Revolt Planned in Germany

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 264, 7 November 1938, Page 7

Revolt Planned in Germany

Communist Leaders Sentenced PROSECUTORS LATER KILLED IN ROAD SMASH United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. BERLIN, Nov. 5. It Is revealed that a secret session of the People’s Court sentenced to death Peer Kasper, a Communist, for conspiring with three others to march on Berlin and establish a Popular Front Government in the middle of the 1933 economic crisis. The others were sentenced to 12, five and two years’ imprisonment respectively. The Daily Mail’s Berlin correspondent says that the day after the People’s Court sentenced the four Communists tor high treason, Drs. Parey and Geibel, the two prosecutors, were killed in a motor crash on the BerlinHanover road, while the woman driver of another car and also Dr. Parisius, who secured the death sentence on van der Lubbe at the Reichstag fire trial, were injured. The cause of the accident was apparently a stationary lorry, the driver of which had failed to switch on his lights. The trial resulted in Peter Kaspar being sentenced to decapitation, August Hirsch to 12 years’ imprisonment, Johannes Schneider to five years, and Otto Sauter to two years’ imprison ment. The evidence stated that the accused sought to obtain military secrets from soldiers for th© information of the Soviet. They conspired to arrange for a mob to march on Berlin on a fixed day armed with weapons stolen from military barracks, create a panic and so facilitate a popular rising, accompanied by factory explosions, sabotage and strikes. The Berlin correspondent of The Times says that the former Communist leader Ernst Thaelmann, who has been Lmprisoned without trial for 5i years, will work as a gardener with 30 other prisoners on an estate near Hanover. Thaelmann’s health is reported to be good.