NOMINAL SENTENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 104, 30 October 1945, Page 6

NOMINAL SENTENCE

GERMAN BURGOMASTER

Rec. 9 a.m. LONDON, October.29. Friedrick Bachmann, burgomaster of the Tiergarten area in Berlin, has been released without further charges being brought against him, states the Berlin correspondent of "The Times," who says it is understood that the release was the result of the intervention of the British element of the Allied Control Commission. Bachmann was arrested by the Berlin civil police when leaving a British military court. At the conclusion of a three-day trial on 11 charges, including disobedience of the military government orders, being in possession of counterfeit money, embezzlement, stealing, corruption, and acceptance of bribes, the Court sentenced him to 50 days' imprisonment on one charge, to date from the day of his arrest. This meant his immediate release.

ity. Never once has your observer seen the proceedings enlivened by a smile or moistened by a tear. Perhaps the fact that the Commission was "Royal" }aas imposed too crushing < a dignity—no. one has appeared in shirt sleeves—no one ever smoked or asked for permission to do so— and the speakers before the Commission (at any rate' during its sittings) wetted their palates occasionally only from very small glasses of cold water. •

The sittings usually took place in the dark panelled Council Chambers of the City Fathers, watched remotely from their gilt frames by departed and bewhiskered Mayors, councillors, and celebrities of bygone times. In Auckland the Father of the City, Sir John Logan Campbell, seemed to frown as the great wine and spirit house which he founded was assailed by the scorn of Alliance counsel. Oh the contrary in Christchurch Mr. Tommy Taylor seemed to assume a benign expression as Alliance witnesses inveighed against the drink. In the capital city the Duke of Wellington seemed to say, "What, Sir, is all this damned nonsense," and looked out of his gilt frame with his high nose aloft for a glass of such sherry as is produced from the plains round Salamanca and Talavef a and the slopes* round the city of Badajoz. Alas that such a cup can no longer be found in the city bearing his name. On the opposite wall his countryman, Sir Maurice O'Rorke, of witty and convivial memory, turned aside, but kindly, voicing \no doubt some philosophical tag, "Sic transit—-". When the makers of "potheen" were harried in their distant fastnesses in the HOkonui Hills he seemed however to assume a severe look.

Public interest in the sessions was either small or totally lacking, the portraits as often as, not constituted the audience. Before them trooped daily the Commissioners, preceded by the chairman, the Hon. Mi\ Justice Smith; followed by Mrs. Logic,. of Scottish brogue and many sons, Mr. Mackie, the respected and able chief of Presbyterian Army , padres; Messrs. Malthus and Robinson, wondering how their farms are going during their long absence, George Hutchison, one time Auckland's Mayor and its chief of the Automobile Association, Percy Coyle, the Licensed Trade's dignified not to say pontifical secretary; Mr. Ruth, who asks why handles are not larger; and at increasingly rare inter-vals-the Hon. Mr. Fred Young, M.L.C.

, Their public sessions are now over, their deliberations begin. A blessing on their labours!