GERMAN ATROCITIES IN RUSSIA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14647, 3 July 1918, Page 4

GERMAN ATROCITIES IN RUSSIA

MO6CJOW, April 16. The •following wir'eleßs' telegram was sent' yby the Commissary for Foreign Affairs' to tfa© Foreign Minister- in Berlin : . "The Central Soviet Institutions have been made acquainted, by numerous commmricationfe which have reached them, that German troops 1 are setting five ta Russian villages and committing acts of violence • against • the > civil populatio n'. 1 Thus, from one. witness, who is -person' • ally .known <to us and whose good faith • cannot be doubted, we learn that m the. town o£> Lepel German troops' extermln- 1 ated an entire family, not even sparing • ■the women, on the pretext that a mem- ' ber-oftho fiimily belonged to a detach- ■ ment of guerillas. We are- - also ' . in- ' formed by. the -local military authorities that at th« village of Novosaelki, m the government of <md- district of Qrcha, on April 5, a German officer, accompanied 1 by two scfldiers of the 346 th Regiment, took away 'by force bats be- . longing to the peasants. Tho peasants kilted' the officet,- and the' 1 two soldiers fled. Germ&i 1 ' troops, armed with ma-' chine guns; then surrounded the* village, andi after haVing sbt fire t& it, extermm-_ ated the population with their machine guns a^' they attempted to escape. [ The ! following day. the German commander sent a note to the Russian military authorities m Orcha, informing them that the inhabitants of the village of Novosselki. had been evacuated and the village set on fire as the result of the. murder of an officer. The People's Commissary for Foreign Affairs transmits on this subject , an expression. of the deepest indignation, *nd; in protesting m the most formal' manner against these acts of violence by a civilised country, violating the most, elementary principles ofh umanity,- requests an assurance that the German; Government will institute a strict -inquiry : into :,thi? facts 'mentioned and will mete out> p'unißhment 'to the guilty persons." ,