KAISER’S FLIGHT

Taranaki Daily News, 7 April 1931, Page 9

KAISER’S FLIGHT

*- HINDENBURG’S ATTITUDE.

DENIAL OF A STATEMENT.

. - President Hindenburg’s - personal nanifeetbe are so>'ra.re to-day in Ger-, many that ’considerable interest has. been aroused by an official intimation that he recently gave the official organ of reaction, Kreuz Zeitung. Lectures ! now being given in Germany’s eastern ' provinces, by an ex-officer turned Re- '< publican, Major Anker, says the Berlin correspondent of the Observer, London, oglhe deepest interest to-the major’s old comrades-in-arms. J In 1922 Major Anker was received by Hindenburg, who, ho maintains, told him that the Kaiser’s flight to Holland came as a shock of surprise to him and that he bore no responsibility for it, in spite of- his feeling it incumbent upon him to take this responsibility toward the nation when the time came to justify it. , President Hindenburg has now informed the Kreuz Zeitung that although lie certainly received Major Anker as the son of an old friend and conversed with him at some length, it is incorrect ■to say that he ever expressed this view about the Kaiser’s flight. On the contrary, he had already repudiated Major Inker’s statement in the Kreuz Zeitung .. . of. November 3, 1928. The major’s political views had changed in the mcan- . time. . ’ . f . To obtain a correct opinion ot a matter which will be of as great interes. to posterity as it is to-day,, a correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung requested an explanation from Major Anker, who received him at Konigsberg, a stronghold of Nationalism to-day as an outpost of German thought and culture in the Prussia separated from Germany by the Polish corridor. The major upholds his statement firmly in the face of official denials. He says he bases it on notes written five minutes after the 5 Hindenburg interview in his hotel. .President Hindenburg was, Major Anker /declares, extremely upset by the account given by the ex-Crown Prince, in his memoirs, of events on November 9, 1918. He declared that his own attitude at the time was dictated by exnediency and. that, .he was. .permitting thd opinion to circulate that he had advised the Kaiser’s flight. In reality, he was surprised to hear on November 10 that the Emperor had actually left \ the country. ' . \ Major Anker adrift that many mon of \*rv pronounced reactionary views weie extremely pleased at the time when he informed ‘ them privately of Hinden[■urcr’s real, sentiments, as it convinced ‘them that the Kaiser had acted preEately and that he had no advice from Hindenburg to. that .effect. The major adds 'that 'the only reason for making the president’s confidential renarks’public to-day is the necessity to •efute Nationalist attacks now being made upon him on account of his change ,f political opinion.