An Austrian journalist, who had praised Adolf Hitler as “the only man who showed as how to avoid a world war,” was acquitted yesterday of the charge of spreading Nazi propaganda. By a vote of 7-1 the jury of a district court at Feldkirch in western Austria acquitted Walter Ochsenberg who was tried under an Austrian law which prohibit Nazi propaganda.
The 37-year-old defendant claimed that the statements published under a pen name in the magazine “Sieg” (Victory), were not his own but a quotation of remarks made by a friend who died several years ago. Nevertheless, Ochsenberg said, he felt that the statement was correct.
“It was Hitler who showed the Germans and the whites of the world the one and only alternative, how we can avoid a new world war–the second world war–and the danger of an ensuing collapse of our culture,” the statements read. “It was an historic infamy when Hitler was taken aback by the West and the Third Reich, a bastion against Bolshevism, was torn down.”
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.
