HIRTER CASE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 180, 1 August 1941, Page 2

HIRTER CASE

MAN WITH FIELD GLASSES

I BORN IN NEW ZEALAND (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. "Will the Minister explain to the House whether the Government has considered any further action than the sentence of 21 days' imprisonment imposed on Rudolph Hirter, a man of German descent, who was found hiding among bushes in a defence area with a pair of powerful field glasses in his possession?" This was a question asked in the House of Representatives by Mr. Kyle (National, Riccarton) early in the session. In a written reply yesterday the Minister of Justice, Mr Mason, said that since the Court proceedings Hirter's case had been reviewed by the Aliens' Tribunal, which had come to the conclusion that there was no reason to suspect Hirter of being of enemy sympathy or of having any tendency to assist the enemy. The tribunal's report disclosed that Hirter was born in New Zealand, and that his parents were also born in the Dominion, his mother being of full British blood. Interalia, the tribunal stated, "We cannot detect in Hirter himself or in any member of the family any trace of interest in Germany, association w |tn local Germans, correspondence with Germans abroad, or symoathv with Germany."