GERMANY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 20 March 1919, Page 5

GERMANY.

I EXTERMINATING SPARTACISTS

EXTREME MEASURES TAKEN

i BY CABLE—PEESS ASSOCIATION-COPYBIGHT

LONDON, March 15. The Daily Express Berlin, correspondent states that Government troops assembled 200 Spartacist prisoners in the courtyard of Moabit prison, manacled them in pairs, and ordered them to march into a space covered by machine guns, which thereupon opened fire. Most of them fell dead. Those who writhed were riddled until all movement ceased. The courtyard was drenched with blood. The bodies were thrown into carts and flung" into a common grave. These executions will continue daily until Spartacism is exterminated ■.

LONDON, March 16. An American correspondent describes the execution of the Spartacists in Moabit prison, Berlin. A long line of j prisoners, poorly dressed, including many ex-soldiers in faded uniforms, a number of whom were lame, were dragged with their comrades, chained by the wrists, and filed through the gates. The women were driven like weary cattle by armed soldiers, crying I and pleading for mercy. The executions began with a splutter of machine guns, accompanied by howls and cries, then silence. A lieutenant who emerged said: "We stood them up and made them pass before the machine-guns. They fell like ninepins. There were 220 altogether." —United Service.