Partial Release

Vichy held up to the light last week one of the fruits of its collaboration with Germany, announced that Adolf Hitler had released one-fourth of his French war prisoners--500,000 men. It was plain that in choosing those to be freed Hitler had intended: 1) to help France grow strong again for New Order purposes; 2) to rid his prison camps of disabled prisoners who were a nuisance. Those released included medical-corps members, fathers who had four children when mobilized, some farm workers, veterans of World War I, members of families of those who had volunteered to fight Russia, the wounded, those (mostly tuberculous) who had become seriously sick in prison camps.

Adolf Hitler still retained an adequate bargaining point: 1,500,000 Frenchmen surrounded by his sentries and barbed wire. But not even the political genius of Hitler could guarantee that all of the 500,000 would not make trouble for him once they got home to their terror-ridden native land.

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