GERMANY AND THE SOVIET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20072, 9 October 1928, Page 11

GERMANY AND THE SOVIET.

MILITARY ARRANGEMENTS. DISCLOSURE BY POLITICIAN. AIRCRAFT WORKS IN RUSSIA. (Received October 8, 10.17 p.m.) Times Cable. LONDON, Oct. 8. Tho Berlin correspondent of the. Times reports that Horr Kunsllor, a Socialist member of tho Reichstag, has given tho newspaper Vorwaerts details of alleged secret Husso-German military arrangements negotiated in 1922-23. These are said to have included the establishment of a Junkers aircraft and aero-engine works in Russift. Hcrr Kunstler says everything and everybody were given a code designation. For example, the Junkers works were "the firm N.N.," the German Ministry of Defence was "the special group," and aeroplanes were "cases." Vorwaerts publishes the key to the code, also quotations from letters written to Professor Junkers and others by the "mixed commission" sent to Moscow :n December, 1921. If Herr Kunstlcr's disclosures are genuine they confirm tho story hitherto current but never clearly established, says the Times correspondent. Ho points out that when the question of the relations between the Rechswchr and the Red army came up in the Reichstag two years ago it was admitted that tho activities of tho Junkers' Aircraft Company in Russia had tho German Government's official backing. However, the Government then gave its assurance that its relations with the Junkers firm had long since been dissolved. The Nationalist newspapers in Berliu assert that all the "disclosures" are ancient history. They accuse Ileir Kunstler of treason in publishing them and express regret that Parliamentary immunity protects him from prosecution.