GERMAN SPY RING

Southland Times, Issue 23651, 28 October 1938, Page 7

GERMAN SPY RING

EXPERT WORK IN UNITED STATES

REAL SERIOUSNESS REVEALED

LIQUOR STORE AS CENTRE OF ESPIONAGE (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received October 27,10.50 p.m.) NEW YORK, October 26. After weeks of not particularly interesting testimony at the trial of the alleged German spies, the real seriousness of the Reich’s espionage activity in the United States was revealed today. Turning from the clumsy, amateurish efforts of Gunther Rumrich, the Prosecutor began to lay bare the skilled accomplishments of professional operatives in the German intelligence service.’

The United States Customs guard related the seizure of a violin case containing photographs of an experimental United States Army bombing aeroplane from. Lonkowski, one of the fugitive defendants, and Schlueter. The photographs were accompanied by documents and letters covering vital details of construction known only to army engineers for a (retractable landing gear, Seversky floats, wing and tank sections and streamlining. The letters were all signed “Sex,” which was allegedly Lonkowski’s alias. The Customs guard’s testimony showed that the letters contained such confidential matter that the United States, even today, would forbid them being read in open Court One epistle linked an army captain stationed at a New Jersey post with a German spy circle apparently working directly with “von Papen.”

The. guard said he asked Lonkowski to identify von Papen, and received the reply: “He is a German official in Austria now, but I do not know him.” PROTECTIVE CUSTODY Miss Senta Dewanger, who has been in the protective custody of Federal agents (G-men) since last summer, said she was a native of Germany, but had been a naturalized American citizen for three years.

Miss Dewanger appeared nervous, but her prettiness seemed to beat out the Government’s contention that the liquor store which she operated near the Long Island airports became the centre of army officers’ gatherings from which German operatives obtained important aviation secrets. The witness said that Lonkowski had rooms at her house at which he maintained a chemical and photographic laboratory. He received among his visitors Voss, Griebl and Schlueter. There was a dramatic moment when Miss Dewanger said: “Once, when Mrs Lonkowski had had too much drink, she boasted that the German Government paid for the various luxuries they had. The couple always seemed well supplied with money.” Miss Dewanger. added that she had often brought parcels from Lonkowski to Griebl and Schlueter. She said that Otto Voss (who is accused of stealing aeroplane plans while working in an American factory) frequently brought small packages to Lonkowski. It was revealed later that Lonkowski was allowed to escape because the Customs officials did not realize the importance of their discoveries at the time. Rumrich, returning to the stand, admitted that his brother Hans was arrested in Czechoslovakia as a German spy after British and American sources had warned the Czech authorities.