J.D.B. News Letter

Count Czernin, Former Austro-Hun-garian Minister, in Sensational Trial Contends He is Not Anti-Semite (By our Vienna correspondent)

Count Czernin, who was the Foreign Minister of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, is figuring as the plaintiff in an action for libel which is coming up shortly in the law courts of Vienna, and which is now the talk of the town. The defendant is the Jewish journalist and Zionist, Robert Stricker, and his weekly “Die Neue Welt.” The question which the courts will have to decide is nothing less than: Is Count Czernin, the famous politician and diplomat, the scion of an ancient line of noblemen,-an anti-Semite? Also, is he a grasping and mercenary profiteer without the decency and honor to be logical in his anti-Semitism, who, in spite of it, hobnobs and makes use of his despised “money-grubbing Jews” when they can bring him profits?

The story of the case is as follows: Count Czernin went on a world tour and he came to some islands, where he saw some sun fish to which he appears to have taken a dislike. These very ugly fish bear a “resemblance” to the “Jewish profiteers and war-speculators,” he wrote in his diary. So he drew a picture along these lines of what he termed the “international Jewish profiteer.”

No one ever thought of Count Czernin as an anti-Semite. But he had never been known to speak openly on the Jewish question. It was not until he came across this sun-fish that he lost his self-control, and gave vent to his feelings. He wrote it down in his travel memoirs. He recorded that “the sight of the Ring in Vienna, the centre of the city, and of the elegant Kerntnerstrasse crowded with these Jewish sun-fish profiteers,” had made it very easy for him to go away from Vienna without a pang of regret and without any desire to return home.

It is very easy to imagine the effect this had on a man like Robert Stricker. Stricker immediately reproduced in his paper what Czernin had written and proceeded to flay him, branding him publicly as an anti-Semite.

Now Count Czernin is known to be a very shrewd businessman, always on the look-out for a chance to make profits. He is certainly as wide awake in this respect as any Jewish or English businessman, and he would not suffer by comparison even with a Greek or Armenian.

Mr. Stricker made a definite charge against Count Czernin, declaring that at the time the Count was Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in Roumania, he had taken large sums of money from Jewish businessmen as commission on every bit of business done between Austria and Roumania, even on bread and other necessaries of life which were sent to Austria to feed the starving people during the terrible distress of the war period. When the war was over, Count Czernin always went into partnerships with Jews, organizing companies in order to buy up houses cheaply in Germany, and it is said that he made millions of dollars out of it.

By virtue of his important diplomatic connections, Count Czernin learned of certain forthcoming decrees, which were going to be issued by the authorities in Germany and he together with several Jewish associates formed a company to purchase cheap mortgages from his German brothers in race. Stricker also wrote that Czernin is always engaged in litigation with his Jewish partners about his proper share of the profits, but it never hinders him from continuing to do business with them.

The attack set the whole town talking. The attack was so thoroughgoing that only one Vienna daily ventured to reprint it. But it was broadcast all the same and wherever one went everybody was talking about Count Czernin and his Jewish partners. Count Czernin simply could not sit still under it. He was in a dilemma, for it was not only a question of his honor. If he allowed it to pass that he was an anti-Semite, his Jewish business partners would refuse to continue to deal with him. And if he sits still under Stricker’s attack, what would Austrian society and Austrian public opinion say about it?

So Count Czernin denied that he was an anti-Semite. He published a letter in the “Wiener Neue Freie Presse,” and said that he never said anything in deprecation of the Jews. He had never intended to identify the Jews with the ugly sun fish. Indeed, nothing had been further from his mind. As Foreign Minister of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he had learned to know and appreciate the patriotism of the Jews, and no one had a higher respect for the Jews than he. And Count Czernin thought that this would be the end of the matter and that his Jewish business partners would continue to do business with him.

But it seems that it has not been taken as read, and Count Czernin has found himself compelled to instruct his lawyer to start an action for libel against Stricker. As it happens, his lawyer is a Jew, and when he goes into court to demonstrate that Count Czernin is a man of honor, a friend of Israel and an idealist, he will be able to point to himself as the proof that Count Czernin, his client, does not regard all Jews as sun fish, for has he not entrusted him, a Jew, with the conduct of his case?

Vienna refuses to believe even now that Count Czernin will really go to court. But Robert Stricker is going on with his preparations for the trial.

It is stated that damaging evidence will be presented in court. Vienna is expecting the forthcoming trial with great interest.