RUSSIA AND GERMANY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 480, 9 October 1928, Page 9

RUSSIA AND GERMANY

SECRET MILITARY PLANS REVELATION BY POLITICIAN Times Cable . LONDON, Monday. The Berlin correspondent of “The Times” reports that Herr Kunstler, a Socialist member of the Reichstag, has given the newspaper “Vorwaerts” details of alleged secret Russo-German military arrangements negotiated in 1922-23.

These are said to have included the establishment of a Junkers aircraft and aero-engine works in Russia. Herr Kuustler says everything and everybody were given a code designation. For example, the Junkers works were the firm N.N.,” the German Ministry of Defence was “the special group,” and airplanes were “cases.” “Vorwaerts” publishes the key to the code, also quotations from letters written to Professor Junkers and others by the “mixed commission” sent to Moscow in December, 1921. ANCIENT HISTORY?

If Herr Kunstler’s disclosures are genuine they confirm the story hitherto current, but never clearly established, says “The Times” correspondent. He points out that when the question of the relations between the Rechswehr and the Red army came up in the Reichstag two years ago it was admitted that the activities of the Junkers’ Aircraft Company in Russia had the German Government’s official backing. However, the Government then gave its assurance that its relations with the Junkers firm had long since been dissolved.

The Nationalist newspapers in Berlin assert that all the “disclosures” are ancient history. They accuse Herr Kunstler of treason in publishing them and express regret that Parliamentary immunity protects him from prosecution.