TRIAL OF MARSHAL VON MANSTEIN

Grey River Argus, 20 September 1949, Page 8

TRIAL OF MARSHAL VON MANSTEIN

LONDON, September The court trying the former Field Marshal Erich Von Manstein was told to-day by Mr. Elwyn Jones, for the prosecution that German army commanders conscripted girls and pregnant mothers in a vast slave hunt to bolster their defences against the Russians. He said that if Russian civilians refused to work on German army defences they were hanged. He read an order by Manstein saying: “I have observed that the Russian civil population is not yet fully employed on this task. I therefore order that all civilians capable of work must be compelled to do at least 10 hours’ labour daily.” The court granted a defence application for a fortnight’s adjoui nment after the prosecution closes its case. In Prague today, the Czech DeputyPrime Minister, M. Zdenek Fierlinger. accused Britain of having witheld Manstein from the country which should have tried him—the Soviet. M. Fierlinger said the case was characteristic of the methods of the “so-called defenders of international law, whose aim was war.”