BRITISH OFFICIAL RELEASED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 225, 22 August 1938, Page 7

BRITISH OFFICIAL RELEASED

BUT ESPIONAGE ALLEGED.

GERMAN ACCUSATIONS,

VIENNA, Aug. 20. Captain Thomas Kendrick, British Passport Control Officer in Vienna, who was arrested as he entered the old Reich on his way to England on leave, was released to-day. He started for England, with his wife, by car. An official announcement issued in Berlin states that Captain Kendrick was arrested because the authorities had proof that he did espionage work* in Vienna. He has been ordered to leave the Reich at the soonest possible moment. After his release Captain Kendrick refused to make any statement.

All the German newspapers allege that Captain Kendrick “confessed” to espionage. ... .. Field-Marshal Goering’s newspaper, the National Zeitung, alleges that Captain Kendrick was spying on behalf of the British Intelligence Service, and adds that the British Government must face the German Government’s disapproval over the employment of officers for espionage. Germarvy emphatically demands tlie discontinuance of such highly unpleasant usage and the rigid observance of the limit to diplomatic rights.

WORK IN VIENNA. PRAISE FROM ALL BUT NAZIS. LONDON, Aug. 21. The Star to-day eulogises the cheerful efficiency with which Captain Kendrick dealt with visa difficulties under the Nazi regime, winning praise from all but the Nazis. Captain Kendrick and his staff were worried day and night seeing thousands of applicants waiting in a permanent queue which Nazi officials once divided into “Aryans’ and “nonAryans.” Captain Kendrick refused to recognise this division and, when the Nazis insisted, he dealt with the nonAryans” first. The Americans adopted a similar procedure. No particulars have l>een received in London from Germany as to the evidence on which the espionage charges are based, and they are regarded in official quarters here as extremely improbable.