The local Superior Court has upheld a precedent-setting decision invalidating the Hitler-era sale of a Jewish-owned publishing house to a high-ranking Nazi.
The court, which is the tribunal of last resort in such matters, also took judicial cognizance of the absence of restitution legislation in the Soviet Zone of Germany and ruled that, in consequence, the former Jewish owners of an “Aryanized” business located in East Germany are at liberty to reopen in West Germany under the old trade name, and to take certain other legal steps to protect their interests. They do not need to sue in East Germany, the court held.
At issue in the litigation is the right to employ the name of a scientific publishing house that was founded half a century ago at Leipzig, in what is now the Soviet Zone, by Dr, Leo Jolowicz. He died shortly after the business was taken over by an SS colonel, but his children found refuge in the United States and there his son, Walter Johnson, built up a publishing house of similar character, the “Academic Press” of New York.
After the war, the “Aryanized” firm carried on in Leipzig under Soviet rule. When the Jolowicz family re-established the old business under the old name, at Frankfurt in West Germany, a conflict developed because both firms made efforts to publish the same type of scientific literature in the field of chemistry. The Liepzig firm brought suit both there and in Frankfurt. Whereas the East German court found in favor of the plaintiffs, they were turned down in Frankfurt, by a civil court last year and now on appeal by the Superior Court.
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.
