COLOGNE CRIME

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1925, Page 4

COLOGNE CRIME

DEATH 01' NEW ZEALAND .SOLDI EH. STORY OF EYE-WITNESS. DUNEDIN, February s’. Am echo of the Great War lias been heard in the story unfolded by a recent cable message from Cologne telling of a tragic* happening on the Rhine in 101!). Just six years ago, less a lew days, nil Otago soldier, Private Cyril Eraneis Cromer, a meniber of the .Army of Oeeuiiatiou. was murdered by Germans while in the company of a German girl. Tl l o cablegrams state that a band of German youths, at the beginning of the Allied occupation, swore to cut off tin l hair of girls fraternising with the members of the Army of Occiipatioii. On February 17, 1910, Private Cromer entered into conversation with a girl who was sitting on the same seat in a public park. The soil’- j constituted watch’ committee np-i proached and attempted to molest the girl, and Cromer, after explaining the harmlessness of the conversation, drew his bayonet to defend her upon which one of the men shot him dead. There were many arrests, but Franz: Swaboda, whom his accomplices denounced as having fired the shot, fled to the unoccupied territory. The others were severely punished for their complicity.

On January 23 last Siva bo dr, visited bis parents in Cologne and was immediately arrested by the British police, having been recognised by a German ex-detective standing at the Cologne Railway Station.

That is the story as the cables tell it, and Swaboda is now being tried tiefore a British Military Court on the murder charge.

Now, from nearer at hand than Cologne comes a full description of the tragedy. It was told to a reporter this morning by a Dunedin ex-soldier who was standing right beside the Otago lad when ho was murdered. This is how it was told. “ Private Cromer was a member of 14th Company, 2nd Battalion, Otago Regiment. The whole New Zealand Division had gone up to the Rhine as part of the Army of Occupation. AA'e were near Mulheim, on the banks of the Rhine and the tragedy happened on what is called the Rtamhoimerveg, a walk along the bank of the river. “It was about half-past eight on a winter’s night and pitch dark. Cromer was sitting with a girl on a seat on the bank. He was about one /hundred yards away from me. A party of Ger-

man youths was seen to molest him The Rhine bank', generally cmivdei with people, had not another soul oi it. It was as though the fates hat consipred to make easy the cummis soin of this deed. 1 heard him call mil and went to his assistante. Whet; I gut down there I found about ten (Germans gathered round. They had passed mo previously. The girl had gone away and was by ibis time about one • hundred yards along the I’hnic bank. The linns were giving cheek and Cromer was telling them to get out of it. 1 got right beside him and he asked me to give a hand to shift some of them, lie had no sooner got llie words out of his mouth than lie was shot through the mouth with a 'revolver. "The cables say that Cromer pulled out his bayonet to defend the girl. 'That is not so, nor have l heard anything of the scheme for cutting off tiie hair of girls associating with soldiers of the Allied Army. •• Immediately -on the living ol the sln;l the lluns lied, and live ol those were caught later by German detectives. They were tried and two of them got three years’ and three of them eighteen months’ imprisonment. The mail who fired the shot evidently escaped to the unoccupied territory.

“The incident caused great excitement at the time, for Cromer was a •genial chap, lie had just turned twenty-one and was well liked. I fancy his people live in Dunedin.