NAZIS HOAXED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 45, 22 February 1934, Page 16

NAZIS HOAXED.

"SUPER-SPY" HUMORIST. A TRICK THAT SUCCEEDED, A . 25-year-old Belgian swindler hoaxed the German Nazis by posing as leader of the Belgian Nazis. Ho went to Aix-1 a-Chapellc gorgeously arrayed in a splendid bine and red uniform, with tlie cap of a French Army oflicer decorated with gold and silver, and adorned with a swastika and the famous death's head of the German Hussars. Ilis trick succeeded. The Nazis welcomed him, entertained him in the most expensive hotel, gave him a big sum of money for propaganda and talked with him about the Hitlerisation of Belgium! This master humorist is called Guillaume Van Boom. He lias poeeel as an English nobleman, "Lord Wallace,' and as the General-Inspector for the Continent of the Baden-Powell boy scouts. In this guise ho travelled to South America, obtaining money under false pretences. "British Secret Agent." Later he went io Germany as Count Van Boom, and did equally good business. The Belgian police learned of his splendid reception at Aix-la-Chapclle, and warned the Nazis, who arrested him, put him in prison, and then sent him to Brussels. He arrived there in his brilliant uniform. "Don't harm me," lie warned the magistrate. "I am an agent of the British Secret Service, and I have a mission to fulfil for England in Siarn and Persia." He showed the judge a whole row of decorations and seals of tho Order of the Knights of St. George, which he had made himself, and other impressive adjuncts. But tho magistrate; remained unimpressed, and sent him to gaol.