BATTLE IN GERMANY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20105, 16 November 1928, Page 16

BATTLE IN GERMANY.

TWO " PRIVATE ARMIES."

HUNDREDS OF 'MEN WOUNDED. Gcesthacht, a small industrial town on tho banks of tho Elbe, 15 miles above Hamburg, has been immortalised as tho field of the first pitched battle between two of Germany's private armies—the Republican, but predominantly Socialist, "Reichsbanner," and the Communist League of tho Red Front Fighters, whose General Staff sits in Moscow.

Those hostile hosts have often clashed in minor skirmishes, and not without loss of lifo. But a recent encounter was not only nioro "magnifiquo," but also much more "la guerre." And, although only one combatant—tho local commander of tho "Red Fleet"—was killed, the wounded or injured are said to run into hundreds.

Tho casus beHi was the election of the Municipal Council, which seems to have been forced by the Communists to mark their disapproval of tho Mayor s action in enlisting police protection against their literally physical kicks and blows. The election was to have taken place on a Sunday, but tho opposing armies occupied tho town on tho previous evening, and on the Sunday morning received reinforcements so substantial that they are said to havo outnumbered the adversary population. Issue was not joined until noon, when there was a collision opposite ono of tlvo polling stations which cos' about a score of wounded.

The police parted the adversaries, but they were powerless in the presence of tho main shock which took place a couple ot' hours later for tho possession of a slight hill on the margin of the town. The fight was conducted in regular military stylo by forces each about- 1500 strong. Both sides fought in disciplined bodies, took shelter behind walls and trees, threw in reinforcements at threatened points, brought up reserves from tljo rear, and were served bv ambulance detachments which carried the wounded out of tho front line. The weapons used, it is true, were mostly brickbats, empty bottles, bludgeons, daggers, and knuckledusters, but a number of pocket firearms wore also in action.

"The combatants," writes one of the correspondents on tho spot, "rolled about on tho ground locked in one another's embraces, tearing tho clothes from one another's bodies, and inflicting serious injuries. Soon thoy were lying prostrate by dozens, streaming with blood or staggering away to seek the protection of tho garden fences." Of the wounded, 12 or 14 were said to be in danger. Beside the dead Communist loader were found ompty cartridges for his own revolver, but they will not prevent his party from representing him as tho defenceless martyr of an unprovoked outrage. In consequence of the disturbances it was necessary to abandon the election. In Berlin a similar collision occurred between demonstrating Fascists and a Republican crowd, but there a more numerous police wero prompter in intervention, and nipped disorder in the bud.