The trial of Dr. Marx, representative of the Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, and the former chief of the Frankfurt political police, Ferdinand Muerdel, has aroused considerable interest in Germany. Dr. Marx is accused of bribing Herr Muerdel in order to secure confidential information about Nazi activities in the possession of the police, prior to the Nazi advent to power.
Testimony in the first two days of the trial which began Wednesday and is expected to continue for a week, revealed that an agreement had been reached last March, immediately after the Nazis began to rule, between the Central Union and Premier Goering of Prussia, in which the Central Union was permitted to continue its fight against anti-Semitism.
The trial was featured by attempts made by the prosecutor to discredit the Central Union activities and to interpret complaints made by the Central Union against officials with Nazi leanings as denunciations.
Dr. Marx stoutly denied that he had bribed Herr Muerdel and insisted that the police had been rewarded merely for legitimate actions such as discovering the desecrators of Jewish cemeteries and similar offenses. He upheld the activities of the Central Union and declared that the Central Union had rendered great services to Germany by combating atrocity stories abroad. He stated that the Central Union was non-political and that it had merely fought against anti-Semitism in Germany.
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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.
