ARREST OF GERMANS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20995, 23 December 1939, Page 9

ARREST OF GERMANS

SIX MARRIED MEN SEETEUFEL’S OPERATOR STRONG RADIO RECEIVERS „ (Special to Times) AUCKLAND, Saturday Under a warrant issued by the Attorney-General, the Hon. H. G. R. Mason, seven German nationals were arrested under the Alien Control Emergency Regulations yesterday. They spent the night in the Papakura Military Camp. They will be sent to Wellington today, and will probably be interned on Somes Island. One of the arrested men was radio operator on Count von Luckner’s yacht Seeteufel, which recently visited the Dominion during a world tour. Those arrested are:—Kurt Wilhelm Schmidt, aged 35, married, with two children; Gregor Riethmaier, aged 26, described as an expert radio operator; Arthur Richard Leuschke, aged 50, married, with a grown-up family; Frederick Wilhelm Kersten, aged 52, described as a German Nationalist, married, with two children; he was a second-lieutenant in the German Army, and came to Auckland in 1935; Max Grapengiesser, aged 61, secretary of the German Club in Auckland, married, with three children; Qualbert Eugene Fischer, aged 59, an expert in the mining of mercury, a married man with three children; Gustave Belin, aged 61, married, with three children. All are natives of Germany. Police Surveillance It is known that for months police officers have been engaged on secret duty, and that particular attention was paid to the day and night activities of Germans in Auckland and elsewhere. Those German nationals who took prominent parts in certain political and other organisations were kept under close but unobtrusive surveillance.

The detectives have known that for some time a number of Germans prominently associated with the Nazi movement in Auckland were the possessors of powerful radio receivers capable of receiving messages from all parts of the world. The regulations under which the arrests were made reads:—“Upon its being made clear to the Minister that the liberty of any alien is a source of public danger, or that he is disaffected, or has acted, or is about to act, in any manner injurious to public safety, or the interests of His Majesty, he may order that such alien may be taken into custody during his pleasure.”