GERMAN LOVE DRAMA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 249, 17 October 1908, Page 15

GERMAN LOVE DRAMA.

JEALOUS GIRL'S CRIME. At the end of August, Lieutenant Kurt Hansch, of the 14th Infantry Reglmeut, was found lying dead in his bedroom at Bromberg, Prussia, beneath the body of a gill with whom he was known to have been on intimate terms. It was at first supposed that it was a case of double suicide, but subsequent information shows that the olrsir was of a more remarkable nature. A solution of the mysteTy has been arrived at from letters which the deceased girl wrote to her friends. From these it appears that the course of events was as follows :— The girl, Martha Eichgrun, who was 26 years of age and the daughter of a gendarme, had had relations with the young officer for five years, and was attached to him by a passion of the most ardent and Jealous nature. Her parents, after vainly attempting to persuade her to give up the liaison, had thrust her from their doors. A few months ago the lieutenant made the acquaintance of a girl In his own class, who, he thought, would be a suitable partner for life. With the object of carrying out this idea he prepared to cut himself adrift from Fraulein Eichgrun. Anxious both to spare the girl's feelings and to provide for her future, he tried, under various pretexts, to induce her to take up some form of work, and actually bought hey a knitting machine. She, however, apparently saw through his manoeuvres, and declared quite openly that she would kill him rather than that he should belong to another. At iength it wns impossible to conceal tbe truth from her any longer, and as soon as she learned it she proceeded Iv tbe most deliberate manner to put into execution those threats which her fickle lover had never taken seriously. She sold all she had, and, having bought a revolver and a wedding ring with the proceeds, she set aside what remained to cover her funeral expenses. She then donned her best clothes, and lay in wait outside the officers' casino till Lieutenant Hansch should return to his quarters. It was already morning before he emerged. She followed him home at a safe distance, and waited till she thought he would be asleep. Then she entered the house with a duplicate latchkey, with which the officer had provided her. As she had expected, he was sleeping. Stealing up to the bedside on tip-toes, sheared a bullet into his head, killing him instantly. Not satisfied that she hod achieved the first part of her purpose, she discharged two more shots mi«» his heart. She next hunted out tbe love-letters she had written him, and arranged them in order, after which she wrote letters ex plaining the grounds of her action, and asking that she might be buried in the clothes she was wearing. She then slipped the wedding ring on to her finger, and, leanivtg over the prostrate botly of her lover, fired a bullet into her own heart.