GERMAN TRIALS

Hokitika Guardian, 11 June 1937, Page 5

GERMAN TRIALS

PERSECUTION REVEALED. (IJuitod Press Association—By Electrt Telegrap h—Copy right), LONDON, June 9. A secret trial, before the dreaded special tribunal at Berlin resulted in two former trade union leaders being .sentenced to death, a third to life imprisonment, a fourth to 15 years’ and a woman organiser to 12 years’, all lor high treason. The “Herald’’ stating the news leaked out from Germany, declares that beatings and interminable third degrees and the refusal of doctors when ill, were part of the ill-treatment meted out to prisoners since 1935, hut failed to break their spirit for all, when before the judges, boldly' proclaimed their Left Wing convictions. The “Herald.” adds: Whatever faked evidence was produced against the other accused. Max Maddalena, a former Deputv, who was sentenced to life imprisonment could not possibly be guilty of treason because he and his wife left Germany months before Hitler was seizing power. When in March, 1935, he decided to travel through Germany to see the conditions he was arrested within 24 hours. 'Phe names of those sentenced to death‘are Robert Stamm, a former Deputv, and Adolf Rembeko. a former trade union journalist.