CLEVER SPY

Hokitika Guardian, 20 November 1933, Page 3

CLEVER SPY

FRENCHMAN’S DARING BID

STORY OF THE GREAT WAR

How a French spy actually established a branch factory in Germany during the war, gained the confidence of Albert Ballin, the great German shipping magnate, and helped to foment the German revolution at the end of the war with funds from the French Secret Service, has just been disclosed in Paris.

These revelations of the .activities of the dreaded Deuxieme Bureau are made by M. Paul Allard, a former French censor. M. Allard relates that a M. Crozier was sent by the Deuxieme Bureau of the French Secret Service to establish a soap factory in Holland and sell to Germany oils and fats necessary for manufacturing'explosives.

M. Crozier relates how he started a soap factory at Rotterdam and' how special arrangements were made, to /have, it placed on the British “black list” of traders with the'enemy in order to deceive the Germans. r Albert Ballin believed M. Crazier to be a .traitor-to Ins country, anxious to make money and avoid the trenches, so a branch of ? M. Crozier’s soap factory was set up in Dusseldorf through which oils and fats for the manufacture of German explosives were sold to the enemy. M. Allard writes:—“l could not retrain - from saying to Crozier: ‘What! The Deuxieme Bureau supplied the Germans with explosives to Kill our soldiers?”

“ ‘But, of course,’ replied Crozier, who by professional training finds such paradoxes necessary, ‘that was war—secret war, ’

“ ‘What did you receive in return? lie was asked. “ ‘My presence in neutral territory and also iii enemy territory, because I went many, times to Berlin,’ said Crozier, ‘enabled me to know what was going on. I knew, all about ships and cargoes for Germany. I knew who was furnishing the Germans with materials. I denounced all bad neutrals, and- bad Frenchmen. I communicated to the' Bureau information about the submarine warfare and Big . . Bertha (the gun tliat shellel Paris from 30 miles away).’ ”,