BOGUS FUNERAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23319, 1 October 1945, Page 8

BOGUS FUNERAL

LUBECK, August 27. A fantastic plot to hide rocket weapon secrets has been literally unearthed at a cemetery on the outskirts of this northern German town. Six coffins have been dug up, and found to contain drawings and prototypes of new weapons which were being developed at Peenemunde experimental station. No one has been more surprised by this discovery than the clergyman who read the burial service over the graves, and the professional mourners who were paid to bring wreaths to the six funerals. The deception was complete down to the most minute details in the burial records, and would probably never have been discovered but for the confession of the man who organised the whole thing—Dr. Wasch. Formerly on the staff of the Luftwaffe’s experimental station at Rechlin, Dr. Wasch was transferred to Peenemunde toward the end of last year, and made Group Leader in charge of accoustical, optical, and electrical equipment. Not long before the surrender he fled to Lubeck with full details of the most secret devices on which he had been working, and these he buried with elaborate deception. He confessed on condition that he was reunited with his wife, who was in the Russian zone. The reunion was short-lived, for now he is in prison.