Nazis Behead 2 for Role in Wessel Death

Solly Epstein, a Jewish painter, 28 years old, and Hans Ziegler, an “Aryan” barber, 30 years old, were beheaded early this morning in the courtyard within the walls of Ploetzensee Prison here, charged with complicity in the murder of Horst Wessel, a Nazi underworld character who was proclaimed by Hitler the national hero of Germany immediately after the Nazis came into power.

Epstein, it was stated here today, was the first Jew in German history to die on the block. He was arrested together with Ziegler and others last year, when the Nazis decided to revive the case of Horst Wessel, who was murdered five years ago.

ACTUAL KILLER DEAD

The actual murderer of Wessel, a man by the name of Albrecht Hoehler, “died in prison” shortly before he was put on trial.

Wessel was shot dead in January, 1930, in a quarrel over a woman, known in the Berlin underworld as “Lucie of Alexander-platz,” with whom he had been living. The murder was not for political reasons, as the Nazis charged. Two of the chief suspects escaped from Germany after serving a short term in jail. Epstein and Ziegler were convicted only on the allegation that they kept watch in the street while Wessel was being slain in his apartment.

The entire case was looked upon in 1930 as an underworld quarrel. When the Nazis came into power, however, they revived it as a political incident. Horst Wessel, who was a Nazi, was proclaimed a national hero of the Nazi revolution. A marching song, which he had written for the Nazi storm troops, known as the “Horst Wessel Lied,” became one of the national hymns of Nazi Germany.

On June 15 of last year, Epstein and Ziegler, having been rearrested as accomplices in the murder of Horst Wessel, were sentenced to seven and a half years at hard labor, after it was revealed at the trial that Albrecht Hoehler, who died in prison, admitted before his death that he had shot Wessel. The verdict was, how-