The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 2, 1927, Page 10

The Case of Max Holz _— - M** Holz did not spring from the proletariat of the big towns but of the country. After leaving echool he first worked as a farm hand. The intelli- gent youth, however, made the acquaintance of an engineer, who: took him to England with him and i thus he gained a wider horizon. Strictly educated as a Catholic, Holz, right thruout his youth had petty bourgeois ideals. He was desirous of obtain- ing a better position in life for himself in order to we able to recompense his parents in their old age for the trouble and sacrifice they had had to under- | £0 to rear and, educate their children. | It was not until the world war that Max Holz be- | gan t6 concern himself with social problems, He was first drawn into the economic and political strug- | gles of the working class in the post-war period. In | the year 1919 one-third of the population of the | fittle town nin Falkenstein, in Vogtland, was unem- | ployed. Max Holz was elected to the Unemployed Gouncil, As he very energetically championed the gnterests of the unemployed he soon came into con- flict with the laws of the bourgeois state. Perse euted for having caused disturbances, he had to flee. It was in this period of illegality that he made his first attempt to obtain a fundamental knowledge rey garding the proletarian class struggle. His teacher was the former socialdemocratic member of the reichstag, Ruhle, who at that time had become 4 typical ultra-left supporter of the K, A. P. D. (Com- munist Labor Party). Holz very rapidly grasped the world outlook and the aims of Marxism, but as regards the methods of the class struggle he never ebtained a Leninist training. Dominated by a pas- gionate temperament, he exerted a suggestive force @pon the masses. In 1920, on the occasion of the Kapp Putsch, Holz fmmediately emerged from his illegality and with his few hundred armed proletarians, who nevertheless yielded him unquestioning obedience, succeeded in exercising such a power in Vogtland that the gov- ernment saw itself compelled to dispatch a greater force of reichswehr troops against him. The Vogt- Yand proletariat was unable to stand against this { * Chamberlain: Thru my participation im the WHACHEFUL occupation of China. guperior force. After his band of followers had been droken up Holz fied to ‘Czecho-Slovakia. The German government demanded his_arrest and extradition as a common robber and an incendiary. The Czech courts, however, were compelled, owing to the proofs brought before by the defense, to recog- nize that the actions of Holz did not constitute com- mon crimes, but military measures in civil war, and therefore Holz was able to claim right of asylum as a political fugitive. The Czech government there- upon refused to extradite Max Holz. In the proceed- fmes connected with the demand for his extradition the lying assertions of the bourgeois press that Marx Holz was a common criminal were officially refuted. Holz did not, however, remain for long in secure asylum abroad, but like @ true revolutionary and wm spite of the fact that over a dozen warrants were put for his arrest, returned secretly to Germany and earried on agitation for the proletarian revolution. The solidarity of his class comrades, shielded him for over a year from his persecutors, The intensi- fication of the situation in Central Germany in March 1921, the act of provocation by Severing and Horsing fm calling in the Schupo (Defensive Police), again summoned Holz to the scene of struggle. He im- mediately appeared as the recognized military leader m the head of the fighting poletariat of Central Ger- many. After the defeat of the working class Hols again went into hiding. Owing to treachery he Bnally fell into the hands of the authorities, The trial of Max Hola before the special court yas dominated by the demand of the bourgeoisie for yengeance for his having attempted to call into question their rule. It was demanded that Hols should not be tried and sentenced as a political pris- oner, but that he should be branded as a common criminal, A reward of over 50,000 marks was of- fered merely for evidence that should serve to “con- vict” Max Holz. All this hounding down did not fail to achieve its result. While Holz’s troops were crossing the Manor of Roitz an estate owner named Hess was shot. The prosecuting authorities now endeavored to make Holz out to be the murderer of this estate owner, Altho at the preliminary pro- ceedings the widow of the deceased, at repeated examinations, had not recognized Holz as the perpe- trator, at the main proceedings and under the pres- sure of the whole atmosphere of suggestion prevatl- ing, she indicated Max Holz as the one who had fired the shot. A member of Holz’s band was also found who declared that he had seen Holz shoot the estate owner. Another man of his band, who had previously been given three years imrisonment for fraud, who claimed to be a writer and journalist and had joined the “Red army” as reporter (in reality as a spy), stated that he bad heard Holz say that — 0 Ale - Briand: ‘Thru my vigorous action in the PACH FICATION action in Morocco. The Peace Prize Farce The four drawings surrounding this note is a German Communist artist’s portrayal of the farcical action of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in bestow- ing the honor and the money connected with it on four such notorious capital- ist butchers as Chamberlain, Strese- mann, Dawes and Briand. Each brigand tells why he was awarded the peace prize. While the armies and navies of England, France and the United States are shooting down colonial peoples who are trying to free themselves from for- eign imperialism, the German bour- geoisie are riding roughshod over their own wage slaves and clubbing demon- strations of the unemployed. The story of Max Holtz’s incarceration which ap- pears on this page proves how sincere are the peace efforts of those gentle- men. . Mecreaan se Stresemann: Apparently thru my agreement wo article 16 of the covenant of the league of nations: whenever one country of this league feels threaten- ed by Russia the other states must support tt by all means against peace. i —_—— By Felix Halle (Berlin) he, along with his followers, had shot the estate owner. These statements did not suffice even the bour- geois court to condemn Holz as a murderer as the prosecution desired. The court found a way out by bringing in a verdict of an unpremeditated killing, that is, manslaughter. The sentencing of ‘Holz to 15 years imprisonment for manslaughter with loss of civil rights enabled the court also in other cases to represent him as a man who did not have much consideration for the lives of his fellow-men, At his trial Holz admitted all his revolutionary acts and only emphatically denied the charge of murder and manslaughter of the estate owner and two other alleged attempts to kill. After being sen- tenced Holz consistently characterized the sentence on account of manslaughter as an error of justice, and took up the fight against this. Holz spoke the truth. Now, after five and a half years, the one who actually committed the deed for which Holz was con- demned has made a confession before a notary and will give himself up within the next few days. Fol- lowing on this confession the chief witness for the prosecution has now declared that his statement at the trial was due to mistaken identity. Even the widow of the deceased, Frau ‘less, has admitted in a written declaration that she may have been mis- taken in her accusation of Hols, Max Holz has been condemned to.a total sentence of life long imprisonment and permanent loss of all rights, With the fresh evidence the Hess case completely falls to the ground. As no person found guilty of high treason is to be found in prison—at least so far as members of the right parties are concerned—the crime of high treason for which Holz can now only be held guilty, must, after five and a half years’ imprisonment, be pronounced as having been expiated. Even according to bourgeois law there no longer exists any reason for keeping Max Hols in prison. The working class must there- fore demand his release all the more energetically. Dawes: Thru my planto get twice as mum PEACEFULLY out of the German railroads. The Cruiser Potemkin. By EUGENE KREININ. The shadow of Potemkin, ‘ And the enemy crawls back into @ nook of defense. Fear in the heart, As black as its deeds; It turns the face from the danger 4 caraecrrtiensiciatatia pias