Otto Soltwedel

The Deportation

OF

COMMENTING upon the death in Germany lately of Otto Soltwedel, formerly of New Guinea, the PIM [ said, in February, that it was believed [that high officialdom in Australia had [somehow got hold of a letter which I Soltwedel had written to a prominent personage in Germany (some said it was Dr. Goebbels); and this was held against 'him when, after his internment, at the [end of the war, he sought permission to [return to New Guinea instead of being * deported.

We now have received the following letter from another New Guinea old timer, Mr. Paul (“Kar-Kar”) Schmidt, who is living in retirement at Gosford,

Nsw.:—

“Solty did not write to Goebbels. He wrote to the German Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop, and for the following reasons.

“Although he had a faultless record in New Guinea, over 30 years, he found in 1939 that he was the target of much un warranted abuse from newcomers to the Goldfields. The old-timers, and the Gov ernment officials resented this as much as Solty did; but they could do nothing.

“Finally, in desperation, Solty decided to return to Germany. But he then learned that because so many Germans were returning to Germany, at that time, from all over the world, the German Foreign Office had asked them to delay their return. The FO said that overseas men, with their varied callings, were not easy to assimilate into Germany’s new economy.

“Solty, however, felt that he had good reasons for returning. He was getting on

in y ears ’ and he was not ha ppy under the conditions then affecting him in New Guinea. Therefore, he wrote specially to Ribbentrop, setting out his plea, and the reasons therefor. He himself sent a copy of the letter to the Administrator of New Gu inea-and that no doubt is the letter to which the PIM refers.

“All who knew Otto Soltwedel will know that he was not the type of man who W ° Uld d ° anything im P r °P er or unfair.”