THE SECRET TERRORS OF BERLIN

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 239, 5 January 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SECRET TERRORS OF BERLIN

What Scotland Yard is to Loudon the Molken market is to Berlin. In my capaeity as detective (writes Ex-Detec-tive P. L. Trench in "Pearson's Weekly") I was on one occasion attached to tha Molkenmarkt, being sent there from Now York, and having the task of identifying certain suspects as they were roped in by the Berlin police. I wa ti detailed to help the police in the identification of two men, wanted in Debreczen, Hungary, for a triple niurder committed early in March, 1914, and as I had seen both when they appeared in a sketch in New York I was a valuable aid to the authorities. The crime was that wherein three people lost their lives as the result of an explosion which took place in a certain parcel, addressed to the Archbishop of Debreczen, being opened by a secretary attached to the bishop's house-hold.

Nearly £SOOO was offered for the discovery of the two men—Cataru Orhei and Timofeti Kirilow —both charged with the crime, and all the police of Berlin were on the jump to capture the reward. •

In their anxiety to lay hands on the right parties the police were like bloodhounds on the trail, .and it was then 1 had an opportunity of swing the inner working of the secret police of the Molkenmarkt.

I may say here .that the police of Berlin are divided into two separate bodies. The day police are maintained Iry the State, and have no hand in the night work, that being attended to by the night police, a body of men maintained by the municipal authorities, and the people paying for their services as they do for our own men.

THE POLICE BULLY

The Superintendent of Police in Ber, lin is a man of much authority. He s. in all respects a petty magistrate, and has powers that are only granted to magistrates in England. He is a terror to the criminal, or to the unfortunates whom he sets down as criminals; and from bis decision to detain a suspect there is no appeal. He can, and I have known him to do so, keep a man in a cell for as long as a week, until he was fully satisfied that the man was not the one ho wanted. On the occasion of my visit the police were bringing in suspects every day, and anyone who looked at all like cither of the two wanted men was sure to see the inside of the dread dungeons of the Molkenmarkt. On the third day after my arrival ;:i Berlin I was taken to thiJ cells to have a look at. a man who bore a generil likeness In one of the wanted men. 1 was not sure that he might not be the man, and, in a moment of forgetfulness, 1 said so. Then began a time of terror Tor thfl niit'ortiin; to suspect. You all bar? board something about the "Third Degree" of the American police. Well, 1 am in a position to tell you that this awful practice bad its origin in Berlin: and the form in which it is practise! in America is a very mild form of brutality compared with the tenors f the secret police of Berlin. The ensp of the suspect to which 1 bavo alluded will go ti illustrate mv point, and show the method of the inquisition as practised on the suspects of the police in the "home of all the world's refinement." as the proud citizens love to describe Berlin. At two o'clock in the afternoon the si'spcct was brought from his cell and ]»!'.ieed in front of the grim-looking table at which sat the inquisitor, I lie perso'i of the. Superintendent -it the District. H? was a dark-browed bully. :nd gloried ill his work of ex--1 -acting n confession from a stubborn and. to his way of tjliinkimr. prisoner.

CRUELLY TORTURED.

He proceeded to ask all sorts of barfling questions, and tried to confuse the man into making some kind of admission that would be capable of being twisted into an acknowledgment <Tt guilt. He gave the poor man no rest, but Kept him on the go for such a long time that in the end the prisoner became confused, and could not say of * certainty if he had actually said what the Superintendent read out to him as part of what he had admitted. But the prisoner steadfastly refused to sign anything, and with an oath he was ordered to be taken below, and "made to see the error of his ways."

Day after day the poor prisoner -was subjected to awful torture, and in the end his brain began to grve .way. I was very much concerned at the "turn things had taken, and made a point of telling the Superintendent that I was now 6ure that the man was not in any way connected with the crime. But it was too late; he had got the idea into his bull head that the man was a criminal of some sort, and all I could say only had the effect of making the man more terrible in his determination to get the better of the prisoner and, to use his own words, "make the brute confess to something, for I have gone too far now to turn back.'"

1 had an interview with the poor fellow in his cold and dreary cell, and gave him a hint of how the land lay. He was almost too far gone to take any interest in his own fate, but was firm in his resolve to gay nothing that would give the police bully a chance to pass off his brutality as" part of a successful inquisition. In two more days—making the tenth day of the man' 3 confinement in the cells —there came an inquiry as to what the police had done with the prisoner arrested at the point of a, revolver ten days ago. This was a poser for the big bully, and he at once said that the man bad been liberated in less than an hour after his arrest, and that the department knew nothing of him.

Where the. prisoner disappeared to after this inquiry I hare never found out.

Later I heard thai he had been very well connected, and that he was ashamed of being found in the plao where he was arrested. That was the secret of his silence, and the uproar that came about in consequence of his disappearance was enough to make the Superintendent leave the force, and we who once know him, now know him no more.

Hidden away below tlte floor of the Molkenmarkt are a number of cells that are called the "cooters." Here it is that fcha unfortunates who are "suspects" are allowed to choose between making a confession of that they know nothing about or taking the "treatment." This "treatment" is the refinement of cruelty, and care is taken that it is only applied to those who are not able to command the aid of people in power. So, in case anyone is to have the treatment, care is taken to have no witnesses, and if a row is kicked up the one doing the kicking is booked for a railroading at the earliest opportunity. It is a well-known fact that, when the Crown Prince was connected sonj*» years ago with certain unmentionable offences, one of the principal witnesses against him was given the "treatment," and so effectually was it administered that the unfortunate lad —for ho was only a lad —died in time to avoid one of the most revolting revelations that ever disgraced the annals "»f any country, civilised or not. Others who might have east a stain on the Royal Blackguard's character were "railroaded" —that is, switched aside into the tombs called convict prisons—until they either died or became hopelessly insane. The "warden" is the name given 'o an instrument of tertore employed to force prisoners to speak. This relic of a barbarous age is matfe to fit tightly around the legs and arms of to be tortured, and the gradual stoppage of the circulation causes such awful agony that under the treatment if the "warden" poor folk have made admissions that have passed muster in the criminal courts, and have sent the half-mad "culprit*" to prison.