GERMAN SPY’S SUICIDE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22339, 26 May 1947, Page 3

GERMAN SPY’S SUICIDE

POISON SWALLOWED DETECTIVES TAKEN IN LONDON, May 23. Dr. Hermann Goertz, one of six Germans arrested in Dublin on April 12 and against whom a deportation order was made/ committed suicide by swallowing poison at the Aliens Registration office in Dublin. He parachuted into Eire during the war as a German spy. The Evening News says. that Goertz had been told that he might be sent back to Germany. He asked Special Branch officers if there was a possibility of his being handed over to the Russians. They told him that would not happen. ... .. . Goertz committed suicide in true Nazi fashion. He was calmly conversing with Special Branch officers about his impending deportation, when he took his pipe out of his mouth, searched in his waistcoat pocket and, still quite calmly put something in his mouth. The officers heard him crunch on the phial of what was found to be potassium cyanide. One officer grabbed at his throat hut it was too late. Goertz died almost immediately. , Goertz was sentenced to four years gaol and deportation for spying on British airchraft defences in the eastern counties of England. After his deportation, he went to Eire, where he was found in possession of 20,000 American dollars, a large sum in English money and a powerful transmitting set.