Swiss Decision Bars General Nazi Libel Suit

A decision on principle for all Switzerland in connection with actions against collective bodies for insults to Jews is seen in the decision of the State’s Attorney for Zurich who today dismissed the application of a Jewish lawyer for damages from the publisher of the Swiss Nazi organ, Eidgenosse. The Jewish attorney contended that he had been personally attacked through the publication of anti-Semitic articles in the Nazi paper.

The decision of the Zurich officials is similar to the action of the Mixed Tribunal in Cairo, Egypt, which decided against the suit brought by Umberto Jabes, an Italian Jew living in Egypt, against the president of the German Club in Cairo and the publisher of an anti-Jewish pamphlet sponsored by the Cairo German Club. The court held that Jabes failed to prove that he had been personally libelled.

Similar actions are pending in Basle and Berne, Switzerland, where the local Jewish communities brought actions against the publishers of anti-Semitic papers and against publishers of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, long since proven forgeries. It is believed that the Zurich decision will serve as a precedent for decisions on the Berne and Basle cases.

In his decision, the Zurich State’s Attorney admitted that it was advisable in the interests of public peace to punish such attacks as those contained in the Nazi anti-Semitic sheets, but declared that it was impossible to stretch the penal code to fit such cases. He said that punishment was possible only in cases where an individual was directly named and libelled.

Nevertheless, he ordered the state treasury to carry the costs of the case and refused to award damages to the accused publisher of the Swiss Nazi paper.