Old-Timer Soltwedel

Is Free Again

A WELL-KNOWN resident of the Morobe section of New Guinea, Mr.

Otto Soltwedel, arrived in Sydney at the end of August. He had just been released from Tatura camp, Victoria, after eight years of internment.

Mr. Soltwedel was in New Guinea when war broke out in September, 1939, He left Germany, for New Guinea, in 1912, and had not returned there; but he was regarded as a man with Nazi sympathies, and he was interned in 1939. Many Ger mans were released at the end of the war, two years ago; but Mr. Soltwedel was among those retained “for deporta tion”. In response to the strong protest ations of many friends, officialdom be came all elusive and hush-hush—it in sisted it knew something that mere civ ilians could not guess at, and must not know. So “Soltie”—as he was generally known in New Guinea—kicked his heels in Tatura for two more weary years.

But finally he was given his freedom, without further threat of deportation to Germany.

His long incarceration has left few marks upon him, and he is looking for ward eagerly to an early return to New Guinea, where he hopes to re-engage in mining.

Mrs. Paul Klein, or Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, arrived in Sydney at the be ginning of the month by Pan-American clipper, after visiting Prance and the USA. She expects to return with her husband this month to their plantation in New Hebrides.