FRENCH SENTENCE FOR KRUPP

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 110, 10 May 1923, Page 7

FRENCH SENTENCE FOR KRUPP

OTHER DIRECTORS ALSO TO BE IMPRISONED

FINES TOTAL 350,000,000 MARKS, (BNIIBD PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPIRIGHI.) (AUSTRALIAN • NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCJiTION.) BERLIN, Bth May. The full list of sentences at the Krupp j trial is as fpllows:— Krapp and hia fellow-directors, Osterlen and Hartwig, fifteen years' imprisonment and a fine of 100,000,000 marks. Bruhn, ten years' imprisonment, and a fine of 100,000,000 marks. Mueller, a member of the Workers' Council, six months* imprisonment. These were present at the trial. The following were absent:— Bauer Schaeffer and Kuntz Schraepler, sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment and fined 100,000,000 marks. Groos, head of apprentices, ten years' imprisonment and 50,000,000 marks. The closing scenes of the trial at Werden were marked by intense excitement. The whole neighbourhood of the courthouse was guarded by French troops, the market place being occupied by cavalry and tanks, as the French feared an effort might be* made to rescue Krupp. In his final evidence, Krupp admitted that his firm received official instructions from Berlin regarding the lines on which the resistance should be carried on, which was the same as the whole German nation received. Captain Duvert, in a bitter closing speech for the prosecution, insisted that Krupp's responsibility was incontestable. "The Germans are a disciplined people, who never act on their own initiative," declared Captain Duvert, adding that the order for the attack on the little : group of ten French soldiers came from [ Berlin, and was issued by the Krupp firm itself. Some thousands of disguised police agents took part in the attack. "Imagine how these great Krupp chiefs remained motionless in the boardroom while thousands of their employees were threatening these ten French soldiers with death! Imagine their smile when they peeped down on the spectacle from the windows. We caw the same smile during the war. Their generals displayed it when the German troops were burning French villages and massacring the inhabitants. The hands of these men," Captain Duvert concluded!, dramatically, "are red with the blood of their own workmen and *rcth the French blood that flowed that day." Maitre Moriaud, the famous Swiss international 1 lawyer, in an impassioned speech on behalf of Krupp, maintained, with a wealth of argument, that the charges were not supported by a single fact. A sensation followed when Captain Duvert rose and said that on the following day in. Dusseldorf there were to be tried seven persons who had already admitted tliat they belonged to a society whose purpose was to murder persons objectionable to Germany. These persons had declared that they received pay in the Krupp building from an ex-officer who was once a Krupp engineer. Amidst the amazement of the people in the courthouse who are not accustomed to the procedure of other countries, Maitre Moriaud sprang up and protested against this statement, adding, "Anyone who said that is guilty of a lie." Raising his voice, Maitre Moriaud concluded : "You call this justice in the name of France. In the name of France I say. 'Bender justice!' " The Court agreed upon Krupp's and Bruhn's sentences by a majority only, namely, three to two. The decision in the other cases was unanimous. Krupp and his co-directors will be taken to a French prison.