CORPSE FACTORY

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 10139, 27 October 1925, Page 5

CORPSE FACTORY

PREMIER TO INTERVENE. SHOULD AN APOLOGY BE MADE TO GERMANY? (Received Oct. 26, 11.2,5 p.m.) „ . LONDON, Oct. 25. Mr. Baldwin s intervening in t.-ic-GTinfteris controversy, but nothing is to be done unt 1 General Charteris’ return. , The official viewpoint is that no Government could do other than disavow responsibility for the invention. It is pointed out that the report that the Germans were util sing human corpses arose from statements in Germany’s own newspapers. The Lokal Anzeiger’s war correspondent on October 4, 1917, referred to the great co’pso conversion establishment at Evergn'court. The word used was) “kadaververwertungsanstalt.” Simi'ar statements appeared in other German newspapers. The -British captured a photographically reproduced order to the sixth German army dated December 21, 1916. reading that it was necessary" to again draftßattention to'the fact that when corpses are delivered to corpse utilisat on establishments details are to accompany them show ng . which troops and un’ts they are iron', the date of death rnd illness, also information regarding epidemics. A search of the war museum failed to reveal the forged diary to wh eh General Charteris’ speech referred. •In the newspaper Despatch, Sir Sydney Low, an ex-member of Northo'iffe’s Propaganda" Committee, states: ;..“Our main guiding rule was to tell the tiiitli, not the whole truth, which was impraetkable during war time. We did uot invent or knowingly (circulate' falsehoods. Accordingly, I arn utterly confounded at Charteris’ stunning declarat on that lie, when one of the lie-cls of the Intelligence Department, deliberately forged one. of the most terrible indictments of Germany’s brutality and cal ousness. When the Germans explained that the corpse factory disposed of anima’s, not human beings. I accepted the denial. The question- was never settled because the Germans refused to allow neutrals to examine the vat for'tlie corpses. If General Charteris’s version is correct, we owe Germany an 1 apo’ogy, which should be fully, and frankly'given. - A tank corpse officer, in' a letter to the D’spatch, recalls dv.r.ng the battle of St. Quentin in 1918 that liefound an underground tunnel near the St. Quentin canal containing huge vats, one whereof contained three- naked German’s corpses bound with wire. Another was three-quart-ers full of an unspeakably horrid iqu’d wherein was a body stripped to the waist. He says lie firmly believes it was a corpse conversion factory, although the Germans stated it was a kitchen which a shell had destroyed. —A. and N.Z.C.A.

A DELIBERATE INVENTION! (Received Oct. 25, § p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 25.

The “Daily News’ ” Now York correspondent'' 'rebuts Charteris’ a ssoj'tion that lie was incorrectly reported. He asserts that he telephoned teris, who admitted its accuracy, static «• that the storv was an isolated instance of a deliberate invention in the.cause of British propaganda. Mr. Lloyd George, interviewed, said: “We .knew the story could not be true. Therefore it was. never o - ftcially issued. I did. not belies e and will not now.” , Mr C L. Masterman, then head.ol the : Propaganda Department, said that he examined, the rtprv .and.found the word “kadaver” did not aPPD to .human beings. It v.ias applicable only to horses. . , General Campbell savs that he visited St. Quentin tunnel and saw the vats. Ho was convinced the bodies were being refined down. —A. am N.Z.C.A.