Word: torgler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Erstwhile German Communist Hero Ernst Torgler, target of Moscow eulogies while he was a defendant in the Reichstag Fire Trial (TIME, Sept. 25, 1933 et seq.). was announced last week by New York's Communist Daily Worker to be living expensively near Berlin with erstwhile Communist Heroine Marie Reese. About to publish a book in which it is rumored they will describe how they have been converted from Communism to Naziism, Torgler & Reese, according to the Daily Worker, have been expelled from the Communist Party...
...simple Storm Troopers. Few of them knew or cared that State Prosecutor Karl Werner, after hurling philippics for weeks at the five Reds, had ended by admitting that the State had no case against three of them, the Bulgarians Dimitroff, Taneff and Popoff. Against the German prisoner, Comrade Ernst Torgler, onetime Reichstag whip of the German Communist Party, Prosecutor Werner summed up thus: "When I put everything together I come to the conclusion that Torgler, in some way or other, had an active part in the Reichstag fire. The nature of such participation has not been 'shown...
...accused Torgler, Popoff. Dimitroff and Taneff are acquitted. The accused Lubbe, on ground of High Treason in connection with seditious arson and attempted simple arson is condemned to death and to perpetual loss of civil rights...
...Saturday next, the Supreme Court of Germany will announce its solution of the dilemma it faces today: what to do with Torgler? Last Thursday the prosecution, with self-consciousness oozing copiously from each paragraph, demanded the death by hanging of this Communist and his alleged soulmate, Vander Lubbe, and dismissed the charges against Dmitroff, Taneff, and Popoff, the Bulgarians. This far the Nazis were willing to go in the strange realm of generosity; it would have been hopelessly crude to ask for the conviction of these last three Bolsheviks, against whom only the most insignificant evidence was ever advanced...
Nevertheless, though no one can predict what peculiar decisions will next emanate from Hitler's warped mentality, I should say that Torgler's chances of acquittal were strong. It is true that this might bring further attention to bear on the question of the real firebugs, but that embarrassment is inevitable whatever the decision. To execute Torgler with such patently illogical and insufficient evidence would only serve first to focus sympathy on a Red, and secondly, suspicion and hatred on his enemies; men of Torgler's courage and intelligence make martyrs not soon forgotten. Acquittal will be a hard degree...