BRITISH CITIZENS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 November 1939, Page 5

BRITISH CITIZENS

KIDNAPPED BY NAZIS OUTRAGE ON THE DUTCH FRONTIER. ALLEGATIONS BY GESTAPO. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. LONDON, November 22. The Berlin correspondent of the Copenhagen newspaper “ Politiken ” says that two British citizens have protested to the German authorities against their arrest, alleging that they were kidnapped from Dutch territory. The official claim that Elser revealed all the details of the Munich plot is untrue. The Gestapo, apparently still in the dark, appealed to the public to answer nine vital questions concerning Elser’s movements, his friends, and his occupation before the bombing. Germany has not answered the Dutch protest concerning the Venlo incident when, it is stated, two British Secret Service agents, Mr Best and Captain Stevens, were taken prisoner by the State police, but responsible authorities in Berlin promise to offer incontestable evidence linking Messrs Best and Stevens with the Munich bomb outrage (states a message from Amsterdam). They also declared that it does not matter whether they were captured in Dutch territoy; they will not be surrendered. The Armsterdam “Telegraaf” says that Mr Best has lived at The Hague since 1916 and married a Dutch girl. He drove to Venlo on November 9, a Hague garage owner driving the car. When they arrived at Venlo seven or eight Germans dashed across the frontier, shot the chauffeur, opened the door of the car, and shot one passenenger, whose body was dragged, together with another passenger, across the frontier into Germany. The car was then pushed into Germany. The fourth passenger was not molested. The Berlin correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain states that the arrest of the two alleged agents of the British Secret Service for complicity in the bombing incident is not linked with Elser’s arrest. The announcements were made separately. However, the newspapers display the reports side by side, to the exclusion of all war news from the front pages. BLACK FRONT DR STRASSER ON HITLER’S PROSPECTS. “WILL PROBABLY DISAPPEAR ONE DAY.” NEW YORK, November 22. In an interview with Mr George Axelsson, the Paris correspondent of the “New York Times,” Dr Otto Strasser, the leader of the Anti-Hitler Black Front, in reply to the Nazis’ claim, said he had never heard of George Elser, or his alleged British accomplices. He added: “Elser would be made into a second Van der Lubbe (the Reichstag fire victim). Himmler wants to get at the domestic opposition and at the same time show his pet hate of England. Hitler’ will probable disappear one day, and then, probably, will the Black Front work, and we will not be ashamed to admit it. “You can accept my word, we have nothing to do with this 100 per cent Gestapo job.” He prophesied that Hitlerism would crumple by the spring.