RUSSIANS IN BERLIN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 29 August 1929, Page 7

RUSSIANS IN BERLIN.

“OGPU ” POLICE ACTIVE. ALLEGATIONS OF MURDER. Startling illustrations of what we have ti> expect when the Bolshevik Government once more establishes its Embassy in London are provided by the trial here of two Russians, Orloff and Pavkmovski, on charges of forging political docuidents, wrote the Berlin correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph’’ last month.

At the hearing one of the defending counsel protested to the Court against an attempt by the .Russian Embassy in Berlin “to introduce t.'hc bacillus of Bolshevik terror into German judicial proceedings. ’ ’ He said , that Johann von Voss, the head of the news agency East .Express, and one of the greatest authorities on revolutionary Russia, who had been cited by the Court as an expert, had been warned by the Embassy that, if his evidence was unfavourable to the .Bolsheviks it would be treated by them as “a declaration of war.” Counsel demanded that the Court should take steps to protect the witness from such official B'olshevik intimidation.

SI L E XCE MAIN TAIN ED. Voss himself in substance confirmed this statement. The Press Attache at Hie Russian Embassy, M. Stern, had, lie said, told him that the Bolsheviks —ho used the word “we” —would regard the deposition by the expert against themselves as “a hostile act,” and treat him accordingly. “In this,”

continued the witness, “I see a deliberate attempt by the Soviet Embassy to prevent the expression of my conscientious opinion and to interfere with iGennan judicial proceedings. I am justified in expecting that the Soviet Government will disavow M. Stern and at once remove him from his post. ’ ’ Stern, who was in Court, was asked whether he would care to make a reply to this charge—“not. of course, as a witness, for you arc extraterritorial.’’ lie replied that he could say nothing till he had received the permission of his Government, and the plea of the Public Prosecutor that it would surely lie best to dispose of the incident without delay failed to break his reticence.

METHODS SIMILAR TO RUSSIA. What the attache’s threats might have implied was shown by the evidence of Balt Siewort, who was employed as a secret agent bv various departments of the German Government, and was given an excellent character for trustworthiness by a. former high official of the Reich Coinmissiart for Public Security and Order. This witness said the Og,pu had established at the Bolshevik Embassy in Berlin a branch “with all the apparatus and methods employed in its ,work in Russia.” Of .this fact Siewert had first learnt from the defendant Pavlonovslty. who was long employed in the Ogpu Department at the Embassy.

POISONED BEER ALLEGATION. Whenever Pavlenovsky in the witness’ company saw a member of the Ogpu in the streets he used “to break out in a cold sweat.” This was perhaps not surprising for. as Siewert said, “of all men who ha'd run away from the Ogpu only two had escaped with their lives.” In point of fact, a story of Pavlonovshi that throe such “traitors” (were kidnapped and shot ir>. the Embassy cellars has found its way into th.e press here, though the Court stopped the defendant when he was about to go into it. Siewert, however. spoke in a positive tone of the Berlin branch 'of the Ogpu executing a suspect with poisoned beer.

The same witness also dwelt on “the tremendous espionage service which the Bolsheviks maintain in Germanv. ”

As an illustration of this he produced a secret report to commanders of the Red Army in which “all the institutions and arrangements of Germany are described down to the smallest details. ’ ’