The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-07-10
German To Stand Trial For E orging Names Of
 Government Officials

Berlin. July 10-with the arrest lere of Erich Anspach, twenty-four, king of spies,' Germany is enjoying new sensation.
 ion, Anspaeh forged hundI eds ot secret documents of German gov
 r--mentaI officials and sod them to French Secret Service agents-Just
 or simple love of forgery.
 brick" he says. They even wanted he bunk I handed them to be purposes better. I felt my vanity altered by prominent persons and Government agents applying to me for -nfor nation and I enjoyed it inn lnensely when I observed the result of my work. 1 had caused ten | jon between governments" Among the documents this genlaI 1upe supplied practically gratis were | ,ists of secret personnel of the -militarily organized security po- l ,ice," which contained the names ana l residences of no less than 64,OOO per | sons The names had been taken | from telephone directories. He also | offered and was paid for "conhden- tial decrees of the Minister of De fense," including mobilization plans and long lists of officers who were ! unofficially registered in secret doc | rntents of the German army. | He invented a dramatic story about | the secret organizations of German l students and their connection with i the Erzberger murder, asserting that l would form special units in case or | d new war against France. Details | were given by him about the activity of secret recruiting offices for the purpose of keeping ready former of | ficers of the Flying Corps and sup | plying them with machines TOT surprise attack on the French occu-
 patton army in case the French | should advance further into Ger | many.
 Edited Many Documents. l But Anspach did not content him | self with giving information or mill 1 tary character, but also edited vol
 luminous documents on economic con
 ditions, as on the German export and l import where it was indicated that l the German Government purposely | concealed the truth about conditions | in Germany in order to make efficient
 propaganda against the Versailles treaty and the reparatiOn demands He fabricated statistics about the alleged unemployment in Germany
 ana ~-... lied the real figures, assert, ing that the Government only wanted to evade heavier taxation. The Po- lish Government availed itself of Ans
 pachs statistics the rolling stock
 of the German railways and the out
 tbe bue plebiseite oL 5ne in i1- Upper @ silesia.
 | He cleverly forged the stamps of
 the Government offices and the sigma
 lures of well-known ministers ana backed up his stories by some real
 facts taken from pamphlets and books on one or the other subjects so
 that nobody ever suspected them Of
 over books and papers which he took
 from the circulating libraries or Ser
 lin.
 with Paris, Brussels, Basic, Warsaw,
 Mainz, Wiesbaden and Breslau. In
 order to make his "cHents" absolutely sure that his information came from
 authentic sources he pretended to De nomics,'' only giving his information
 on condition that it was returned d
 within day. as otherwise "he would
 "Confers' with Ebert.
 The crowning achievement of his
 frauds is "conf1dentfal talk of Ebert, wirth and Rathenau" prior to
 the conference at Genoa in which II was asserted that the three states men had discussed details of plan
 to sabotage the work of the Allies } At the same time he sold to some
 government Secret Treaty Between , Finland and Czecho-Slovakia,' con- , taining hundreds of clauses and every , detail of a military allis 1ce" between
 the two powers in case tLey would De } attacked by Poland or Soviet Russia Years before ,Anspach turned to politics. he used to forge certificates l and university honors of degrees, en-
 
 > or settle down as teachers or doctors He asserts that the honorary degree O! ; doctor was bestowed on him by the
 +hs RnEsa o Vigdor Kopp at Berlin. and that the German Minister of Education grant
 ed him a permit to carry this title in Germany.
 The career of Eric Anspach is a romance in itself
 He was born at Hamme, in the
 Prussian province Of Mestphaaai ,!dai-dd dd } clergyman who enigTated to the United States in 1912, being a no l torious drunkard and having served : a Inison term.
 Is Sent to Hamburg. Erich, then a schoolboy, was taken , out of school and sent to Hamburg !; where he went on board merchant- man as a cabin boy. Completely des-
 titute and in rags. he one day was ] picked up in the streets of Vancou-
 yer by a kind hearted American, wh5 | paid his passage back to Germany
 He then re-entered school and obtain
 cd lower degree when the war broke
 out. He joined the army as a vol
 nnteer and was severely wounded r several times; While being nursed . at a hospital he wrote numerous arti' : eles which happened to become knowr F to the Minister of Education. who s on reading them, granted Anspa'ch a special permit to attend lectures at , the university.
 After the war Anspach tried to make his living writing for newspa- pecs and for a short time belonged to the staff of the Independents pa
 per- "Freiheit," when he was arrest
 ed and sent to prison for distributing , pamphlets urging the masses to over : throw the present government. He
 was sent to a ,.-ssatic asylum for g . short time but the doctors could not - detect any abnormality of mind. On the contrary they stated that he was a DerSOn ! being mathematics and his style per | 1 fant In IT SD act.