* * A Reichstag Fire Echo The document purporting to
be a signed declaration by the former Nazi leader Herr Ernst, that he himself and two of the men under his command, together with the Dutchman van der Lubbe, fired the Reichstag on February 27th of last year by arrangement with General- Goering and Dr. Goebbels may be true or false. Ernst himself and the two men he names as his collaborators were all killed in the slaughter of June 30th—and it is not entirely without significance that one motive of that slaughter was said at the time to be the necessity of suppressing evidence regarding the Reichstag conflagra- tion. The document in most respects corroborates the story in the notorious memorandum of the late Nationalist leader, Dr. Oberfohren, but the authenticity, of that memorandum is still disputed, and in any ease the author of the Ernst document would be familiar with it. Ernst and his two alleged collaborators are dead. General Goering, Dr. Goebbels and Dr. Hansfstaengel, against all of whom charges are brought, would naturally denounce them as lying slanders. All that can be said at present is that while the Ernst statement may quite possibly be authentic it would have been singularly easy to forge. Much more information about its origin and history is needed.
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