Crime

Before the German Supreme Court at Leipzig began the trial of 16 Communists, alleged to be members of the German Cheka,* charged with fomenting revolution in Germany.

The first witness called was an ex-typesetter turned Bolshevik by name of Felix Neumann, who spoke in a quiet, bored way as if murder was all in the day's work. Officially, he was charged with the murder of one Rausch, a barber who had turned traitor to the German Bolsheviki. In his testimony, he admitted lying in wait several times for General von Seeckt, present head of the Reichswehr, because the Cheka had decided that he "must not only be wounded but killed, since otherwise we shall simply be making a mess of things." He and other comrades, Neumann said, had also discussed ways and means of killing the late Hugo Stinnes, because the Cheka had ordered his "elimination." He admitted having received personally $1,000 from the Soviet Embassy in Berlin, in addition to $25,000 for the purchase of arms; and estimated the total amount disbursed by the Embassy at $200,000. He also testified that "one Lou" had introduced him to "one Eve" who had supplied him with typhoid and dysentery bacilli.

The Communist defense, conducted in rotation by eleven lawyers, declared Neumann was insane.

As if staring into a mirror of their misery, Germans gazed at their newspapers, read of an appalling crime. Two boys, one 16 years old, the other 14, entered their parents' bedroom where they were sleeping with their two small daughters. The 14-year-old boy hit each of them on the head with a hammer; the older boy killed each with a hatchet. This was in the village of Weiher, near Kulmbach, Bavaria.

*Cheka, an extraordinary commission sitting under the Bolshevik regime to try political prisoners.