24 JUNE 1938, Page 6

The American spy trial may throw considerable light on the

activities of the German Secret Police outside Germany. Already it is being suggested that the absence of two witnesses who had professed themselves willing to give evidence is due to such activities. We hear little of the Secret Police (Gestapo) in this country, but that does not mean that there is nothing to be heard. And in South-Eastern Europe the lengths to which the Gestapo is able to go are astonishing. I was given a detailed account this week of how a well-known Englishman, on a journey home from Greece, was stopped in a transit country (not Germany or Austria) by German police and sent back to Athens ; and this is, I believe, not the only case of the kind known to Whitehall.

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