DEATH BY HANGING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 December 1943, Page 3

DEATH BY HANGING

WAR CRIMINALS SENTENCED AT KHARKOV THREE GERMANS AND ONE RUSSIAN. CONFESSIONS OF TORTURE & MASS MURDER. (By Telegraph-—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 19. The military tribunal at Kharkov sentenced to death by hanging the three Germans and one Russian who were charged with participating in a mass brutal extermination of peaceful Russian citizens by gas-vans and other methods. The condemned men are Corporal Reinhardt Retzlav, aged 36, of the German field police; Hans Ritz, 24, assistant commander of the Gestapo at Kharkov; Captain Wilhelm Langled, 52, of the German military secret service; Michel Bulanov, a Russian, who served the Germans as a chauffeur. A large number of Kharkov workers who had gathered in the hall listened tensely to the evidence and the accused men’s confessions, and applauded when the tribunal announced the verdict. How the Germans pulled out a Russian’s beard piece by piece to force a confession that he was a guerilla was told by Reinhold Retzslav, a member of the Gestapo, at the Kharkov trial, an earlire message reported. Another Russian was beaten with rubber truncheons and then pricked with red-hot needles. Both were innocent, but they were later killed in a gas-chamber. Retzslav estimated that between 5000 and 8000 Russians were executed at Jitomir, 35,000 at Kiev, 4000 at Lubny, and 2000 at Pereyaslavl. These were centres where he was stationed for different periods. Retzslav said the Russians went to the'lethal chamber quietly because they did not know where they were going. A few who struggled were driven into lorries with sticks and rifle butts. The bodies of the gas-chamber victims were usually buried. Mikhail Bulanov, the only Russian accused, stated that he was a transport driver foi J the Gestapo. He witnessed the execution of the Russians from Kharkov hospital. The Germans drove sick persons a few miles outside Kharkov, unloaded them beside a ditch and shot them with tommy-guns. Bulanov estimated that between January and July of last year he drove 600 victims to their death.

He was paid about £4 10s a week and allowed rations and working clothes. The clothing of the bulk of the victims was packed up and sent to Germany.