GERMAN DREYFUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 17, 21 January 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

GERMAN DREYFUS.

RELEASE AFTER SEVEN YEARS

MOTHER'S STRENUOUS FIGHT.

FAINTS AT HIS ACQUITTAL,

Walter Bullerjahn, who has been called the "German Dreyfus," has been acquitted by the Supreme Court at Leipsic of the charge of high treason for which he was sentenced in December, 1925, to 15 years' penal servitude. \ He had already served six years of his sentence when he was liberated to await a. new trial. His release was chiefly due to his mother, who, from the day her. son was taken from her, fought untiringly to establish his innocence. When, the court's verdict was made known, and Frau Bullerjahn learned that her son was restored to her, she fainted. The strain of the long trial had been too for her. AY hen Herr Bullerjahn was convicted in 1925 a storm of controversy arose. It was said that the judge had laid great stress*, on certain statements made by an unknWn man, whose evidence was heard in camera. Reichstag Protest. Dr Paul Levi created a great impression in the Reichstag by declaring his conviction that Herr Bullerjahn had been condemned on hearsay evidence. In 1928 it was discovered that the secret witness whose evidence was considered so important was Baron von Gontard, director of the Berlin Carlsruhe works, where Herr Bullerjahn was employed. Baron von Gontard had told the prosecutor that he had heard from some British members of the Inter-Allied armament Commission that Herr Bullerjahn had betrayed the secret that arms were concealed in the works. Many prominent people and the League for the Rights of Man backed up Herr Bullerjahn's request for a new trial, and in 3930 Frau Bullerjahn drew the attention of the whole world to the case in a dramatic fashion. As Baron von Gontard's daughter,' Baroness Lilli von Gontard, was leaving a Berlin church after her wedding, Frau Bullerjahn, a pathetic bent figure in black, stepped in the path of the bride and bridegroom. "Give Me Back My Son." To Baron von Gontard, who w-aa walking behind them, she cried: "Give me back my son! You have kept him in penal servitude for years, although he is innocent. You have taken away my support. Give honour to God and speak at last the truth!" Her plan succeeded. Her son was released, and his case was reopened before the Supreme Court at Leipzig on November 14. This time the evidence of Baron von Gontard was heard in public. It proved to be very flimsy, and contained many grave disparities with the evidence he gave seven years ago. Owing to the conflicting evidence, chiefly concerning what the baron alleged he had been tfcld, and what he had overheard indirectly, the judge had no other course to take than to acquit Herr Bullerjahn; and his mother, wearied by her seven years' struggle, is once more happy in the fact that her fight for her son's freedom has been won.