GERMAN RELATIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 284, 29 October 1934, Page 7

GERMAN RELATIONS

WITH AUSTRIAN STATE.

LEADERS IN CONFERENCE.

TO SECURE HARMONY. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received October 29, 8.5 a.m. VIENNA, Oct. 28.

Dr Kurt Scliuschnigg (Chancellor), Prince Starhemberg, and Colonel Adam (Minister of Propaganda), on behalf of the Government, conferred with Herr Reinthaller, a friend of Herr Hitler and leader of the Austrian Nazis, favouring peace with the Government, and Dr Hueber, General Goering’s brother-in-law, with a view to easing the internal situation. The discussions referred to the recognition of Austrian independence, the refusal to admit other countries to interfere with Austrian affairs, aqd the avoidance of political violence. Thus far the discussions are inconclusive. Colonel Adam has been entrusted with further negotiations, but it is doubtful whether the more active Nazis will moderate their attitude. Meanwhile the Army clashed with the Heimwehr, who seized the police barracks at Wienerneustadt, whence they were driven out at the bayonet point. There was also trouble at Innsbruck, where the police quelled a disturbance between the Heimwehr and Freilieitsbund.

DEATH BY EXECUTION

HUGE NUMBER OF GERMANS. TOTAL OF ONE THOUSAND.

LONDON, Oct. 27. The Manchester Guardian’s special correspondent, pointing out that additional revelations now bring the estimate of German executions in connection with the disturbances on June 30 to 1000, explains that possibly Herr Hitler does not know how many General Goering ordered to be executed, nor does General Goering know how many Herr Hitler ordered to be put to death, while Herr Himmler, chief of the secret police, also probably carried out “unofficial” executions. ■•lt is now known that 14 men were secretly executed at Leichtenburg (Saxony) in the precincts of an old castle used as a concentration camp, where the prisoners were ordered to dig near a corner of the vegetable garden a trench 23 feet long and five feet deep to which prisoners were motored from Berlin on two nights and marched separately, blindfolded, to the trench. Some begged for mercy and others asked for permission to write to their families. They only received in answer: “We must put an end to dogs like you,” after which they were shot with revolvers in the neck and buried in the trench.

The identity of the victims was not disclosed, but apparently persons of distinction were sent to Lichtenburg in order to be killed with special privacy. Lichtenburg is also notorious as a great centre of German military preparations, while the neighbourhood includes one of the new subterranean aerodromes being consructed in various parts of Germany.