TRAGIC SHOOTING AFFAIR IN FLAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 269, 13 November 1935, Page 8

TRAGIC SHOOTING AFFAIR IN FLAT.

GERMAN SLAIN.

Found Dead in New York Woman's Quarters. WIFE'S FRANTIC 'PHONE CALL. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 2 p.m.) NEW YORK; November 12. The shooting 1 occurred here at an early 'hoiir this morning of a distinguished and /wealthy' German financier : and economist by a young American woman, allegedly his secretary and self-styled fiancee. Dr. Friedrich Gebhardt, 43, one time associate of Fritz Haber, who discovered synthetic nitrpgen, a professor of . eco: nomics at American universities' and now interested in a well-known international brokerage house iii New York, was fpupd slain in his niglit clothes in a fashionable flat where Miss Vera Stretz, 31, university graduate and teacher in New York schools, also had quarters.' . She was apprelißiided by the, police and had a -revolver with used' shells.. - She weepingly admitted the. shooting.. Miss Stretz, blue-eyed and blonde, also had in her possession 100 love letters Which Dr. Gebhardt "had sent her from Germany;',- --•i. An extraordinary feature of the incident was that a close friend of the slain man received' a frantic transatlantic telephone call before dawn from the former's wife in Germany, who someh6w had learned that her husband was killed. Dr. Gebhardt's wife and two daughters, aged 17 and 15, were living on his estate at Baden Baden and it was fr'otn there that Frau Gebliardt was first trying to reach'her husband by telephone and, on failing, then reached;a -friend to ; obtain confirmation of the* shooting.