NAZI’S CONFESSION.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20480, 5 December 1934, Page 7

NAZI’S CONFESSION.

Van der Lubbe Was Duped in Reichstag Fire. , y DEAD MAX’S STORY PUBLISHED. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received December 5, 2.10 p.m ) PARIS, December 4. “ Le Journal ” prints a document entitled: "How I fired the Reichstag,” signed by Karl Ernst (leader of the Storm Troops who was executed in June). Ernst declared that he cooperated with Storm Troopers Fiedler and Mohrenschild (executed simultaneously with himself) in firing the Reichstag in order to render the Socialists and Communists culpable and to strengthen the power of the Nazis. Ernst, after writing the document, smuggled it to Sweden for publication if he found it necessary to safeguard himself against General Goering and against Dr Goebbels. The document acquits Herr Hitler of all knowledge of the conspiracy and says that the decision to set fire to the Reichstag was only taken after rejecting a trumped up plot, inculpating the Communists against Hitler. The plan was elaborated by Heines. Ernst explains in detail how he and his companions spread a phosphorescent substance in the interior of the Reichstag, which shortly ignited adjacent tins of paraffin. Van der Lubbe, who believed that he was working single-handed, was merely a dupe, being instructed to enter the chamber after the fire had started. Ernst adds that he. Fiedler and I Mohrenschild were solely responsible and acted in the belief that they were enabling Herr Hitler to fight Marxism at any cost. Ernst expressed regret that the action of himself and his companions had enabled “ creatures like Goebbels and Goering to be hailed as heroes." though they- had betrayed Hitler and tried to implicate him in their manoeuvres against himself and the Storm Troops. Goering. prior to the incendiarism, suggested setting fire to the Imperial Palace, but Goebbels convinced him that the Reichstag was preferable. Goering suggested the employment of a tunnel linking his house with the Chamber and other measures were concerted in order to throw suspicion on the Communists. The existence of the Ernst document was known in Germany for some months. Ernst had a picturesque career. He began life as a hotel page boy. His father is still a hall porter Ernst attracted the attention of Colonel Roehm soon after joining the Nazis and received the leadership of the Berlin Brandenburg Storm Troops, and gave scandalously extravagant entertainments. A Stockholm message says that M. B ranting holds a photographic copy of Ernst’s statement and believes in its genuiness, but would welcome judgment by a neutral tribunal.