GERMAN RUSE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 121, 20 April 1940, Page 7

GERMAN RUSE

CAPTURE OF TRONDHEIM. WHY FORTS WERE SILENT. (British Official Wireless.) Received April >2O. 10.7 a.m. RUGBY, April 19. A Norwegian official just arrived in London who has been in contact with the Norwegian Government since the German invasion has given an account of recent events. He said the fact that the fortress of Agdeness (in the Trondheim Fiord) was passed by the invading German warships was explained, as he himself witnessed, by the sweeping of a great number of captured Norwegian passenger ships and fishing boats in front of the German fleet so' that the fortress. could not fire on the Germans without the gravest danger of massacring their own countrymen. Thus the German ships passed the fortress without a shot being fired. This Norwegian official also referred to the treachery attributed to the followers of Major Quisling by which Oslo is alleged to have been taken. He suggested that these rumours be treated with a certain reserve. He emphasised the unreliability of Norwegian broadcast news, the bulk of which had been in German hands since the beginning of the invasion. Some announcements made in the name of the Norwegian Government had temporarily caused considerable confusion. Three attempts, this spokesman said, had been made by the Germans to capture King Haakon, but in each case he was able to esca.pc.