GERMAN DESERTER?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1938, Page 15

GERMAN DESERTER?

ESCAPADE IN ARMOURED CAR PARIS. Military authorities are worried abotn the young German soldier who sped a' 80 miles an hour across the Frencl border in an armoured car and told tli< Customs officers who arrested him tha he was a deserter. The French and Belgian general staff have good reason to believe that thii "deserter" is, in fact, a daring Germai patriot. His plan, they believe, was to fin< out whether the famous Maginot line the steel and concrete fortification which are described in military circle: as the "lifebelt of France," could b penetrated. The military experts are puzzled b; such facts as these: (1) How could this German soldie steal an armoured car from a barrack without the alarm being given at once (2) How could he drive for 50 mile in Germany without being detected? (3) How could he pass the Germni frontier, which, 6ince Adolf Hitler's las military purge, has been practicall; closed? The self-confessed deserter appears t< have known secret passages between th net of barbed wire and steel posts whie] cover the "No Man's Land" between th frontier and the Maginot wall, for hi was compelled to use them to breal through the line itself. Officers of the French and Belgiai general staffs agree that this Germai soldier is not a deserter.