SHOCKING CRUELTY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21454, 30 March 1933, Page 9

SHOCKING CRUELTY

PERIOD OF TERROR CHARGES AGAINST NAZIS ALLEGED ATROCITIES BEATING OF PRISONERS By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received March 29, 8.5 p.m.) LOTs DON", March 29 The special Berlin correspondent of tlie Manchester Guardian says that Germany is now in a period of transition between non-legal terror, consisting of beatings and murders, and legal terror, comprising imprisonment and death under special laws devised to keep the opposition in a permanent state of fear and demoralisation. The correspondent cites three instances of brutal beatings, including the case of a Berlin Socialist lashed with riding whips. Ho was taken to the Nazi headquarters, it is stated, then pinioned and confronted by a mock court-martial. Brownshirts stood on each side of the " judge." The prisoner was repeatedly beaten and finally removed to a loom where he found a number of fellow prisoners, some with their faces beaten to pulp. A doctor was present administering first aid. Tho number killed with knives and bullets or beaten to death seems to run into hundreds and the injured into thousands, states the correspondent. Many victims have lost their sight owing to their faces having been beaten with steel wands. Suppression of the truth has been so successfully accomplished that even persons living in Berlin, the scene of countless horrible outrages, will assert that nothing unusual has happened. The German working class fury and hatred has been aroused to such a pit-ch as never before existed in Germany.