ALLEGED TREACHERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25964, 3 October 1945, Page 5

ALLEGED TREACHERY

NEW ZEALANDER CHARGED VOLUNTARILY AIDED THE ENEMY LONDON. Oct. 1. Before a New Zealand court martial at Westgate-on-Sea, Lance-corporal R, N. Courlander, of Auckland, pleaded not guilty to treachery and to joining the enemy forces. Courlander is charged with voluntarily aiding the enemy in Europe between October, 1942, and September, 1944, by writing and delivering broadcasts, bv joining and working for an organisation controlled by the enemy known as the British Free Corps, also by joining the armed forces of the enemy. This was the first hearing of a charge concerned with joining the enemy forces. Courlander was born in London and joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force while living on an island off the coast of New Zealand at the outbreak of war. He is defended by Captain C. P. Hutchison, an Auckland barrister; Lieutenant-colonel R. A. L. Hillard, just promoted from his majority, is the prosecuting officer. Colonel F. F. Rund is president of the court. The hearing is expected to last five days. The prosecution is calling 16 witnesses, including four Australian soldiers. British Free Corps

Colonel Hillard, opening the case, said the prosecution alleged that Courlander joined the Germans in planning the foundation and organisation of the British Free Corps, from which Courlander endeavoured to oust John Amery. Courlander joined the S.S. as a propagandist and war reporter. He served with the New Zealand Division in the Western Desert and Greece, where he was separated from his unit. When he reached Athens he was put in a reinforcement unit and became a prisoner in April, 1941. at Kalamata.

Courlander had made a statement in which he outlined his ideas for the British Free Corps, which he decided to join and work for. He admitted in the statement broadcasting talks on colonial affairs, also his reminiscences as a prisoner. Courlander left the Free Corps and was stated to have joined the S.S. in August, 1944. He went from Berlin to the Western Front wearing an S.S. uniform, and in Brussels was taken over by the British on September 4, 1944. He claimed that he intended to escape and that ..he also joined the Free Corps to control it or sabotage it if unable to use it against the enemy. The court went into camera to consider details which it was thought unwise to make public. Australian Witness An Australian, Regimental Ser-geant-major Phillips, said in evidence that Courlander told him the Germans wanted to make a British Free Corps combined operations group by enlisting men from the army, navy, and air force camps to carry out combined operations on the Black Sea, front. Candidates were to enlist under assumed names, and their correct names would be registered in a secret file. Courlander wanted witness to become a security officer in the free corps, and told him he had been to the German Foreign Office and also had seen the Fuhrer. Courlander also told witness that there were between 100.000 and 150,000 Nazi sympathisers in Britain who would join the Free Corps. He added that Britain would soon express her willingness to fight with Germany against Bolshevism. Courlander emphasised that the members of the Free Corps would naturally be very successful in gaining the best positions awarded afterwards.