COMMUNISTS SHOT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21717, 5 February 1934, Page 9

COMMUNISTS SHOT

STRANGE GERMAN AFFAIR fight with armed police BERLIN, Feb. X Four well-known Communists were shot dead after they had escaped from, a police van proceeding to Potsdam from Berlin. They included Johanni Scheer, successor to Herr Thaelmana in the leadership of the Communists. " Although the four men were in ai concentration camp when the crime was committed, they were alleged to involved in the murder of ai carpenter, Alfred Kattner, who was found fatally shot in bed yesterday; morning. The actual murderer is not known, but it is asserted that the font} Communists conspired with him to! cause Kattner's death.

It is officially reported that when tha van was slowing down or. an icy patch, of the road, the prisoner out.The police pursued the fugitives, who,, though unarmed, attacked their pursuers, who were armed with rifles, revolvers, daggers and batons. One officer was injured in the face. Kattner would 'have been ah important witness in a charge of high treason against Herr Thaelmann. The papers publish varying accounts of the incident, but none explain why unarmed men ceased their flight in! order to attack armijd police with theifi bare hands.