Radio Drama Of German Officer For Commercial Service

Radio Record, 11 March 1938, Page 33

Radio Drama Of German Officer For Commercial Service

A NEW broadcasting feature comes to the ZB stations in March, when listeners are to hear a brilliantly dramatised serial of "The Dark Invader,’"’ the war-time memoirs of Captain Franz von Rintelen. When the book, "The Dark Invader," was published in England in

1933, it caused a sensation-the first edition being sold out by noon on the day of publication, and printings have now run to some 30,000 copies. At the outbreak of the Great War, Captain von Rintelen was on the Naval War Staff in Berlin. In 1915 he went to the United States on a secret mission, which was, in effect, to prevent by sabotage, by fomenting strikes, by the use of explosives, coercion or bribery, the shipment of munitions to the Allies, In addition, he did other things--he endeavoured to get Huerta, of Mexico, involved in a war with America: he engaged himself with Sir Roger Caseinent’s abortive attempt at rebellion; and he manufactured explosive: desighed to sink British and American ships in mid-Aflantic. "The Dark Invader" reveals the rea: sons for the colossal defeat of the German Nary at the Falklands, and shows. too, the unbounded courage of the man who was, more than anyone else, responsible for America’s ehtry into the Great War. The adaptation of this thrilling true story has been handled by Gordon lieland, New Zealand author of the successful ‘Wings Over Australia." which has been performed in practically every country in the world, and is now bavying a new success, in a rewritteh, amplified form, as a radio serial. Regarding his work on "The Dark

Invader," Mr. Ireland says: "Captain von Rintelen’s memoirs came rather as i bolt from the blue, so far as I’m concerned, I’d just finished a production for the BBO and a chronicle play for the Belgian broadcasting authorities, and I was searching round for a theme that would offer all the elements of drama and surprise. A type of story that had never been done before. I'd almost given up hope of finding what I’d beeu searching for, when I happened to come across the memoirs »f Captain yon Rintelen, "It was the drama underlying Rintelen’s account, the infinite possibilities that lay in the story for actual dramatic treatment that only radio could provide successfully that attracted me. The story measured up to every dramatic requirement that radio demands." In his own statement regarding "The Dark Invader," von Rintelen is at pains to point out that though the book deals with the war period, it is not, in the accepted sense, a war story-in that there are no references to the horrors of war. "The Dark invader" is, in effect, an international spy thriller-with the added attraction that all the incidents

are true, and the characters ate real people, acting, not as an author might imagine it, but as they actually did be: haye during the Great War. "The Dark Invader" will be on the air shortly from all the ZB stations,