The Frankfurt Criminal Court reduced yesterday the sentence of a leader of a group which terrorized a Jewish cafe-owner in the town of Koeppern, after deciding that there was no evidence to show that the citizens of Koeppern were anti-Semitic.
The owner, Kurt Sumpf, emigrated from the town, to which he had returned after the war, in a case which attracted worldwide attention in 1958. He said then that he and his family were in danger from anti-Semitic vandals. The court found that the Koeppern affair was mainly “a clash between the oversensitive and intellectual cafe owner and the rough town population. ” The court then reduced the four-month sentence previously passed on Heinrich Weidmann to one months imprisonment.
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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.
