ONE MAN TO DIE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 954, 26 December 1933, Page 1

ONE MAN TO DIE.

Sentences in Reichstag Fire Trial. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copy righ t. LEIPZIG, December 23. There was absolute silence in the densely packed Court when the President, Dr Bunger, pronounced the sentences in the Reichstag fire trial. Van der Lubbe was sentenced to death for high treason, but the other four accused were acquitted. The men accused of setting fire to j the Reichstag were : Marinus Van der Lubbe (24), a i Dutch workman. j Ernst Torgler (40), former Reichstag deputy and German Communist leader. Georg Dimitroff (51), a Bulgarian writer. I Blagoi Popoff (31), a Bulgarian stuI dent. Wassil Taneff (36), a Bulgarian shoe- | maker. All heard the result unmoved. Van der Lubbe sitting in the bowed attitude which he has assumed throughout. He did not show the slightest interest, and did not even raise his head. When announcing the Court’s decision, Dr Bunger said that the Court was i of opinion that Van der Lubbe was I ordered by other incendiaries to i climb into the Reichstag and lay a ! trail of fire in order to distract the . attention of the fire brigade from the main fire, which was to be laid in the Plenary Session Chamber. Torgler, acting on his lawyer’s advice, asked to be taken into “protective cusj tody.’* A new indictment is reported to be in course of preparation against him and also against Herr Thaelmann and other Communist leaders. Dr Bunger added that the Court had rejected the “senseless legends’’ that the Nazis had had a hand in the fire, that Van der Lubbe had visited the Nazis, or that German officials had falsified Van der Lubbe’s passport. It had also rejected the stories that the tunnel connecting the Reichstag with General Goering’s residence had been used. Dr Bunger emphasised the point that, though it was suspected that the other accused had been involved in high treason, it had been impossible to prove it. They would accordingly be acquitted, owing to lack of evidence. The trial really ended undramatically. It had lasted for fifty-seven days, the longest in German legal records. The acquittals have infuriated the i Nazi newspapers. An Amsterdam telegram says that I \ an der Lubbe will present a petition ! to President Hindenburg for elemenev, \ as no appeal is possible from the j Supreme Court. If he rejects the peti- ' tion, the Dutch Government will make I representations on the ground that no death penalty for the crime on which \ an der Lubbe was accused was provided by German law at the time of the Reichstag fire.