The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-04-30


the complete destruction of the Com
munist movement in Germany, has
just come to a close after dragging
on for ten weeks OF the sixteen ac-
cused, three have been condemned to
death, and thirteen to prison terms
amounting altogether to about 80
years. All the sentences are based
upon the evidence of police-spies, for
the most part on that of Felix Neu-
mann, an insane epileptic who was
carefully coached. for year preced-
ing the trial by Vogt, the examining
Judge.
The Cheka trial is only the preface
to still graver attack upon the Com
munist Party of Germany. Next
month practically all the leaders of
the party, including Ruth Fischer and
Comrade Thalmann, Communist can
didate in the presidential elections,
are to be brought to trial, in a desper-
ate attempt to deal death blow to
the one force in Germany today to
which the working class can look for
leadership in their struggle against
their intolerable enslavement under
the Dawes plan.
Attempt to Destroy c. p.
When the efforts of General Seeckt,
year ago, to destroy Communism in
Germany by open and brutal suppress
sion under martial law, proved a com
plete failure, and despite the prevail
ing white terror the Communist poll
ed over three and one-half million
votes in the elections, German capt.
talism began to seek other methods
for crushing the spirit of revolt stead
lily gaining force among the masses,
and breaking down their glowing con-
fidence in Communist leadership
They decided on the use of so-called
legal" means for the discrediting and
suppression Of the party, and to this
end devoted year of careful prepar-
alton to arranging a trial for high
treason in connection with the upris-
ings of 1928, concocting a wild ex-
travaganza in which cholera germs,
mysterious women "Cheko" agents,
Russian Red Army generals. rabbits
and Hugo SHINES were all mixed up
in a ridiculous hodge-podge in best
dime-novel style. In fact, it is stated
that the Red plot" is the invention of
bright young police official who has
since left for this country to write
for the movies.
Insane Spy's Story.
The story goes that during the revo-
lutionary crisis Of 1928 there existed
in Germany a secret "Cheka," con-
trolled and financed by Moscow, and
I'd by Russian Red Army generals. A
certain Lou" alleged to be former
employee of the Soviet embassy, in
troduced Neumann, the insane police
spy, to mysterious female known as
"Comrade Eve" who supplied him
with cholera and typhoid germs, with
which Skoblevsky, one of the Russian
generals, instructed him to get rid of
Hugo SHINES, General Won Seeckt,
and other leading German Industrial
lists and counterrevolutionari Ply
sicians who attended SHINES at the
time of his death failed to find any
trace of such germs" and totally dis
credited the crazy yarn; moreover
Seeckt and all the others whose doom
the "Cheka" is said to have pro-
nounced happen to be alive and well
today-but little details of this sort
did not hamper the prosecution in
the slightest degree.
Russia Dragged In.
The greatest efforts were made by
the prosecution to drag in not only
the central executive committee of
the German Communist Party, but al
so the Comintern and Soviet Russia.
In order to prove that Russia has
to do with the matter" the
police arrested in the streets of Ber-
lin on March "a, 1924, man with the
name of Skoblewski, who only
month before arrived in Berlin from
France, where he was sent in 1915 by
the czarlst government with a trans
port OF troops, and where he has lived
ever since. Skoblewski was on his
way back to Russia, and, as France
did not have any Russia embassy at
that time, was staying in Berlin for
the completion Of his papers for his
journey to Russia. Neumann was
made to declare that the poor immi-
grant worker was Red Army gener.
al, "Helmuth," sent from Russia TO
head the German "Cheka."
Both the German central executive
and the Comintern issued statements
in this connection, definitely pointing
out that individual acts OF terrorism
are completely opposed by Commun.
list theory and practice, and exposing
the whole clumsy frame-up.
The one act OF violence actually
proved in the course Of the trial was
the shooting of a fellow police spy,
Rausch, by the insane Neumann him.
self. Neumann tried to make the
Communist Party responsible for this
act, altho he had been in the service
of the nolica for vaara hafora "a m.