BELATED "ROAD BACK"

Chronicle (Levin), 19 November 1949, Page 5

BELATED "ROAD BACK"

(N.Z.P.A.-

-Reuter.

German Returns From The 1914-18 War

CovurigntJ

Keeeiveci JKriaay / p.m. LONDON, Nov. 18. ' A' 70-year-old German who was eaptured by the Russians in 1918 during the final stages of the First World Waj and who has been held prisoner in Rus sia ever since, last week returned to his home in Lubeck after escaping from Russia with forged papers. His wife recognised him but his three children did not. '• " He claimed. that ainongst thousands of German prisoners taken in the Second World War, the Russians stilJ hoid at least 20,000 Germans captured in the. 1914-18 conflict. j The eseapee, Hans Clausen, said thai after he was captured in 1918 he was sent with hundreds of other German | prisoners to work in the Siberian mines. I He tried several times to escape and once nearly suceeeded in Teaching Japan through Vladivostok but was al ways recaptured. In 1928, together witli a number of Germans who were techuicians, he was sent to Moscow to De trained as a bridge builder. He was tlien sent back to Siberia to build bridges across sub-Arctic swamplands. . When Stalin and Hitler signed their pact of friendship in 1939, he had hopes of being released but these came to nothing and when the Germans attaeked Russia two years later, all Germans were placed* under reinforced guard. At the end of the war, however, together with about 40 other Germans who au spoke Russian like natives, he suceeeded in obtaming forged papers, stating that he was a Russian techuician being sent to do speeial work in the Soviet Zone of Germany. After a month Of tra velling across Russia, he linally reached German soil again but for fear of the Soviet secret police, eontinued to pose as a Russian until he suceeeded ui crossing the Soviet-British zonal bordei between Eicholz and Luneberg.