Engelbert Dollfuss, chancellor of Austria, was indicted for crimes against civilization by Jacob Panken, former Municipal Court Justice, acting as “chief counsel for the people,” last night at Town Hall in a “trial” last night at Town Hall in a “trial” held under the auspices of the Young Circle League of America.
“At the close of the last century,” Panken said, “the Dreyfus affair brought forth from the soul of Emile Zola ‘J’accuse! J’accuse!’ So tonight we gather to prefer charges against Dollfuss for crimes against humanity.
“I charge Dollfuss, Fey, Prince Starhemberg, and the Heimwehr with deliberate murder. For years Dollfuss spoke words of peace but conspired for war. He spoke for the republic but stealthily stabbed it in the back.
“Austria, like Germany, is bent upon the destruction of literature, the only basis upon which a dictatorship can stand. Dollfuss, like Hitler, bans publications and free speech. Even the Saturday Evening Post is a radical magazine to Dollfuss.”
Among the charges preferred against Dollfuss were lawlessness and brutality, imprisonment of thousands unjustly, fostering of chauvinism. and “Selling Austria to Italy.”
Max Winter, former vice-mayor of Vienna, compared Facscism in Austria with “an epidemic to which we must find the anti-toxin.”
Dr. Elias Lieberman. principal of Thomas Jeffeson High School and chairman of the Workmen’s Circle Youth Committee, traced the roots of Austrian Fascism to the beginnings of Hitlerism. “Nazis and their allies in Austria,” he said, “poured their propaganda into Austria and forced it to go Fascist. But Dollfuss cannot exist, for he has created the power which will destroy him.”
“Sowing of the seeds of another war” was attributed to Dollfuss by Harry W. Laidler, co-director of the League for Industrial Democracy. He deplored the destruction of the Vienna municipal government, “the best workers’ city in the world.”
Other speakers included Sir Stafford Cripps, labor member of the House of Commons who flew from Washington to be present at the trial, Norman Thomas, B. C. Vladeck, and Joseph Baskin, secretary of the Workmen’s Circle League. Eleanor Schachman acted as chairman.
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.
