GERMANY'S SPIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 155, 4 July 1938, Page 9

GERMANY'S SPIES.

i ' ■- ■. » WHAT THEY SOUGHT.

Amazing U.S. Inventions for U.S. 'Planes. NO-PROPELLER MACHINES. VANVOI.'VKR. Jnno 30. German spies, who have been tryiing to steal secrets from the I'nite.l ■States military aeroplane ia«-t < >rii--. 'wanted to know how the Americans j were piinpr t<> operate "planes of the future without propellers.

They also tried to tin,! out the extent of the laboratory work done in connection with the launching l>y catapult of air machines, weighing several hundred thousand pounds each. They risked their lives attempt in;; to filch designs f or aircraft liomb which will enahle army and navv air men to reach a target from a height of four miles. What nave the spies a\v a v was their carelessness in invest igat in::. with open note hooks the plant of the International Harvester Company. It is now manufacturing tractor.-, hut. in side three days, can he converted to turn out enormous numbers of war tanks. Investigation Only Started. Thus, the story of the most extensive spying discovered in the I'nite.l States since the war unfolds in the wake of the New York grand jury's indictment of IK persons, headed hv high (ierman officials. This week's arrests marked only the beginning of the investigation.

''We don't know just whore or liow far our uuest will lead us." said t lie Prosecuting Attorney, Mr. Lcmar Hardy. Anion;* the secret projects undcrgoim; experiment in Die Cnitod States is one liy which 'planes arc driven by jets of air or explosive gases like rockets. War 'planes of the future will lie capable of healing huge loads of explosives 2.VW) miles, dumping them and returning to their liases without landing. But information coveted by spies does not all apply to the future. Before a war 'plane is launched it often costs a million dollars in research by manufacturers and the Oovornmout. It embodies dozens of secret instruments and pieces of equipment, ammunition racks, electrically operated bomb releases, power to operate machine gun turrets and devices to ensure the accuracy of bombers diving on, instead of flying over, targets.

One of the most jealously guarded of American military secrets at present is a design for an aircraft engine producing as much power as a steam passenger locomotive.

Spy Ring of Five Groups. Five groups took part in the spy ring's operations. The first comprised the high Cerman officials who named agents, directed their operations and paid them. The second "working group" was in the I'nited States: Erich (ilaser, 2H, Cerman born, private in the Army Air Corps until his arrest; Cunt her Humrich, 37, Chicago born, who deserted from the Army Medical Corps in 1 !».'{.">, and Otto Voss, 30. (Jerman born, a Seversky Aeroplane Corporation mechanic. The third intermediary group, in Xew York City, passed on information fo group two. It was obtained by the fugitive, Dr. Criebel, assisted at one time or another by Rumrich and William Donkowski, an ace Cerman secret agent during the Creat War. The fourth was a messenger group, which worked as members of the crew on German liners. It included the hairdresser, Johanna Hofmann. 2»l, now, in gaol, and carried information from group three to Germany. The fifth agency, at Dundee, Scotland, was operated by Mrs. Jordon.

ARRESTS IN VIENNA. Nazi Commissioners Charged With Fraud. CONFISCATED BUSINESSES. \i VIEtfXA, July 3. Tlie newspapers announce that 12 Xazi commissioners, whom Herr Buerekel, the Reich Commissioner, placed in charge of Jewish businesses, have been arrested for embezzlement. Following the arrests, Herr Buerekel ordered a thorough examination of the whole system of confiscation of Jewish property.

GERMANY'S OBJECTIVE. SELF-PRESERVATION THE AIM. BERLIN, July 3. The Minister of Economic Affairs. Herr Walt.her Funk, in a speech in Berlin, said nothing was more false than to accuse Germany of striving for selfsufficiency. Self preservation was ict self-sufficiency, and (formally did not want to be self-sufficient.

Herr Kunk added that the world was fo rich in material* and (■erniaiiv so rich in craftsmanship eqpablo of pro during valuable good* for the world, that exchange was only natural and desirable.