KRANZ ACQUITTED

Evening Star, Issue 19797, 22 February 1928, Page 8

KRANZ ACQUITTED

THE BERLIN SENSATION VERDICT LOUDLY APPLAUDED. BERLIN, February 20. Kranz was acquitted of manslaughter, but was sentenced to three weeks’ imprisonment for illegal possession of firearms. He bad been in gaol for that period, .so he walked out of the court. The verdict was loudly applauded by the crowds in the court. The prosecution had demanded a year’s imprisonment for complicity in manslaughter, and Kranz impassionately replied: “ 1 am innocent; give me a chance to make good as a man for my moral errors as a child.” [The case of Kranz, a schoolboy, who was charged with murdering a hoy friend, recalling the Leopold-Loeb case in Chicago, caused a sensation in Berlin. It wdl form a standard document for the historian of social life since the war in Germany, particularly as regards the consequences of the precocity of a youth playing on passions which he is unable, to control. Leading sociologists, doctors, authors, lawyers, and professors were present at the trial analysing the psychology of the drama. Kranz, who is eighteen years of age, was a scholarship winner, his chief reading since being arrested having been Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dostoievsky. Kranz was visiting the house of a schoolboy friend, Schellcr, on the night of the tragedy, others present being a third schoolboy, Stephan, and Scliellor’s sister, Hildegard, aged sixteen. The girl’s parents being absent, tho boys sat up tho 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 worry. Time will roll On.” Tho letter-ended with the intimation that Stephan and Hildegard would bo killed, and the others would commit suicide with a smile. Kranz stated that Scheller shot Stephan and committed suicide, and lie was about to commit suicide liimsclf when the girl snatched tho revolver. Some of the evidence suggested that Stephan, being found in Hiklegard’s bedroom, precipitated tho tragedy. There was also evidence that some of the boys belonged to a juvenile club, tlie statutes of which strictly enjoined that all members who were deceived by men or women friends must avenge themselves upon their rivals. Subsequently tho charge was amended to one of manslaughter.]