A SECRET PAPER IN BELGIUM

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22823, 23 September 1939, Page 18

A SECRET PAPER IN BELGIUM

PUBLICATION DURING THE GREAT WAR GERMANS FAILED TO SUPPRESS ' «LA LIBRE BELGIQUE” * I-', • Current reports of a German secret ■ radio station, recall the story of the ; little newspaper that in Belgium during the Great War without being suppressed. Mr K. H. Fountain. - a Christchurch dentist, yesterday showed a representative of “The Press'? - an article from the “Printers’ Register” which told the amazing story of the publication. In spite of all the Germans’ efforts to stop “La Libre Belgique,” the little ; . paper came out, and with unfailing t regularity a copy of each issue was : mysteriously delivered to the office of , the German Governor-General of Bros- , S6 The paper was produced by an astonishing organisation headed bya veteran journalist, in which the vari- _ ous heads of departments were un- ... known \o each, other. Copy for the secret printer could be hidden in the tubes of a radiator at the slightest sign of danger, and it was often carried in a hollow walking-stick. , . Thousands of papers were circulated under the noses of the puzzled author*. , ties. Women carried parcels in the wells of perambulators, girls earned papers in music satchels, and a papa.: hanger camouflaged thousands of cope*, in rolls of wallpaper. Once the pro* had to be moved. It weighed more than a ton. but was taken down and - rebuilt, bolt by bolt, in a small cham- . ber which had been built by a man who had to carry all the bricks and cement there in small parcels. - A lawyer called Van der Kerchkove ' rivalled the Scarlet Pimpernel in the cool resource and courage with which he did the most audacious things. Seven times he entered the private office of the Governor-General withan accomplice disguised as a German offi-: : cer, and once he even opened a safe to ■ put the latest issue of the paper in it. , Infuriated Germans worked desper- t . ately to track down those who were making a laughing-stock of them, and at last they broke the organisation by. numerous arrests. Just as everything - seemed to be over and the prisoners . were being brought to trial the papa reappeared. , , , ' It continued to appear, and at last ; elaborate plans were made to ensure , complete suppression. A special bri-..* gade of intelligence men was brought : from Berlin, and they were hard at t work when a new issue of the papers was published, and it contained a half- ; page of photographs of all the mem*bers of the brigade. The humiliated secret service men " went on grimly, and the paper, con- * tabling articles that made the German ,q authorities writhe, continued -to ap- ■ pear until suddenly there was a care- , fully-planned swoop. Wholesale arr > rests were made of all concerned in * the publication and the printing press was seized. There seemed no doubtnow that no one had been left to carry r on, and a highly-relieved Governor--. General, feeling happier than he had : been for months, gave a dinner in hoa- -s our of the victorious detective brigade; Just at the end of the dinner, a freski copy of the paper, the ink still wet, w3Sf brought into the room. .<£-* A book called “Burgomaster Mas? told the story, which was retold in the book review of the “Daily Telegraph." -