LEIPZIG TRIAL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 690, 16 November 1933, Page 2

LEIPZIG TRIAL

SCENE AT IMPiOSING SEAT OF GERLAN . JUSTICE. HISTORIC ASSOCIATIONS. A bronze figure of Truth, 18 feqt high,, stands above the building ih which the Leipzig Trial of the men , accUsed'of firing the German Reichstag is running. its course. It is an imposing building, designed in the Italian Renaissance style, and completed in the 'nineties. In the spacious cenltral hall— 3.09ft long, 75ft broad, and 76ft liigh' — are seulptures that symbolise the august powers of Justice.

As in the British Royal Courts of Justice, the courts where justice is administered are on the first floor. The course in Leipzig is ornate, if ju>£ fiorid, generously gilded, and with definite, though unintehtio'nial, suggestion of the Opera House. There are galleries and dais, and on the dais is a, semi-circular tahle at which the judges sit. There used to be seveh judges, but post-inflation economy has reduced the number to five. They wear maroon-coioured gowns with velvet collars and sit in impressive chairs. With them,- sim'ilarly arrayed, sits the Official Prosecutor (says a writer in the NewsChronicle). , Hjectic Occasions. In this, the German Supreme Court 0f Appeal, were- tried Captain Trench and Lieutenant Brandon for espionage in 1910 — jBritish officers whom the Kaiser pardoned on the occasion of the visit of the King and Queen to Berlin in the spring of 1913. Here, much more recently — to be preeise, on September 25, 1930 — /Hitler made his memoralble observation on decapitation. Hitler arrived at the Reichsgericht amid fervent cries of "Wake up, Germany." to give evidence at tie ' trial for high treason of three Heichswehr officers and the President read ia letter in which Hitler had written: "In this fight heads will roll in the sandeither ours or those of our opp'onents. Therefore, let us see that the others will roll." Hitler replied to the judge: "If We are victorious, th'en a new State tribunal will be elected which will leal with those criminals of 1918. Heads will then roll certainly." An observation that was greeted with loud applause, immediately silcnced — 'of course — |hy the President. Why at Leipzig? Wihy is the trial being held in Leipzig instead of in Berlin. The answer to that question is that the Supreme Court of the German Republie is in Leipzig. German justice is not ,as iu England iand France, concentrated in the capital. The German Empire was, until Hitler willed otherwise, a collectioh of States. The Supreme Court of Appeal is in Leipzig, just as the Finanzho'f, or final court of appeal on finaneial and fiscal matters ia in Munich. In Leipzig, before the German Empire was established, law was administered for the North German Federation. WJhen the Empire was created, its jurisdietion was extfended to the South German States. In 1879, by a further expansion of its functions, it became the all-German Court of Appeal.