PRUSSIAN SENSATION

Wairarapa Age, 20 January 1922, Page 5

PRUSSIAN SENSATION

TITLED CRIMINALS’ PLOT. tO MURDER WEALTHY RELATIONS. (Received 7.25 p.m.) Berlin, Jan. 18. —A sensational trial is proceeding at Gorlitz, in Silesia. Countess Schlieffer, one of the oldest noble families in Prussia—a tall, beautiful woman, aged 50—and her sons, Hanz and Siegfried, who are typical Prussian noblemen, with four others, are accused of attempting to murder Count Wilhelm Schlieffer, the multi-millionaire head of the family, and his sickly son George. The Countess and her sons were miserably poor, and hired Bruno Resell, a village grocer, and Bruno Grosser, a locksmith, to assist in murdering Counts Wilhelm and George.

There was a sensatipn in Court when Hanz, evidently in order to shield his mother, confessed to the crime and said he promised to pay Resell £5OOO sterling directly he inherited the Schlieffer estates. He stated that he and Ro sell devi ;e 1 several plans, including the use of dynamite, to blow up Schlieffer Cartie and rhe hiring of 40 Communists to massacre his uncle and cousin. An accomplice revealed the plot. When Roisell was arrested there was enough dynamite upon him to wreck a train.—(A. and N.Z.)