A formal demand was made on Germany today by the Czechslovakian government for the surrender of the two murderers of Professor Theodor Lessing, noted philosopher and pacifist, who was slain in the villa he occupied at Marienbad, Czechoslovakia, after his flight from the Nazis in Germany.
Pointing out that the two men, Rudolf Eckert, a German-born Czechoslovakian citizen, and Franz Zischka, were ordinary criminals, the Czechoslovakian government asked for their extradition in accordance with the international extradition treaty.
Eckert and Zischka had been identified with Nazi activities in this country and early came under suspicion in the Lessing case when bloodhounds used by the police followed the trail of the murderers from the Marienbad villa to Eckert’s home in a nearby village.
The two men, it was established, fled over the German border, evading a police and border guard dragnet, and were welcomed by Nazi storm-troopers there. According to boasts of Nazi sympathizers in Eckert’s village of Schanz, the two fugitives were brought to Nuremberg at the time the Nazi party convention was taking place.
The attack on Professor Lessing, one of the bitterest foes of the Nazi regime and the man most thoroughly hated by Nazi leaders, on the night of August 31, followed a series of venomous attacks on him in the Nazi press, including the Voelkischer Beobachter, the newspaper published by Adolf Hitler. It was current belief that a substantial price had been set on the famous philosopher’s head and he had received several death threats.
Professor Lessing was assassinated as he lay sleeping in a bedroom on the second floor of his villa at Marienbad. Police established that two men, mounted on ladders, fired one shot each through an open window at the famous German-Jewish exile, both shots finding their mark in his head.
Evidence revealing that the murder had been carefully planned after Nazi enthusiasts had been strongly incited to slay the foe of Hitlerism, was discovered by the Czechoslovakian police.
No word has been received here, it is understood, as to the German government’s reaction to the extradition demand. The two men have been regarded as heroes by the Nazi press, and it is believed that the Nazi regime will find some pretext for refusing the Czechoslovakian extradition demand.
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