Evening star., 1933-12-23
SENTENCE OF DEATH
GIVEN FOR TREASON
IN REICHSTAG FIRE
Van der Lubbe, Young Dutch
man, Found Guilty After
Sensational Trial.
FOUR C0-DEFENDANTS
ACQUITTED BY COURT
Judge Denounces Communist Ac-
tivities and Stresses Threat
to Undermine Nation.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press
LEIPZIG, December 23.-Death
stalked through the Supreme Court in
the early morning Of this murky day
lust before Christmas and singled out
a young Dutchman, Marinus van der
Lubbe, for the expiation of the crime
Of burning the German Reichstag Build
ing.
The court, rolling down the curtain
after three months of trial sessions,
passed a penalty of death upon Van
der Lubbe and acquitted his four CO.
defendants.
They were Ernst Torgler, former Com
munist whip in the Reichstag, and three
BULGARIAN refugees Georgi Dimitrof,
Blagoi Popof and Wassil Taneff.
Van der Lubte UncOncerned.
Van der Lubbe did not appear to take
anv notice of the verdict. Apathetlc at
the end as in the beginning OF the trlaI
"a grotesque figure in hunched-oVer
position, with a shock Of tousled halr
almost touching his knees-he seemed
already dead.
If the others defended their lives hero
icallv before the meticulouS court, the
young Hollander gave his up brayely;
Hated by Communists and despised
by Nazis, no one except his cthclal
counsel and his mother in faraway Ley
den had a good word of him.
But if Van Der Lubbe received no IA
yors. he asked none. He did not shrink
from bearing the burden of a crime
that was hailed by government Leaders
as having made Germany safe for Nail
ism-and he never betrayed his accom-
pnces, if any
Took Entire Blame.
Throughout the, trial, Van der Lubbe
insisted that he set the fire alone ana
unaided.
To the sauve Communist leader, Torg-
Ter, the verdict did not seem to come as
a surprise. He glanced affectionately
at his wife, who sat in the first row OF
spectators next to Dimitroff's mother
an elderly woman with pleasant, wrln-
kled face and a shawl tied around her
head peasant fashion.
Dimitroffs sister was there, too, an
energetic woman like her brother. d.
nlitroff, the voluble-Who as his own
counsel frequently aroused the ire OF
the court by his remarkS-tooK the ac-
quittal with quiet smile.
The two other Bulgarians, TaneH ana
Popoff. grinned happily.
Special police precautions, including
the calling out Of brigade OF storm
troops to patrol the streets, proved un-
necessary when only a handful Of spec
tators appeared, braving the rain out
side the court building.
Guilty of High Treason.
The official wording of the charge on
which Van der Lubbe was found guilty
was, High treason in conjunction with
an act of insurrectionary incend1arism
and an act of simple incendiarism."
The presiding judge. Wilhelm Buen-
ger, pronounced the verdict.
Summing up, he said the court had
not been influenced by any emotion"
He said one of the objects of the trial
was to refute stories about incendiar1sm
circulated abroad. The trial. he added,
absolutely had rebutted these slanders.
Judge Buenger further said that po-
litical motives in the incendiariSm had
been proved.
1T was proved that Van der Lubbe's
accomplices are to be found in the ranks
of the Communists" he said, asserting
that Germany stood at the brink Of an
abyss last Spring from which she was
saved at the last minute.
Confession Admitted.
Emphasizing that the Hollander was
arrested on the scene of the fire, the
night of last February 81. Buenger said
the court had no doubt about his con-
fession.
The Judge insisted, however, that Van
der Lubbe had accomplices whom the
court had been unable to find.
Van der Lubbe," he said, worked
with others-perhaps only a few; this
has been confirmed by the testimony OF
experts"
Court officials announced that Torgler
and the BulgarianS would remain in
the custody Of police as avowed oppo-
nents of the present Nazi regime.
1t was expected that a new indict-
ment would be prepared soon against
Torgler, Ernest Thaelmann, former
chairman of the Communist parlia-
mentary delegation, and other Commu-
mist leaders, while the Bulgarians would
either be Immediately elected from the
country, as undesirables, or possibly first
charged with using falsified passports.
Form of Execution Undetermined.
The law under which Van der Lubbe
was sentenced provides a possibility of
hanging. which deviates from the Ger
man custom of beheading; but the court
officials were unable to say Immediately
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