SPIES SENTENCED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 135, 5 December 1938, Page 9

SPIES SENTENCED

NAZI AGENTS IN U.S.A.

"PUERILE & CONTEMPTIBLE RING"

GERMAN BUNGLING

(By JCelegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

NEW YORK, December 3.

The first sentences for espionage in tlhr, United States of America since the Great War were meted out today on four Nazi agents, when Voss tvas sentenced to six years' imprisonment, Johanna Hofmann to four years, and . Erich Glaser and Gunther Rumrich to two years each. Judge Knox commented: "We can take a small measure of comfort from the fact that the Germans have s&own but little improvement on the bnngling efforts of yon Papen and yon Bernstorff during the World War. Pluerile and contemptible as this ring" was, it is .part of a system which cannot be tolerated."

He added that the sentences were mild compared with what would have been infliteted if the defendants were convicted :in Germany.

He expressed sorrow for Hofmann, whom he described as "clay in the hands of persons flushed with success in restoring German national pride." If she alorne had been involved, he said, he wotild have been glad to withhold sentence and send her back to Germany.

The JudSgc criticised "the ineptitude of the protective agency which was responsible i>r the escape of William Lonkowski, the contact man, and Dr. Ignatz Griefol."