REICHSTAG FIRE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 16, 13 October 1933, Page 9

REICHSTAG FIRE

Scene in Burning Building

FURTHER EVIDENCE Berlin, October 11. Immediately the Court reassembled for the Reichstag fire trial, Dimitroffi, ignoring the Judges’ orders, endeavoured to put questions, whereupon lie was excluded until further notice. Dimitroff shouted: “This is a theft of my right to defend myself.” Police-Lieutenant Latiet, a trim, uniformed figure, in evidence dramatically described the scene when he entered the burning Reichstag. He said that he rushed to the Central Session Chamber and saw the curtains blazing right and left and a burning cushion on the floor, while over the dais the blazing curtains resembled a burning organ with the flames for organ pipes. He •returned to the door and shouted, “Incendiarism. It’s burning in every corner.”

Later he learned that Lubbe had been arrested, dressed only in trousers. “I asked him,” continued the witness, “if a cap, tie, and piece of soap I had picked up were his. He replied, ‘Yes. He admitted , setting fire to the Reichstag. I asked him why. He laughed and said nothing.” Letiet added: “1 had the impression I was dealing with a madman.”

The prosecution asked if he had noticed any inflammables. Latiet replied, about twenty or thirty pieces of charred cloth. The prosecution said that the newspapers declared that there wore hundredweights of paper and other inflammables. Latiet: Wo searched the place meticulously, even the cupboards, and I saw nothing anywhere. Dr. Teichert petitioned for Dimitroff to be allowed to attend, as it was important that the accused should hear the proceedings. The court ruled that behaviour tending to bring the proceedings into contempt justified the exclusion, which is expected to last three days. BAN ON “OBSERVER” Mr. Garvin Not Surprised London, October 11. Mr. J. L. Garvin, editor of the “Observer,” says: "I am not surprised at the banning of the ‘Observer.’ 1 expected it before. It is impossible for the ‘Observer’ to be edited and written to satisfy the German censorship. The ‘Observer’ lias its duty, and intends to perforin it.”