7 SEPTEMBER 2002, Page 26

Taking over

From Mr Rodney Atkinson Sir: Eve-Ann Prentice ('German invasion', 24 August) details the ways in which Germany is invading Serbia by commercial means. One of the prime targets for the German political class in its new Drang nach Osten is media and newspaper interests so that 'local' public opinion can be manipulated.

In the Czech Republic (itself a creation of Helmut Kohl's encouragement to Slovakia to break away from Czechoslovakia), one German company, Rheinisch Bergische Druck und Verlagsgesellschaft, owns Czech newspapers covering 80 per cent of national readership, and another German company, Passauer Presse, owns 100 per cent of all regional daily newspapers.

Rodney Atkinson

Stocksfield, Northumberland