MADE HISTORY IN WAR

Taranaki Daily News, 20 January 1933, Page 8

MADE HISTORY IN WAR

WOMAN’S AMAZING CAREER. I have just seen the sad and bent figure of a once-beautiful woman, who made history in the Great War, enter a convent on the Franco-Belgian frontier, writes a special correspondent of The People. The French Secret Service knew her aS “A.K. 17,” on whose head Germany set the price of £50,000. I know her as a sorrowing wife and mother who is doing penance for an unwitting and agonising sin. She supplied the Allies with information that sent her airman son to his doom. In her early days she little dreamed what adventure and war-torn emotion lay in store for her. She was . Elsie Kleber, a native of Alsace-Lorraine—a descendant of the famotis Karl Kleber, who served Napoleon in his Egyptian campaign. She married Robert S. Harben, an Englishman, who had become a naturalised German, and went to live with him in Germany. When the war came, her only son, although years below military age, joined the German army. Her husband was pro-German. And Elsie, with all the inbred love of France in her veins, listened to a call which was more powerful and more precious than ties of blood —her country. . She enrolled as an Allied spy in Germany. -She was living in Berlin at the outbreak of war, and obtained work in a Government Department, where she gleaned information of priceless value to the Allies. . For two years, she pursued that worK. Then the chiefs of the French Intelligence Service decided that she coulla do better service by moving more about the country, finding out things that were not done so openly as the affairs transacted by the department with which she W ghe accepted the call, and for the last two years of the war she roamed about Germany, discovering secrets that no one else, could discover and risking her life again and again for the Allies. Her activities became known, and she

was denounced by the Germans as the most dangerous of all the Allied agents. A reward of £lO,OOO, afterwards increased to £50,000, was offered for her capture, and a whole army of detectives was employed solely to run. down the 1 woman who was known as Will o the Wisp” because of her elusiveness. On one occasion the police were so < close orrher trail that capture was cer- - tain if she travelled by tram from Essen to Berlin. Just before the tram left a note, thrust into her hand, warned her of her danger, and she flattened herself on the roof of a sleeping carriage, knowing that on the way she must pass through a tunnel, where only an meh might mean death. When she came through the tunnel she had fainted, and she finished the journey in a state of collapse. At Berlin detectives were waiting for her, but they did not see the figure dropping from the roof of the coach on to the “off” side of the track and hurrying from the station by another door. Then she learned of a German plan for an air raid on British Headquarters at Monterueil. This information was passed on in time to enable the Allies to take measures that resulted m all the raiding aeroplanes being shot down ana the pilots killed. One of those kil e was her own son, but though the mother knew of her loss, it was not until recently that she learned that if she> had not given the information _to the Allies he would not have been killed. It was then that she decided to give up the employment she had occupied _m a French Government Department m Paris since the end of the war and enter a convent for the rest of her life.. I had a short talk with this woman just before the convent gates closed on. her for ever. The fact that she had gamed , for her services the personal thanks of : Poincare, Clemenceau, Haig, Foch, an \ other noted Allied leaders, counted for J [nothing. _

EMPLOYMENT AT ELTHAM.

MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE. The Eltham Unemployment Committee met on Wednesday, Mr. I. J. Bridger presiding. Mr. Jones considered that men with big families should receive proportionately greater relief and he suggested an extra 2s per child. . The committee agreed with the spirit of the proposal but Mr. Muggeridge explained that men with large families were given extra work or private work wherever possible. It was decided in view of this not to pursue the matter. Mr. Trask said Eltham unemployed were doing their best to obtain work other than relief. Many had applied for hay-making jobs. It was decided that all unemployed who applied for relief after four months or more of regular work should not be entitled to relief until the expiry of one month or such period as the certifying officer should decide. A farmer on 11 acres who feared that his relief would cease because of certain regulations asked for a continuance of relief. . In the absence of a ruling ?s to the definition of the word “farm” it was decided to continue as at present.