Under Another Flag

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7195, 29 June 1933, Page 4

Under Another Flag

BRITON CHANGES ALLEGIANCE SENTENCED FOR SPYING Recollections of a spy trial iff France six years ago are stirred tip by the announcement that Captain Vincent Stranders, a former British staff officer, has becorno a naturalised German citizen. The necessary papers were granted by the Thuringian authorities.

Captain Strandors, a former member of the British Disarmament Commission in Germany, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in Paris in 192/ for espionage in France on. behalf of Germany. It was alleged that he sapplied tho German Secret Service Wlt-tt information concerning French aeroplanes and tanks. Stranders declared that he sought information only for commercial purposes. The French, however, took the view that as he had formerly been attached to tho British Intelligence Service he could not have misunderstood the nature of a mission, eutrusted to him by one of the heads of the German spy system

After his release Captain Stranders travelled through Germany, delivering lectures in which he declared Britain, and her Allies were responsible for the war. Ho was subsequently ordered to be expelled from Prussia for antiGovernment propaganda, but. the sentcnco was postponed "to give him an opportunity to correct his behaviour.”

British official records show that Oaptaia Stranders was bom in 188 L After leaving school he was a clerk, commission agent and tutor by turns. When, in 1914, war broke out he obtained. a commission in the Royal Engineers. In 1917 he was transferred to tho Royal Flying Corps, andin 191 S became a technical officer of the Royal Air Force.