REICHSTAG FIRE TRIAL

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 25 September 1933, Page 5

REICHSTAG FIRE TRIAL

V START OF HUNGER STRIKE MAN IN DANGER OF COLLAPSE. STORMY SCENES IN COURT. DENUNCIATION OF POLICE. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegrapn Copyright.} LEIPZIG’, Sept. 23. Van der Lubbe, charged with high treason and incendiarism at four Berlin buildings, including the Reichstag, is hunger-striking. The question whether his mutness at the trial was feigned or' a symptom of insanity led to the early calling of a specialist, Von Hoesser, who testified that the prisoner was healthy, strong and talkative and had a ready wit in prison, where he refused food in order to expedite his trial and save others further suspense. The motive of Vail der Lubbe’s hunger-strike, the prosecution says, is to break the trial. The court physician declares that if Lubbe persists it will be. necessary to consider forcible feeding. Heisig, a police official who examined Van der Lubbe after the fire, said he freely admited firing the to awaken the workers to revolt. \an der Lubbe said he was willing to abide the consequence. More pale and pathetic than ever, Van der Lubbe through his refusal of food seemed to-day to be in danger of collapse; consequently at counsel’s request a doctor sat alongside him. There was a dramatic moment when Dimitroff, cross-examined, said he had seen reports that he was sentenced to death in Bulgaria in absentia for leading an armed band after he was previously sentenced to life imprisonment for insurrection in 1927. Dimitroff heatedly protested at the injustice of the rejection of five lawyers he nominated.

Dimitrova provided sensation after sensation. Sometmes he addressed the court like a political meeting. Continually gesticulating and often shouting. he denounced the police methods of” investigation, causing the judge to explode with anger and threaten to exclude Dimitrova for the remainder of the trial if he did not behave himself. Charged with discrepancies between to-day’s testimony and the preliminary examination, Dimitrova- denounced the examination as mendacious because the police “wanted to frame me up as 411 incendiary.” . The president angrily interjected: 1 repudiate that!” Popoff, soberly dressed in black, contrasted with Dimitroff, for he answered easily and suavely in a quiet, highpitched voice. He admitted joining the Bulgarian Communists at the age of 20. ” He denied having been prosecuted; he had not participated in armed insurrection. Torgler’s wife told journalists she was sure her husband would be fairly tried.