German Teacher, Sentenced to Jail for Anti-semitism, Files an Appeal

Suspended schoolteacher Ludwig Zind has filed an appeal against the decision of the Offenburg district court late last week sentencing him to one year’s imprisonment following his conviction on a charge of public defamation of Jews and voicing threats of violence against a Jew. The Federal constitutional court at Karlsruhe must decide whether to accept the appeal. Meanwhile, the Baden-Wuerttemberg education authorities halted Zind’s salary and will expel him if the verdict is allowed to stand.

The verdict of guilty came after six hours of deliberation and a trial which lasted half a week. At the final session, one student had to be ejected for an anti-Semitic remark and it was obvious that the sympathy of the townspeople was with the defendant. One witness for Zind was rebuked by the court for stating during his testimony that Offenburgers thought Zind was being persecuted.

Demanding the one-year sentence in his summation of the evidence, state prosecutor Dr. H. Maegele said a conviction was not only a personal condemnation of Zind but a warning to all anti Semites in Germany and to protect the youth of Germany from teachings by Nazi-minded teachers.

Heinz Galinski, chairman of the Jewish community of Berlin, had joined the prosecution under a recent German court ruling that the Jewish community was entitled to enter into cases of anti-Semitism because of the unique position of the Jews as the first and most severely injured of Nazism’s victims. Taking the stand, Herr Galinski said he had become a plaintiff against Zind not for reasons of hatred or revenge but because the few remaining Jews in Germany wanted to be “left in peace.” While he granted every man the right to a mistake, he said it was necessary to admit such errors and that mass crimes should never be condoned.

Haled into court on charges of having told a half-Jew, Kurt Leiser, that “not enough Jews had been gassed” by the Nazis and for having threatened to deal with Leiser in similar fashion, Zind first admitted his remarks in court and later quibbled. He also admitted and later denied having said that during the Nazi regime he had clubbed hundreds of Jews to death.