PRISONERS' TRIAL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 161, 10 July 1945, Page 5

PRISONERS' TRIAL

Germans Charged With Murder Of Comrade In Scotland ,

EVIDENCE OP TWO ACCUSED Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, July 9. Josef Mertens, aged 21, one of the German prisoners of war charged with, the murder of a fellow prisoner named Rosterg, murdered at a prisoner of war camp in Scotland, admitted to the Court that he helped to drag the body across the ground and assisted to hang it up. "It was clear that Rosterg was dead before the hanging," the accused said. "He was a traitor, and I certainly thought he deserved the rope." Joacim Goltz, aged 20, said in evidence that he became an S.S. man at 16 and served in Russia and France. Describing the scene before the hanging, he said that the crowd was enraged. "I became incensed and excited," he said, "and was firmly convinced that Rosterg was a traitor. I completely lost my self-control. I saw red. I became more incensed when I realised' that through this man I had been suspected of being a traitor. It was a question of my military honour." Goltz told the Court that he pulled the noose tight round Rosterg's neck. He then pulled the traitor to the ground and knelt upon him and pulled the noose tight again. The trial was adjourned.