GERMANS ACQUITTED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 11

GERMANS ACQUITTED

ALLEGED SECRET EXPORT OF MUNITIONS OFFICIAL APPROVAL GIVEN? LONDON, Thursday. The Berlin correspondent of the “Daily Mail” states that all the de~ fendants in the secret trial concerning an alleged attempt to ship munitions to China have been acquitted, but the newspaper representatives were not even allowed to hear the judge’s reasons. It is assumed that the accused were able to prove that the attempt had the approval and support of the military and naval authorities, and as regards this, it is pointed out that by the Treaty of Versailles Germany undertook not to export arms and ammunition. “Vorwaerts,” the organ of the Chancellor, Dr. Hermann Mueller, says the acquittals certainly have not ended the matter, which will be raised in the Reichstag. A secret trial was begun at Kiel on December 10 of Lieutenant Protze, of the German Secret Service; Major Seeman, and five Berlin business men, including a war-time airman, Herr Beltjeus, on a charge of attempting to ship munitions to China in January, 1928.

When Kiel customs officers were examining packing cases labelled “brass goods,” which filled 16* railway trucks, they discovered no fewer than 8,000,000 rifle cartridges about to be shipped on a Norwegian steamer.

When the trial came on, the Public Prosecutor, acting on the Government’s instructions, demanded the exclusion of the public Press, as there would be revelations which, in the interests of the State, must not be known outside the court.