JUVENILE CRIME

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 114, 11 February 1928, Page 10

JUVENILE CRIME

LURID LIGHT ON SOCIAL LIFE IN GERMANY MURDER OR DEATH PACT? SENSATIONAL CASE IN BERLIN BY Telegraph.—press association. Copyright. (Rec. February 10. 9.15 p.m.) Berlin, February 9. The case of Kranz, a schoolboy charged with murdering a boy friend, recalling the Leopold-Loeb case in Chicago, has caused a sensation m Berlin. It will form a standard document for the historian of the social life since the war in Germany, particularly as regards the consequences of the precocity of youth playing on passions which they are unable to control. Leading sociologists, doctors, authors, lawyers, and professors are present at the trial analysing the phychology of the drama. Kranz, aged 18 years, was a scholarship winner. His chief reading since he was arrested has beep Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dostoievsky. Kranz was visiting the house of a schoolbov friend, Scheller, on the night of the tragedy, others present being a third schoolboy, Stephan, and Scheller’s sister, Hildegard, aged 16, the girl’s parents being ■ absent., lhe bovs sat up at night drinking liqueurs and talking of love. The discussion finally turned on death, and Scheller proposed that all four should die. He wrote a letter to the Universe . beginning: “Dear Universe, —A single portion of your organism perishes. Don’t worrv.’ Time will roll on.” The letter ended with the intimation that Stephan and Hildegard would be killed, and the others would commit suicide. With a smile, Kranz states, Scheller shot Stephan and committed suicide, and he was about to commit suicide himself when the girl snatched the revolver. Some of the evidence suggested that Stephan, being found in Hildegard’s bedroom, precipitated the tragedy. There was also evidence that some of the bovs belonged to a juvenile club, the statutes of which strictly enjoined that all members who were deceived bv men or women friends must avenge themselves upon their rivals.