ARRESTED GERMANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 306, 17 March 1928, Page 9

ARRESTED GERMANS

EXPLANATION DEMANDED NEGOTIATIONS WITH SOVIET BROKEN OFF By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. BERLIN, Thursday. The German Government has broken off the trade treaty negotiations with the Soviet, pending the clearing up of the incident at Donetz, when six German engineers were arrested by Soviet officials. The Foreign Minister, Herr Stresemann, has instructed the German Ambassador to Russia, Herr Rantzau, to demand an explanation, also that facilities be given for an interview with the accused men. Herr Stresemann’s decision is supported throughout the country. Indignation at the arrests has increased, not only at the manner in which they were conducted, but at the subsequent treatment of the prisoners. Although the men have been in prison for 10 days, ceaseless efforts by Herr Rantzau, supported by officials of the electricity company which employed the men, have failed to elicit the charges on which they are detained, beyond Tchitcherin’s and Rykoff’s generalities. The names of three of the accused men are still unknown, and it has only just been ascertained that the prisoners are at present at Rostoff, about 200 miles north-east of Moscow. UKRANIAN INDEPENDENCE According to an explanation from Moscow, the arrests of the German engineers at Donetz were owing to the discovery of an alleged conspiracy to effect the economic, if not the political, independence of Ukrainia, in which German and Ukrainian industrial interests were supposed to be collaborating. It is claimed the Soviet’s action was taken to achieve two objects, namely, the checking of the separatist movement and the overawing of the industrialists generally.—A. and N.Z.