Belgium Resents His Volume ‘Libeling’ Friendly Government

Heinz Liepmann, author of the following, is the twenty-nine-year-old German Jewish refugee who wrote "Murder-Made in Germany," a scathing indictment, in fiction form, of the Nazi regime in Germany. After his escape from a concentration camp, he took refuge in Holland where, on February 22, he was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment because his book was considered libelous of the head of a friendly government. After he served the sentence he was deported to Belgium. In the following article he discusses the reasons and motives underlying his arrest and punishment.-Editor’s note.

The first sentence of my book "Vaterland" ("Murder-Made in Germany") says:

"There is in this novel-which is really not a novel, but a pamphlet-not one word which was not spoken in my presence, not one person whom I did not know personally, not one deed, which I did not see with my own eyes (or which was not seen and reported to me by people who have been my comrades for years and for whose reliability I vouch). With my honor, my existence and my life I am ready to answer for the actuality of all the events in this book."

In December, Van Kampen of Amsterdam, publisher of the German language edition, informed me that police had started an investigation of the book. About the middle of January I went to Amsterdam and reported to the police.

Three weeks later I received an official summons; the police chief informed me that the Dutch government had ordered me to comment upon a passage in my book dealing with the relationship between the East Prussian Relief Fund, Hindenburg’s estate and the appointment of Hitler. I made a statement and was freed. On Saturday, February 10, my housekeeper told me that during my absence two police officials had come to the house. They had left a summons demanding my appearance at the police station at nine o’clock on Monday morning. My friends earnestly advised me to leave the country at once. During the previous few weeks I had suffered a great deal as a result of the injuries which were inflicted upon me at the German concentration camp "Wittmoor." In Paris I had been operated upon twice and in Holland I had been under daily treatment by two physicians.

On Monday, February 12, I went to the police headquarters and was taken into custody. Two hundred copies of my book had been found and confiscated. After five days I was taken before the examining judge. Immediately after it became known that I had been imprisoned, my physicians protested of their own accord against the assumption that my imprisonment would not be dangerous if I did not have constant attention and treatment. But on the evening of February 16 I was informed by the investigating magistrate that I would be kept in prison. I was taken on February 22, the public prosecutor demanding two months imprisonment for "deliberate insult to the head of a state in friendly relationship with Holland." The resume of his evidence was that the "honorable" Reich President Hindenburg, who had fought "in the front ranks during the war," was the head of that country. Holland and Germany were preparing a trade agreement.

In the meantime something else happened. My attorney, Francois Pauwels, was interrupted by the judge as he made the point, in the course of the defense, that this charge must have originated in Germany. Pauwels asked whether the judge knew anything to the contrary, at which the judge pointed to a document which lay on the desk. Pauwels walked up to it quickly and, returning to his place, read it softly. But not so softly that the audience and the press could not hear. First of all he read aloud the word "secret!" and spoke the name of the Dutch reserve officer Brandenburg, at whose suggestion the Dutch minister president had given the charge to the prosecutor’s office. This incident served to reveal, in part, the political background of the case. This document had been withheld from my attorney, at whose disposal all documentary material about my case (and including this) should naturally have been placed. And it was only as a result of the rash correction made by the judge that it and its "secret" label was revealed.

The verdict called for a month’s imprisonment and my immediate arrest.

PRISON-AND AFTER

I spent thirty-four days in jail. In prison they were very considerate to the point of extending sympathy. Nevertheless I left prison a very sick man. The prosecuting attorney behaved in the spirit of his accusation speech. He kept me in solitary confinement, banned the weekly visit period-a privilege accorded every killer, confiscated a large part of my mail and led me to believe, until a few days before my release, that I would be extradited to Germany if I refused to hand in a petition for pardon.

Now, what is the background of the affair?

This attempt by the German government to discredit and have an anti-Fascist whom it finds undesirable extradited through intermediaries, and, especially to frighten my colleagues, was only partly successful. First of all, it did not succeed in defaming either my book or person. We succeeded in giving the trial the political countenance it deserved by means of the constant reports of my utterances in the press after I had been refused the opportunity to present evidence. And therefore the court sentenced me not because my book did not tell the truth but rather because I had told the truth.

Nevertheless the danger that the frightening intention of the German government was successful seems substantiated to me. In the future the intellectuals will be more afraid than heretofore to see and represent truth and actuality. And the publishers will be more cautious than ever.

Fortunately I am in a position to prove to authors, publishers and the German government as well that the actual result of this trial was just the opposite of what its initiators intended.

The ideal leisure for work which one enjoys in prison should appeal to authors. I was able to draft a considerable part of my new book. To the publishers I make the exceedingly comforting announcement, that "Vaterland," which for four weeks had been forbidden and confiscated, received, during and after the trial, a record publication abroad. But to the German government it must have been decidedly disappointing to have the press of all the world concern itself intensively not only with the background of the trial but also especially searchingly with that Neudeek affair.

The attitude of Holland in the whole matter is curious. The book appeared in the same text in almost all civilized languages, yet nowhere was the objectionable particular passage provocative. And it is strange that the book was not forbidden in Germany until I had been sentenced in Holland. What could have persuaded the Dutch government to permit its persecuting attorney to play such a role? There are many indications that I would have been extradited to Germany with the same equanimity with which the burgomeister of Laaren had delivered up my four comrades, had not communists and social democrats aroused the country in great mass meetings and through their press, and had there not been many more than a thousand telegrams and letters from factories in Russia, from PEN clubs, trade unions, writers and leagues of every sort. The international press sounded a distinct warning. Actually, it was the solidarity of the proletariat and the intellectuals which had won the fight.

I do not, myself, understand the attitude of Holland. It would not occur to me-not even on account of this verdict-to engage in a controversial argument against a country whose inhabitants and leaders have in most understanding fashion met the spiritual and material need of the emigrants half way, against a country whose national dignity has never in all its history turned to national hysteria.

Nevertheless, I cannot understand the verdict. I take it that the government of Holland did not itself know anything of the comrades of Herr Brandenburg.

It did not know that this affair was symptomatic. For I have just received the report that a court action against another quotation, from the English edition of the book, which bears the title "Murder-Made in Germany," has been instituted by a more select friend of Hitler, the English journalist Delmar.

I confess, for the information of the German government, that if this charge should be admitted, I would go to England, so that an English court may also substantiate the fact that my book is an account of facts. Should I also be condemned in England, because I dared to speak the truth, I shall finish my new book, in which the same sentiments will be expressed as were expressed in "Vaterland."