VON CRAMM CONVICTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1938, Page 2

VON CRAMM CONVICTED

HEARING BY SPECIAL COURT IN CAMERA SENTENCE OF ONE YEAR’S IMPRISONMENT BERLIN, May 14. The trial of the noted tennis player, G. Von Cramm, was held by a special court at 10 a.m. No witnesses were called for the prosecution. Junior counsel for the defence, Herr Langbiel, called seven witnesses who testified to von Cramm’s character.

Judge Sponer announced that von Cramm was charged under paragraph 175 of the Penal Code dealing with sexual offences.

The public prosecutor applied for a hearing in camera. Von Cramm’s chief counsel, Dr Gehricke, assented and 15 foreign journalists and a number of spectators were ordered to leave the court.

Von Cramm, who was dressed in a black suit, was pale, but his countenance was immobile. He clearly and tersely answered questions concerning his parentage and other details. The prosecutor left the court at 11.20 a.m. and announced that the trial was over. Half an hour later the judge, in passing sentence, stated than von Cramm was unhappily married to an unfaithful wife. Von Cramm then committed offences against a young actor and visited homosexual night-clubs before

1933. Later he was blackmailed for more than £2OOO. The judge pointed out that while von Cramm’s services to German sport had been taken into account, he had also damaged the reputation of German sport. Von Cramm was convicted and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, less two months which he has already served.