MUNICH EXPLOSION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 38, 24 November 1939, Page 5

MUNICH EXPLOSION.

THE GESTAPO BLAMED. BLACk FRONT PREDICTION. I NEW YORK, November 22. In an interview with .Mr George Axelsson, the Paris of the “New York, Times,” Herr Otto Strasser (leader of the anti-Hitler Black Front) said lie had never heard of George Elser, whom the Nazis claim to have arrested for complicity in the Munich beer hall explosion, or his alleged British accomplices. Herr Strasser added that “Elser would be made into a second Van der Loibbe,” the Reichstag fire victim. “Hinder wants to get. at the domestic opposition and at the same time his not hate, England,/’ said Herr Strasser-'. “Hitler will probably disappear one day. That, nrobablv will be Black Front work, and we will not be ashamed to admit it. “Yon can accept my word that we have nothing to do with this 100 per cent. Gestapo job.” Herr Strasser prophesied that Hitlerism would crumple by the spring. ARREST OF TWO BRITONS. NO CONNECTION WITH ELSER. LONDON, November 22. According to the Berlin correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain, -the . arrest of Mr Best and Captain Stevens is not linked with that of Georg Elser, who is accused of responsibility for the Munich explosion. The official announcements were made separately. However, the newspapers display tin* reports side by side, to the exclusion of all war news from the front pages. The Berlin correspondent of the Danish paper “Politiken” states that the Britons have protested to the German authorities against their arrest, alleging that they wore kidnapped from Dutch territory.

The official claim that Elser revealed all the details of the Munich plot is said to be untrue. The Gestapo, apparently still in the dark, has appealed to the public to answer nine vital questions concerning Kiser’s movements, bis friends, and his occupation, before the bombing.

A German report ofthe arrest of Elser claimed that Herr Strasser, T former lieutenant of Herr Hitler, was the organiser of the Munich bomb explosion plot on Herr Hitler’s life.