GERMAN SPY SCHEME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20598, 24 June 1930, Page 9

GERMAN SPY SCHEME.

PLANS FOR SECRET FLEET.

DEATH OF ORIGINATOR.

NEW LIGHT ON COSTLY FIASCO.

A German scheme to cover Europe with a vast system of espionage centres, camouflaged as commercial undertakings, is revealed in connection with the sudden death at Rome of the naval officer Captain Lohmann.

lb was Lohmann who, with funds of varied origin and under the official disguise of a " Naval Transport Department," got into his hands a dumber of business concerns, ranging from banks to film companies and bacon factories. The ultimate motive of his activities, which cost Germany about £1,000,000, has hitherto been withheld from public knowledge, says the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, though the affair has been investigated by a Reichstag Committee.

It seems clear thai one of his aims was to create " a black," or secret, fleet of small but efficient craft, which was intended to be a naval counterpart to the notorious " Black Reichswehr." Otherwise, his operations looked like the result of over-confidence in his commercial gifts. The newspaper Vorwarts, however, now reveals that " the whole concern had the naivo purpose of spreading over Europe an espionage organisation on a commercial basis." Moreover, it is indicated both in this and other papers that Lohmann did not, as was stated at the time, abuse the confidence of his superiors and rnisuso the authority devolving upon him, but at the time was working with the full knowledge and approval of those above him.

The son of a former director of the Norddeutscher Lloyd, Lohmann was apparently believed in naval circles to have business in his blood, and for that reason at the end of the war " he was given what were called commercial functions, because in that way he could get into foi'eign countries which then were still in practice closed to the German military." Ho had already long worked in the" Intelligence Department, and is said to have actually been in Moscow at the time of the Russian revolution.

Eventually 'Lohmann's plans led to stupendous losses, which could not bo concealed by juggling with the naval estimates, and the whole affair gradually leaked out. The Minister of AVar repeatedly and emphatically denied that anything was known in his department about the captain's curious doings. A time came, however, when even Herr Gessler could deny no longer, and ho was compelled to take the only other alternative and resign his place in the Government. Meanwhile, Lohmann had departed into the desert as a scapegoat, but it is said that, if ho had lived a little longer, ho would have been fully rehabilitated, as he was not the person really responsible. Ho is stated to have been connected with tho scheme for aerial communication between Italy and South America by means of Schutte-Lanz airships.