(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The final verdict of the Hamburg court in the spectacular libel suit of Max Warburg, German banker, against Theodor Fritsch, leader of the German anti-Semites, will be rendered tomorrow. The case which is now before the court of appeals has lasted nearly two years. In December 1924, Fritsch was sentenced to three months imprisonment in the libel action brought by Max Warburg and the banker Melchior. Fritsch had published a number of articles in the anti-Semitic paper, “Hammer,” and issued leaflets in which he claimed that Warburg and Melchior, while representing Germany at Versailles as Germany’s financial experts to the Peace Conference, had betrayed their country in favor of America and the allied governments. Fritsch appealed the case.
At the trial which opened here today, the presiding judge established the fact that Theodor Fritsch broke his promise given at the previous trial not to attack Warburg any more in his paper, “Hammer.” On the basis of the promise, the first libel suit was withdrawn.
At the beginning of the trial today Theodor Fritsch reiterated his assertion that Max Wurburg induced his brother, Fritz Warburg, who was at the time German commercial attache in Stockholm to hasten the German-Russian negotiations for a separate peace conducted with the Russian Minister Protopopow. Max Warburg stated that the charge of Fritsch was nothing but imagination. He had no part whatsoever in these negotiations, he declared.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
