FUNERAL AT ESSEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17014, 12 April 1923, Page 7

FUNERAL AT ESSEN.

ASTONISHING NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION, GRAVESIDE ORATORS THREATEN STRIKE AT KRUPP’S. X3y Telegraph.—Press Aslsn.—Copyright.—Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn. (Received April 12, 9.20 a.in.) ESSEN, April 11. The funeral of the seven workmen and five apprentices killed by French machine-gun fire was the occasion of an astonishing national demonstration. Funeral bells began to toil Shroughout Germany at nine in the morning. The flora- tributes, including those from the German and Prussian Governments, and one from the Communists of France, numbered many hundreds. In Essen itself the streets were thronged from daybreak by people dressed in deep mounting. Many, carrying flowers, were making for the Altendorferstrasse, which cuts through the Krupp's works, and was the scene of the tragedy. Here sixty thousand of Krupp’s workers assembled, while a quarter of a million others lined the streets to watch the passage of the coffins, which had been guarded at night by ten miners in the uniform of the Miners’ Guild, each carrying a miner’s lamp, lighted. The rest of Krupp’s employees, marching in two columns four deep on either side of the road, preceded the coffins to the cemetery, four miles from town. When the van reached the cemetery gates, the end of the procession was stiil at Krupp’s works. After the coffins had been brought into the street, the silence was unbroken except by the singing of Krupp’s choir. The musicians were followed by the coffins, tour on each of three hearses, decked with evergreens. The relatives of the dead, the representatives of the masters and the delegates of trades unions followed. The latter, carrying gold, silver and multi-coloured banners, numbered at least three hundred. Whan they reached the cemetery, the bannermen formed a great circle around a pulpit, from which the graveside orations were spoken. Many other mourners carried' flags, and as the coffins passed the flag bearers, each dipped his flag. At the graveside, a speaker for the Workers’ Council declared that Krupp’s workers were determined not to work under foreign bayonets. After other orations, the twelve coffins were lowered into the graves. During the rest of the day, every shop in Essen was shut, and the blinds of all houses were drawn. Throughout the funeral cei smonies not a single French or Belgian soldier was to be seen, the military authorities having confined them all to barracks.