ATROCIOUS EXCESSES

Northern Advocate, 24 April 1933, Page 5

ATROCIOUS EXCESSES

GERMAN “BROWN SHIRTS” TORTURE AND TERRORISM. HA XY IT ART.ESS VICTIMS. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received 10 a.m.) j LONDON, April 20. ’the Berlin correspondent of the “Hanchestci (luardian ” says that, despite the Government's persistent denial, the “Brown Terror” has become systematic and increases daily. The victims are so numerous‘that they cannot he hidden. Many thousands limping in the streets with backs raw, heads bandaged, faces scarred and bones and teeth broken, prove the horrors of present conditions. The lb own Shirts even override the judiciary, as for example where a judge on dismissing a charge against Socialists who had defended themselves against the Nazis, was arrested and beaten by the Brown Shirts. Instead of receiving redress he was suspended. Socialists and Communists are taken to Brown House and there undergo tortures, in many cases resulting in death. Flying squads are terrorising villages and large tracts of country and taking their opponents into forests, where they are beaten. A Berlin message states that Herr Hans Frank, Bavarian -Minister of Justice, has been appointed the Reich Commissioner of Justice. He stated that his special task would be to harmonise the administration of justice in all Federal states. It is believed that the appointment is the prelude to the replacement of the axioms of Roman law by essential German. law, a. system, under which the in-, dividual will’be subordinated to the State., - . ' .A :C The executive of the. historic People’s Party considered a proposal for the dissolution of the party, and coiitrary to expectation, resolved instead to invite members actively to cooperate in the process of national reconstruction under Herr Hitler. It was significantly added: “Freedom -of thought and conscience is indispensable in building the new Germany.”