New Britain herald., 1917-11-27
FOOLED BRITISH,
 AND IS IN7ERNED
Former Artillery Officer of Kaiser
 Bill Is at Ellis Island

New York, Nov. 27-Wilhelm Stein forth, known also as Peter Stevenson, who during the first year of the Euro pean war was an officer of artillery in the German Army. and who was captured by the French during the 1915 Champagne drive, was in- termed on Ellis Island by order of the Department of Justice yesterday. For some months past Steinforth, under the name of Peterson, has been en- ployed as a teacher of German in the Franklin School, g. private school for boys at IS West Eighty-ninth street.
 Before his internment Steinforth said he was 27 years old. He speaks English like a native and has knowl- edge of the Scandinavian tongues by which he was ahle to pass as a Nor wegian when he fell into the hands of the British, afber his escape from the French prison camp near Ro- chelle, France.
 Stelnforth was dn this camp for only few weeks before he escaped. He tunneled under the electrified barbed wires and managed to get to a French port, where he slowed away on the British freighter Portland, then about to sail for New York via Bermuda. For six days out the Ger man lived on chocolate cake. Not once during these days did he have drop of water, and was on the verge of collapse when his presence on board was discovered At Bermuda the captain of the Portland turned the stowaway over to the British authori- ties. Steinforth said he was Nor wegian, and added pathetic yarn to account for his action in trying to make America az a stowaway. He was believed, and a few days later sailed for New York. He met friends who provided him with funds to re- fit himself with good clothes, and hearing that teacher of German was needed by the Franklin school, ap- piled for and was given the position.
 Captain Franz Rintelen, the Ger man naval officer, who in 1915 came to the United States to instigate strikes in intuition plants, and who Is now serving a sentence for his part in that conspiracy, was arraigned in the Federal Court yesterday to answer an indictment charging 8 conspiracy to defraud the United States by frau OulCACAy OOtd4AAAA6 oldLo D6pdEI- ment passport in the summer of 1915, just before he sailed for Europe under the name of +-Gasche." He was cap- tured by the British and sent back to answer the charges against him. When arraigned before Judge Mayer yesterday Rintelen, through his at torney, George Gordon Battle, entered plea of guilty. Judge Mayer sen- fenced him to serve one year and one day in the Atlanta Penitentiary, the sentence to begin as soon as the pres ent one is finished.
 Charles B. Gerlach of Brooklyn, a transport service by the Government. who was recently court-martialed on Governors Island and sentenced to five years imprisonment in Castle Williams for refusing to do lookout duty while passing through the sub- marine zone. was brought before Judge Augustus N. Hand In the Federal Court yesterday on a writ of habeas corpus. Gerlack insists that as a civilian he is not amenable to military law, and that the Gov ernors Island military court was with out Jurisdiction. Judge Hand ad- iourned the proceedings until Friday morning. when Assistant United States District Attorney B. A. Matthews will