In announcing the verdict, Presiding Judge Wuethrich declared that under the law it was not necessary to show whether the Weltdienst, Col. Ulrich Fleischauer’s anti-Semitic news service operating from Erfurt, Germany, for which Toedli worked, was entirely a camouflaged organization handing over its information to the German authorities.
The court is satisfied, Judge Wuethrich said, with the evidence that in at least one instance Fleischauer turned over to the German authorities information received from Switzerland.
“Under every dictatorship denunciations are the rule of the day,” the verdict declared. “It must therefore be assumed that a fanatic like Fleischauer occasionally has also been guilty of denunciations, without assuming that this was the chief purpose of his activities.”
The judge asserted that Toedli deserved server punishment, but in the court’s opinion Toedli was guilty of lying and swindling and it was not worthwhile making him a martyr.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
