The local Superior Court has confirmed a five-month jail sentence against Franz Kroner an elderly German who, after picking a quarrel with a Jew named Richard Stern in a tavern here, shrieked his regrets that not all Jews had been gassed during the Hitler regime.
The penalty is one of the heaviest ever pronounced in Germany for anti-Semitic insult. Presiding Judge Dr. P.L. Boersch of the Superior Court dropped one of the counts of the indictment on the grounds that Kroner was too drunk to be aware of his actions, but nonetheless sustained the five-month sentence because “the remaining insults are so appalling and reveal so base a disposition that the length of the sentence should stand.”
The upholding without change of a sentence considered uncommonly severe is due in good part to the legal arguments and the plea of attorney. Joseph Klibansky, a member of the Agudas Israel executive, who appeared on behalf of the co-plaintiff in the case the Association of Jewish Communities of Hesse.
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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.
