WOMEN BEHEADED

Taranaki Daily News, 20 February 1935, Page 5

WOMEN BEHEADED

ESPIONAGE IN GERMANY POLISH SPY’S INFLUENCE UNPRECEDENTED DEATH VICTIMS’ HIGH BREEDING By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Rec. 8.10 p.m. Berlin, Feb. 18. The beautiful golden-haired Baroness von Berg and Frau von Natzmer, who, with Baron Sosnowski, a Polish officer, were involved in espionage and high treason charges, were beheaded. Herr Hitler declined mercy. An official announcement says that Baron Sosnowski and Fraulein von Jena were sentenced to life imprisonment. The beheading of two women, both of aristocratic Prussian families, is unprecedented in German history. It is understood that the offence was stealing plans of the German General Staff for an invasion of Poland. The executioner wore the traditional ■ evening dress and white gloves. After each beheading the executioner exclaimed: “Justice has been done.” Baron Sosnowski, the principal offender, seems likely to escape punishment, as he will probably be exchanged for three Germans now in a Polish prison on espionage charges. Later in the day while the evening papers were still not permitted to publish a report of, or the sequel to, the trial, crowds gathered round street hoardings where huge scarlet posters, on which was big black type headed, “To Death,” announced that Baroness Benita von Falkenhayn, the divorced wife of Baron von Berg, and Frau Renite von Natzmer, had been executed by the axe for betraying German secrets to the enemy. The twenty-three-year-old Fraulein von Jena is a descendant of the Hohenzollems. AMAZING WAY WITH WOMEN. Baron Sosnowski had had an amazing influence over women, particularly the Baroness Benita, whom he met at a party in 1925, when she married Baron von Falkenhayn, son of a famous war-time general. Baron Falkenhayn divorced her. She was about to marry Baron Sosnowski when she found he was having another love affair. Consequently she married Herr von Berg, a former Russian aviator who later fought with Germany after the Russian revolution. Baron Sosnowski soon again captivated Benita, whose mother had, after the death of Benita’s father, married Baron von Richthoffen, cousin of the aviator and a member of the Crown Prince’s staff. Benita acted as an intermediary between Baron Sosnowski and girls whom they trapped into service. They held gay parties. A favourite method was to invite girls connected with the Reichswehr and, when the party was at its height, Benita would take flashlight photographs of them in compromising positions and threaten to send the photographs to their families unless they revealed Reichswehr secrets. Frau von Natzmer, aged 32, belonged to an aristocratic German family. She divorced her husband and became a Reichswehr typist in order to keep herself and her father. Th- defence urged that her pay was so poor that she fell an easy prey to Benita’s threats and promises. . Similarly, Fraulein von Jena was a Reichswehr typist. Both allegedly took carbon copies of documents to Benita. Other documents were secretly photographed. It is understood Baron Sosnowski had earlier refused to be exchanged for three German spies imprisoned in Poland because Baron von Berg had agreed to divorce Benita and allow Baron Sosnowski to marry her. The prison officials refused to permit the marriage. Baron Sosnowski started espionage when it was wrongly believed that the Nazis had adopted a hostile policy towards Poland.

The Reichswehr plot was revealed when the mother of a Reichswehr typist questioned her concerning her extravagance on clothes.