THE EMDEN’S VISIT

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 161, 8 June 1929, Page 9

THE EMDEN’S VISIT

AUCKLAND ATTITUDE DISCUSSED. AUSTRALIAN HISTORIAN’S COMMENT. GERMAN BRUTALITIES OVERESTIMATED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received June 8, 9.15 a.m. SYDNEY, June 8. The dilemma in which the civic authorities at Auckland, New Zealand, found themselves recently in connection with the visit of the German cruiser Emden is discussed by Captain Bean, the Official War Historian in Australia. Captain Bean states: “If the Emden were to come to Australia it would be my hope: that she would be honourably received. We were pretty suspicious of the German officers at Gallipoli, but I know that throughout that struggle the German army fought a clean campaign. Many a time when our men were taken prisoner by the Turks German officers stepped in and saved them from savagery.” Captain Bean recalls an unrecorded incident. During a recent tour of the battlefields he noticed a man in mufti, wearing several decorations, also the Iron Cross, place wreaths on the Anzac memorials at Lone Pine and at Cape Helles. Both the wreaths bore fitting inscriptions: “From the German Navy.” Captain Bean points out that the reported brutalities committed by the forces of the German armies were vastly over-estimated, and have caused much post-war prejudice.