The Frankfurt Criminal Court reduced yesterday the sentence of a leader of a group which terrorized a Jewish cafe-owner in the town of Koeppern, after deciding that there was no evidence to show that the citizens of Koeppern were anti-Semitic.
The owner, Kurt Sumpf, emigrated from the town, to which he had returned after the war, in a case which attracted worldwide attention in 1958. He said then that he and his family were in danger from anti-Semitic vandals. The court found that the Koeppern affair was mainly “a clash between the oversensitive and intellectual cafe owner and the rough town population. ” The court then reduced the four-month sentence previously passed on Heinrich Weidmann to one months imprisonment.
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.
