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Polish Court Pardons Merchant Who Insulted Hitler

March 11, 1936
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Sentenced to eight months in prison for insulting Reichsfuehrer Hitler, Nahum Halberstadt, a Jewish dealer in chemicals, is a free man today as a result of a general amnesty decreed by the Polish authorities.

The Higher Court quashed the sentence imposed on him last Sept. 26 for returning a letter from a German firm soliciting his trade with a notation on the back of the unopened envelope that he would not buy German goods “as long as Hitler and his gang rule Germany.”

The letter, intercepted by the Reich postal authorities in 1933, was made the subject of Foreign Office representations to the Polish Government. As a result, Halberstadt was arraigned and sentenced under Article III of the Criminal Code, which makes it a crime to insult the head of a friendly nation.

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