Trial of Vienna Editor, Who Defended Rights of Jewish Students, is Adjourned

The Trial against M. Klebinder, editor of the “Sonn-Montag Zeitung,” for insulting the Senate of the University of Vienna for its ruling giving the anti-Semitic German student body the sole right to be the official students’ representatives and stipulating that membership in this group is an avowal that one belongs to the German people, has been adjourned pending the decision of the Constitutional Tribunal asked by M. Klebinder.

During the trial it was revealed that Rector Gleispath had allegedly visited Baron Louis von Rothschild to assure him that the students’ union’s privileges did not infringe on the rights of the Jewish students. Klebinder had pointed out that the way in which the students union governed the university was scandalous. He asked that the Constitutional Tribunal inquire whether the rights that the students had taken for themselves in degrading the sons of “high-minded Jews” such as Sigmund Freed and Arthur Schnitzler as “second-class academical citizens” were constitutional. He also pointed out that the students even excluded the children of Christians and the sons of leading families because they have Jewish blood in their veins.

Just before the trial was adjourned pending the Tribunal’s decision on Klebinder’s motion it took a sensational turn when Klebinder revealed that Rector Gleispath had visited Baron von Rothschild and had asked him for a subvention to the University.