GERMAN SECRET ARMY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 542, 20 December 1928, Page 13

GERMAN SECRET ARMY

BASIS FOR RUMOURS A NEWSPAPER’S CHARGES Times Cable. LONDON, Wednesday. The Berlin correspondent of “The Times” says recent events provide a I certain foundation for the stories of renewed attempts to form a secret army reserve, in the shape of a second Black Reichswehr. The Prussian Government recently suspended an administrator named Xirchhain for failure to prosecute a complaint that Herr Hitler’s Fascist organisation had indulged in drills on a large scale and in night operations. The Republican newspaper “Weltbuhne” asserts that high Reichswehr authorities have asked General Reinhardt, the former Minister of War, to form a people’s army and arranged with the Maffei works, Munich, for arms and equipment to be supplied through the Naval Transport Department. General Reinhardt, it Is asserted, enlisted the co-operation of Captain Ehrhardt, who advised him to undermine quietly the big semi-military organisations. ORGANISED ARMY * After Captain Ehrhardt was forced to resign from the Steel Helmets, it was found he had left picked units pledged to the Reichswehr’s cause. He had also arranged for the local Fascist groups to place themselves under Reichswehr officers, some of whom, dressed in full uniform, trained the irregulars at Cassel. The “Weltbuhne” asserts that the Secret Service Army is almost completely organised throughout Prussia, and that the officers have discussed the blowing-up of bridges, seizing power stations and occupying the telephone exchanges. The “Weltbuhne” may have given its imagination some play, says the correspondent, but it is difficult not to believe that there is something of the kind alleged.