reparations agreement was in force, German payments to the victorious Allies of World War I aggregated some 10 billion marks. In one year of continental domination she will have collected about 80% of what she herself paid in the seven years.

> When a deputation of Czech professors and students asked in 1939 if their universities might be reopened, Nazi State secretary Karl Hermann Frank replied: "If we lose the war you will open them yourselves; if we win the war the elementary schools will be enough for you."

> Whenever a Reich citizen commits a serious offense not subject to a long prison term, his identity card is stamped "fit only for service in Poland."

> Working with the bulk of the German Army, which kills or imprisons the enemy physically, are the military Economic Mobile Units, which kill or imprison him materially and financially. These dashing arms of the service are largely the creation of Engineer Fritz Todt and General Georg Thomas. Todt's boys specialize in wrecking and saving: carrying off to Germany everything that can be carried, supervising and maintaining for German benefit everything that cannot. They are speedy and efficient at repairing and replacing damaged equipment and property in war-torn regions. Versatile, they are equally able to strip a country with the speed and efficiency of a horde of African army ants.

In a foreword to the book Newscaster Raymond Gram Swing says he has known Author Reveille ten years, trusts his judgment and scientific rigor of thought, adds that his friend knows ten languages, has long been associated with "leading persons in control of the economic, financial and political life in Europe," but "his official position obliges him to remain anonymous." Most readers will probably deduce Author Reveille as a maverick German economist.

Polish Spoils. Good subtitle to the Polish White Book might be The Spoil of Poland. Excerpts:

> Many Poles have been murdered for "eugenics." Thus insane persons and prostitutes have been machine-gunned and gassed to death or locked in buildings and the buildings set on fire.

> The wife of the German Governor of Cracow took a number of "souvenirs" from the city's National Museum.

> Pillage of National art treasures and libraries was frequently directed not by soldiers or the Gestapo, but by German cultural specialists. Quantities of art treasures have been bundled off to the Reich, of course. Books in the Polish language no longer appear.

> The Gothic hall of the Wawel, Cracow's royal palace, was made into a Bierstube, and the apartment of Queen Jadwiga (1371-1399) became a W.C.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.