Nazis Warn Switzerland and Jews

Nazi newspapers issued a double warning to Switzerland and to the Jews today of political consequences that would follow an unfavorable outcome of the trial of David Frankfurter, who will face a Swiss court tomorrow on charges of murdering Wilhelm Gustloff, Nazi leader in Switzerland.

Inspired articles declared a verdict unfavorable to the Nazis would affect “the equilibrium of Swiss-German relations” and demanded the maximum penalty for the 27-year-old Jewish student as well as prohibition of anti-Nazi propaganda after conclusion of the trial.

With all Nazi forces mobilized to ensure “a victory for National Socialism,” Chancellor Hitler’s Voelkischer Beobachter issued an unmistakable threat to the Jews that they would be held accountable because Jewish organizations abroad failed to satisfactorily protest against the “glorification” of Frankfurter.

The trial was the chief center of interest in Nazi papers, relegating all other news into the background. No doubt remained here that the Nazis intend to utilize the case to the utmost to further anti-Jewish propaganda.

Der Angriff, organ of Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels, demanded that Frankfurter be sentenced to “annihilation.” (The maximum penalty for murder in the canton where he is being tried is eighteen years’ imprisonment.) Under reported orders of Dr. Goebbels, all papers stressed the case as “a trial of world Jewry.”

The Voelkischer Beobachter, chief Nazi Party organ, gave four pages to the forthcoming trial, devoting the first page to reports, articles and photographs dealing with the case. It attacked Eugen Curti, for taking up Frankfurter’s defense, although it admitted that a score of other lawyers had volunteered to take the case.

Nazi officials’ fears that the trial would expose Gustloff’s efforts to detach the German cantons of Switzerland for inclusion in the Reich were reflected by the Boerse. Zeitung, which denied in an editorial that the Nazi Party was engaged in such activities.