Legal action was inaugurated at Kiel today against a judge accused of employing a doctor charged with “mercy killing” of Jews during the Nazi regime. At the same time, in Munich, former Nazi Press Chief Helmut Suenderman, one of National Socialism’s Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels’ principal aides, was ordered acquitted after a court hearing during which he was accused of making anti-Semitic statements.
The judge in Kiel is Dr. Ernest Buresch. president of the Schleswig-Holstein Social Court. He was charged with employing Werner Hcyde, alias Dr. Fritz Sawade, although he knew a warrant was out for the arrest of Heyde-Sawade. The latter is awaiting trial on charges of murdering Jewish and political prisoners during the Nazi regime.
At the Munich hearing, Suenderman was accused of saying in a recent speech that the Nazi pogroms against Jews in 1938, including the “Crystal Night” atrocities in November of that year, were “the inevitable result of Jewish hate-mongering. ” After seven hours of testimony against Suenderman, however, Judge H. Thomas ruled that no prima facie case existed and ordered acquittal for Goebbel’s former top aide.
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.
