A Bonn jury court, rejecting a prosecution demand for a prison term, fined Friedrich Schmidt, 58-year-old car merchant, 600 marks ($150) for slandering the Jews.
Schmidt spoke at a meeting of the neo-Nazi German Reichspartei in December 1959, immediately after the Christmas Eve desecration of the Cologne synagogue which touched off a world-wide outburst of anti-Semitic smearings. During his talk, he questioned whether a synagogue was a house of God. The prosecution had asked for a three-month Jail term.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
