GERMANY: Organization Konsul

A speedy Ford sedan was the clue that led to the arrest of 40 people in North Germany last week, reawakening German interest in the notorious Organization Konsul, bloodthirsty Nationalist secret society which was responsible for the assassinations of onetime Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger in 1921 and Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau in 1922.

For many weeks past small bombs have been bursting under assorted public buildings in Schleswig-Holstein and North Prussia. Three weeks ago another bomb, the eleventh in the series, burst noisily in the cellar of the German Reichstag at 4 a. m.. breaking many windows. Spurred by offers of a $15,000 reward, German police concentrated on the bombings.

It was reported that shortly before each of the bombs burst, witnesses had noticed a Ford sedan streaking down midnight streets and highways. Methodical detectives buckled down to the task of checking every Ford in North Germany. In Itzehoe, Prussia, a suspicious Ford was discovered last week.

Its owner, one Hans Nickels, a onetime Kapitan of Munich police, was pursued to Hamburg, arrested. In the sedan was a cigar box. In the cigar box was a pound and a half of smokeless powder and a time fuse. At the same time Hamburg police raided the apartment of a Hamburg bank clerk, found another bomb containing the same type of powder. The arrest of Bombardier Nickels and the bank clerk led to the discovery of a bomb factory in Berlin operated by a certain Erich Timm. Much more important was the discovery that these men and many others were members of the dreaded Organization Konsul, had been so since 1922, when Der Konsul was supposed to have been wiped out.

German editors last week reminded their readers that agents of Der Konsul were once not only accustomed to throw bombs and assassinate their political opponents, but also did not hesitate to slit the gullet of any of its own members who were “untrustworthy.” Anxious to wipe out Der Konsul once and for all, German police arrested 40 suspects last week. Members of the German Reichstag, behind hastily reglazed windows, prepared to vote heavier penalties for persons “guilty of offenses against the security of the Republic.”