MASQUERADE AS HERR HITLER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23685, 17 December 1938, Page 6

MASQUERADE AS HERR HITLER

INCIDENT ON BOARD SHIP GERMAN PASSENGER INDIGNANT <From Oub Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, Dec. 9. When a British ex-service officer, dressed as Herr Hitler, stepped into the saloon of the Nieuw Holland, on her voyage from Singapore to Sydney, the only German aboard, Mr G. Kastemulle protested by walking out. Mr G. M. Penney, a tea planter from Colombo, on his way to Victoria, with his wife, for a ..olida'y, wore khaki shorts, a khaki shirt with swastika and had blackened his moustache for a fancy dress ball. When Mr Kastemuller saw him enter the saloon in the garb, he rose and left without a word Soon afterwards, Mr Penney received a note from the commander (Captain P. M. Verstelle), which said: "Will you please remove your costume for international reasons?" Mr Penney did so. Mr Kastemuller made no mention of the incident when pressmen first interviewed him, nor would Mr Penney speak of it, but Mrs Penney said: " My husband has given an undertaking to the captain not to speak about it. But I have no undertaking and lam at liberty to talk British passengers are indignant because my husband was asked to remove- his costume. Would British people have taken offence if Mr Kastemuller had appeared dressed as Mr Chamberlain? I do not think so. My husband was behaving in most orderly fashion and had said nothing. In addition to being an ex-service man, he wa. a prisoner of war u Germany." Mr Kastemuller then in explanation said that he took strong objection to the costume. "I did not like it," he said. "To show that I objected I went to my cabin. That night x had no dinner. In Europe we take our leaders seriously We will fight for them lam not allied with any political body in Germany. But I am a loyal German. My own fancy costume represented a pirate."