A DUEL TO THE DEATH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18068, 20 April 1933, Page 11

A DUEL TO THE DEATH

DOCTORS FIGHT WITH SABRES WIFE’S WAIT OUTSIDE VIENNA, March 5. Two Vienna veterinary surgeons, both prominent members of the Hitlerite movement, and both belonging to one of tho many Vienna University duelling clubs, liavo just fought a fatal duel to decide professional differences. The two practised as keen rivals in the villago of Zurnsdorn. Dr. TaUcher, 40, had suffered from the competition of Dr. Mehler, 26. Last Saturday Dr. Taucher asked his wife to iiiake the Idng journey with mm to Vienna, where he said his differences with Dr. Mehler were finally to be settled. They travelled ori tho same train as the latter, hut the two men did not speak. While his wife imagined that her husband and Dr. Mehler were at a lawyer’s, they actually met in the duelling Court of the “Teutonic” University Club and fought to the death with heavy sabres. “While I was waiting for my husband in a taxi,” his wife stated to-night, ‘‘a young man came in and said : ‘lf you want to see your husband alive come at once td No. 1 Ambulance Station.’ ” Here she found her husband on the operating table suffering from three terrible wounds between the ribs which his friends said had been caused by falling on a water jug. A few hours later he died. Dr. Mehler has been arrested.