Vossische Zeitung
- Agreement Reached
- Parliament Reconvenes in Paris
- The Last Feme Verdict
The front page opened with a domestic settlement. Talks between the government, the coalition parties and the Social Democrats produced a compromise on unemployment relief, especially crisis relief, which the paper said guaranteed passage of the government's bill at that day's session. A report from Paris said the French Chamber of Deputies was meeting again after a three-month recess that was not entirely voluntary, and remarked that Poincaré, holding decree powers, seemed to have come to enjoy governing without parliament. From Landsberg an der Warthe came the result of the last Feme murder trial: First Lieutenant Schulz and Lieutenant 'Hahn' were acquitted, and Sergeant Erich Klapproth received one year in prison for grievous bodily harm.
Translation
Agreement Reached
The announced negotiations between the government and the coalition parties on the one hand and the Social Democrats on the other led to success yesterday. In the talks between the chairman of the Social Policy Committee and the Social Democratic committee members on the question of unemployment relief, in particular crisis relief, a compromise has been reached that ensures passage of the bill submitted by the government at today's session.
Parliament Reconvenes in Paris
After a not entirely voluntary recess of exactly three months, the French Chamber of Deputies meets again tomorrow. Poincaré, who holds the necessary full powers and can therefore rule by decree, appears decidedly to have developed a taste for governing without parliament.
The Last Feme Verdict
Landsberg an der Warthe, 11 November. In today's last Feme murder trial, the defendants First Lieutenant Schulz and Lieutenant Hahn were acquitted. Sergeant Erich Klapproth was sentenced to one year in prison for grievous bodily harm and life-endangering treatment.
Context
The Gädicke case: a munitions theft punished inside the Black Reichswehr
The Landsberg verdict concerned an assault committed at Küstrin in June 1923. A local-history account based on the trial records says that in early May 1923 Sergeant Gaedicke, Lieutenant Janke and the senior artificer Balke used an ammunition transport bound for Stettin to line their own pockets by diverting extra cases of infantry ammunition. After the theft came to light, Gaedicke was led into the casemates of a fort with three other men on the pretext of inspecting planned quarters. There Klapproth, walking behind him, knocked him down with two blows of a cosh hidden under a tent sheet, and Hayn and Lieutenant Dabkowski had difficulty stopping him from doing more. A witness, Feldmann, testified that within the unit those who made money by selling army property were generally called 'informers'. Klapproth had a reputation as the man who disposed of such people. Gaedicke survived and was himself given five months in prison for theft, and at the 1926 trial he appeared as joint plaintiff. The offence the paper reports, grievous bodily harm and life-endangering treatment, therefore involved a victim who lived.
Why Schulz and Hayn were acquitted
The same account connects the acquittal with a key retraction. At his first interrogation Hayn had seriously incriminated First Lieutenant Schulz, but at the main hearing on 8 November 1926 he withdrew that statement. Chief Prosecutor Rohrlack still asked for seven years' penal servitude for Schulz, five years for Klapproth and one year and seven months in prison for Hayn. The court acquitted Schulz and Hayn, a result the account says surprised trial observers. It gave Klapproth, whom the judge called 'a good, straight, honest soldierly nature', one year for bodily harm. The result followed the pattern of the earlier Landsberg trial over the 1923 murder of Paul Gröschke. In that trial, in autumn 1926, the court sentenced First Lieutenant Raphael to eight years, while Schulz remained untouched even though the judge found him morally complicit. The Vossische Zeitung prints the second defendant's name as 'Hahn', and the trial accounts call him Lieutenant Hayn.
Schulz, the Black Reichswehr and the trials still to come
The 'last' in the headline referred to the series of Feme cases heard before the Landsberg jury court in autumn 1926, not to the end of the Feme prosecutions. Paul Schulz was the leading figure of the Feme in Brandenburg. He belonged to the so-called Black Reichswehr, an anti-republican secret organisation that supplied hidden personnel reserves for the Reichswehr and worked towards overthrowing the Weimar state. His acquittal in November 1926 did not end his legal troubles. On 26 March 1927 the Berlin III jury court sentenced him to death for incitement to the joint murder of Sergeant Walter Wilms. Schulz was released on bail in spring 1930 and fully pardoned in October 1930. Klapproth also faced further proceedings: after fleeing the Gröschke trial, he was later caught and sentenced to fifteen years for aiding and abetting murder.
What later became of Schulz and Hayn
Both acquitted defendants later became entangled in the violence of the Nazi movement. A Black Reichswehr lieutenant named Hans Hayn had escaped capture in the Ruhr in 1923 and then joined the Black Reichswehr; in October 1923 he took part in its Küstrin Putsch. The Hayn of the Landsberg trial is very probably this man. Hans Hayn became a close associate of the SA chief of staff Ernst Röhm and was murdered by members of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Schulz survived an SS attempt to kill him during the same purge in 1934 and afterwards lived abroad until the end of the war.
Poincaré's special powers and the Union nationale ministry
The Paris report's barb at Poincaré rested on the arrangement made to deal with France's financial crisis. The Cartel des gauches, which took power in 1924, soon found itself facing a severe financial crisis. Poincaré then used his standing to form a broad Union nationale ministry that included the two leaders of the Cartel, Édouard Herriot and Paul Painlevé. This fourth Poincaré cabinet held office from 23 July 1926 to 6 November 1928. As premier and finance minister, Poincaré was invested with special powers and began by demanding more than 11 billion francs in new revenue. The judgement that he had acquired a taste for governing without parliament belongs to the newspaper's correspondent.
Original
Die Verständigung erfolgt
Die angekündigten Verhandlungen zwischen der Regierung und den Koalitionsparteien einerseits und der Sozialdemokratie anderseits haben gestern zu einem Erfolge geführt. In den Besprechungen zwischen dem Vorsitzenden des Sozialpolitischen Ausschusses und den sozialdemokratischen Ausschußmitgliedern über die Frage der Erwerbslosenfürsorge, insbesondere über die Krisenfürsorge, ist ein Kompromiß erreicht worden, durch das die Verabschiedung des von der Regierung vorgelegten Gesetzentwurfes in der heutigen Sitzung gesichert ist.
Parlamentsbeginn in Paris
Nach einer nicht ganz freiwilligen Ferienpause von genau drei Monaten tritt morgen die französische Deputiertenkammer wieder zusammen. Poincaré, der im Besitze der notwendigen Vollmachten auf dem Verordnungswege zu dekretieren vermag, scheint entschieden Geschmack daran gefunden zu haben, ohne das Parlament zu regieren.
Das letzte Femeurteil
Landsberg a. d. W., 11. November. Im heutigen letzten Feme-Mordprozeß wurden die Angeklagten Oberleutnant Schulz und Leutnant Hahn freigesprochen. Der Feldwebel Erich Klapproth wurde wegen schwerer Körperverletzung und lebensgefährdender Behandlung zu einem Jahre Gefängnis verurteilt.