NAZI HOSTAGES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21783, 24 April 1934, Page 11

NAZI HOSTAGES

WOMAN AND BABY PRISONERS IN CAMP HUSBAND A REFUGEE SURRENDER WANTED GOERING'S STATEMENT By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received April 23. 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, April 23 The Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian states that General Goering, Premier of Prussia, interprets as merely "protective detention" the holding of Frau Soger and her infant as hostages in order to induce the surrender of the woman's husband, who at present is in England. He says the holding of hostages is the last form of selfdefence.

The correspondent says he learns that Frau Seger and her 20-months-old baby are being kept in the Dessau concentration camp, both bearing prison numbers, The baby, being a. political prisoner, has the number 58. Probably it is the youngest in the camp. This should be appropriate to General Goering's book "Germany Reborn."

The woman is allowed to take a daily walk outside the camp, guarded by two officials.

Gerharfc Seger, German pacifist, was born at Leipzig in November, 1896. On leaving school he worked as a lithographer and draughtsman until the war. He then served for three and a-half years at the front in France, Galicia and Italy. Afterwards he studied at the Institutes for Journalism and the History of Civilisation in connection with Leipzig University. In 1920 he joined the staff of a newspaper in .Kiel and later held other journalistic posts in Berlin and Plauen. From May, 1923, to September, 1928, Seger was secretary of the German Peaccr Society. A pamphlet he published in 1926 with the title "An Armed Republic," aroused much interest. It gave statistics of the various military organisations in Germany compiled by themselves. These showed that in addition to the Reichswehr and the police there were unofficial bodies of trained men totalling about 0,000,000, and this was before the great expansion of Hitler's "army." He also stated that the number of officers in the Reichswehr was out of all proportion to the size of that force. In 1928 he became political editor of the Socialist newspaper Volksblatt at Dessau, and in 1930 was elected to the Reichstag. In October, 1931, Seger was charged with having insulted the army by remarking in a speech that every soldier must lie regarded as a plague spot. He declared that what he had really said that everyone who advocated armed force must be dealt with as if he had the plague. But the Court in February, 1932, sentenced him to 50 days in prison and to pay a fine of 500 marks. On appeal this sentence was reduced in October, 1932, to a month's imprisonment.