IN AUSTRIAN GAOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 277, 22 November 1934, Page 15

IN AUSTRIAN GAOLS.

SOCIALIST LEADERS SUFFER,

SEQUEL TO FEBRUARY REVOLT.

It is high time attention was called to the lot of the victims of tnc February fighting in Vienna, who have been languishing in prison or in concentration camps for many months (writes a spccifil correspondent of the London "News-Chronicle").

A statement made by Dr. Schuschnigg when he took office after the death of Dr. Dollfuss, and subsequent words of Prince Starhcniberg, were considered to indicate that the Government were contemplating an amnesty for accused Social Democrats (members of the Austrian Labour, or Socialist, party), but nothing has been done.

T\\;o hundred Schutzbundler (the armed guard of the Austrian Socialists, which was disorganised after February), who fought at tiie barricades, are still in prison, under sentences of from one to twenty years. Another 100 (among them General Koriier, Major Kifler and Burgomaster Seitz) are still held for trial, and '100 are confined in concentration camps.

In addition to this total of 700 unfortunate men are a number of women— Mrs. Pruft, ex-member of Parliament, Mrs. Postranetsky, ex-secretarv of the Socialist party, and others—who have also been ill prison or in detention since February. The cases of Burgomaster Seitz and Dr. Danneberg (formerly finance expert of the municipality) arc notorious. Journalist's Fate, A still more flagrantly unjust case is that of the Radical journalist Julius Brauntlial, who was on the editorial staff of the "Arbeiter Zeitung," and was the founder and manager of the "Kleincs Blatt," the greatest success in the history of the Austrian Press.

Braunthal was in detention five months awaiting trial. The public prosecutor then dropped the charge of high treason, but he was sent to a concentration camp, where he is likely to remain. Yet Braunthal was in the trenches

throughout the war. In 1018, when the returning soldiers threatened to overthrow the new republic, he took action, at the danger of his life, to avert a catastrophe, and it was he who founded the Board of Education for Soldiers. "Treated Like Criminals." When Braunthal left the court he was taken to hospital for an operation, and later, on September 1, was cent to the concentration camp at Woellersdorf, not even his wife being informed. There he has to pay for his maintenance, and his wife and small children are without means. The imprisoned Socialist leaders are treated not as political cases, but like criminals under ordinary sentence.

Burgomaister Seitz, a man of sixtylive, against whom no chargc has eo far been made, was sent to a sanatorium a few weeks ago after more than six months' solitary confinement, during which he became seriously ill. But even in the sanatorium he is under-the strict est police supervision and is entirely isolated.

Herr Sever, ex-member of Parliament, has had a complete nervous breakdown, and is threatened with blindness, and is now in a clinic for nervous diseases. Dr. Danneberg, former finance expert of the municipality, is suffering from tuberculosis and is kept in the prison hospital under close guard. 1

Notable Prisoners. Otto Gloeckel, founder of the modern school system of Vienna, against whom it was not possible even to open a preliminary examination, lias been in preventive" custody for seven months.

A similar fate has befallen Stadtrat Weber, who built 00,000 of the Vienna fiats. His term has been prolonged already three times without explanation. The same applies to Stadtrat Speiscr and to General Schneller, to whom Parliament in session expressed unanimously its thanks for his services to the Republic of Austria. The only, hope of these unfortunate men lies in the influence on the Austrian Government of enlightened opinion abroad.