News smuggled out of Copenhagen last week gave another lie to Nazi propaganda. Nazi Enlightener & Propagandist Paul Joseph Goebbels has declared that Denmark is not even an occupied country, that it is a fine example of how a nation can live contented and prosperous under Nazi protection. Some facts:
> Since the Russo-German campaign the Enlightener & Propagandist has manipulated a furious anti-Communist campaign in Denmark to force the Government to break diplomatic relations with Moscow. A Nazi-organized Danish Free Corps to fight Russia drew only 150 volunteers, but this was considered sufficient for enlightenment & propaganda. Hundreds of Danish Communists have been jailed, including Novelist Martin Andersen-Nexoe.
> The press was dutch-rubbed into printing a statement emphasizing Denmark's "unneutral" attitude toward the U.S.S.R. But Danes no longer believe their papers and on dark streets even the newsboys call: "Eight öre* worth of lies, four öre worth of ads!"
> Economically the Nazis are plundering the country by making the Danes pay 450,000,000 kroner for Reich "protection" and compelling the National Bank of Denmark to finance German imports with unlimited credit. Denmark, which always had an export balance, now owes Germany 1,500,000,000 kroner, and inflation is taking hold.
> Unemployment is now around a quartermillion. Every second worker who has unemployment insurance is jobless.
> There is an acute food, feed and fuel shortage. Due to the slaughter of poultry, egg production this winter will be only one-third of last winter's. Wrote a farmer: "On many farms cows are too weak to rise and have to be lifted up." > Although the Nazis promised noninterference in Danish affairs, the Danish telephone exchanges, the railways and the police are controlled by the Gestapo.
> Copenhagen University is threatened with padlocking, because an offer for an exchange of professors with German universities was rejected by the faculty.
> At a soccer game between Danish and Viennese teams on Denmark's Constitution Day (June 5) the crowd bombarded German soldiers with rocks and bottles. Result: Minister of Justice Harald Petersen was forced to resign; 60 Danes drew long prison terms. The Nazis charge Danish prisoners two kroner a day board & keep, and if they can't pay it, the Government must.
> The Dansk National-Socialistisk-Arbejderpartei (Danish Nazi party) under ridiculous Doctor Fritz Clausen has only 30,000 members, but there are nine other Danish-Nazi splinter groups. The Germans encourage this splintering to forward the disintegration of the country's political system. They hope to absorb Denmark whole.
> Only the urgent pleas of King Christian X, whom everybody loves, have hitherto prevented full-blast sabotage. The cowed Government of huge, old, Moses-bearded Premier Thorvald Stauning, who has been in office for twelve years, has sunk low in popular esteem.
> To express approbation for their Minister to the U.S. Henrik de Kauffmann, who put Greenland in U.S. keeping, many Danes recently took to wearing little Statue-of-Liberty insignia on their lapels. The Nazis forbade it.
*The öre is normally worth about one-fifth of a cent.