Tubantia, 5 October 1932
CUSTOMS OFFICERS IN PLAIN CLOTHES – An amusing border story: pursuers become the pursued.
An amusing incident took place here on the border one night recently, according to a report from Aalten in De Graafschapsbode. Two young German officials, wearing civilian clothes over their uniforms, had concealed themselves near the henhouse of a farmer who lived just over the border on the German side.
The officers suspected, perhaps not without reason, that a consignment of pigs was going to be smuggled nearby. The farmer, however, had spotted these unwelcome visitors and was not at all pleased by their presence. How could he get rid of the men who were about to spoil everything?
He came up with an effective solution. He fired his gun a couple of times and began shouting: ‘Chicken thieves! Chicken thieves! Catch the chicken thieves!’ Instead of being the pursuers, the two officers suddenly found themselves being pursued.
One fled back onto German soil, but the other ran into the Netherlands and, in his panic, ended up in a ditch. A couple of farmers hauled him out, soaking wet. ‘Can you ride a bicycle? Then get on it and cycle nicely ahead of us!’ he was ordered. And so the young official, shivering with cold, was neatly escorted by bicycle to the police in Aalten, where it soon became clear, of course, that he was not a ‘real’ chicken thief.