NIEMEYER.

Taihape Daily Times, 8 March 1919, Page 5

NIEMEYER.

THE BRUTE OF HOLZMINDEN. A BVitish officer reached London recently from Holzmindcn, a camp which shared with Clausthal the notoriety of being commanded by the a trow on s Niem'ovbr. The duo tt Holzmindcn was, in the opinion of people who dame into contact with both, the wlorse.

A thickiset man with a big stomp ach, who spent his time cither posing straddle-Tcgged with a stick in his hand or walking about bullying and threatening to shoot us, he did everything possible to make life unbearable, staid the returned loffic'er.

"Every Stay he invented charges against prisoners and sent them into solitary louucmcnt “Once, for instance, when we appeared on parade in “ishorts, ” he said that this was against the rules and sent us all back into our quarters to be shut -up for the rest of the day. When several looked out of the windows, laughing, he sent a sentry into the building to fire at the last batch of men going along the passage, and the shot narrowly missed one. He vas mnsltantly saying: ‘lf you do not obey, I will shoot.’ “Once, fearing that oseapets were possible, he ordered every roiom to be lighted up. In one room the occupants turned out the lights To go to sleep, whereupon Niemcycr smashed up everything breakable with his stick'..

•■‘■llo sxasperaitod’ beyond massure at the escape of 29 British officers this year. In a wood partition under tire stairs of the building a secret door was made. It had hinges inside, hut the catches • were so cleverly ’(Concealed jthat nothing could he detected from the outside. Although the place was cxlamined a few days before the escape this door was not found.

‘ 1 From it a tunnel fifty yards long was made, 12 feet nmler the ground. It took; nine months to excavate and the exit was in fa garden. amid a thick plantation of runner beans. The men had only just room to crawl through; soin'o took an hour to do the fifty yards. <<After Dio escape it "ook Viemeyer’s istaff two hours to find the tunnel. He ordered it to be opened from the top and told us tha as his men would be employed on that for several days they would be unable tb censor our parcel*, of which we were thus for the time deprived. "When we got our parcels we found that tiny mefat cubes were cut up to see if they contained notes; and tea. rice, and sugar, were mixed together in the “censoring.”

“We were denied our walks and game's on trumped-up 'charges* Once when the people in the building laughed because his police dog sat down and refused to obey him, Niemoyer ordered la. sentry to fire into the building. The sentry fired from the hip.” "I have in my room,” Niemeyer used to tell us with a sneering grin. * 'Never al 'Daily Mails’ in which I cut a big figure.” We hope to see him just once again—when he comes here for justice.”