Berne Trial

The Berne Trial (also known under the name of "Zionistenprozess") is a famous trial held in Berne, Switzerland between 1933 and 1935, under an obscenity-related statute ("Art.14 des Bernischen Gesetzes über das Lichtspielwesen und Massnahmen gegen Schundliteratur 1916"). The trial with its witnesses and supposed experts on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion caused an international sensation.

Background

Meeting in Bern's Casino

The plaintiffs, the Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (SIG) and the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bern, sued the Bund Nationalsozialistischer Eidgenossen (BNSE) (Swiss president: Theodor Fischer at Zurich) which distributed anti-Semitic pamphlets[1] during a meeting of June 13, 1933 organized by the National Front and the Heimatwehr[2] in the Casino of Berne (with former chief of the Swiss General Staff and Frontist Emil Sonderegger as main speaker).[3] The National Front distributed a print "Die zionistischen Protokolle, 13. Aufl. 1933" [4] edited and introduced by the German anti-Semitic writer Theodor Fritsch. Silvio Schnell, the young responsible for distribution of publications of the National Front was sued because he sold the print during the meeting. Theodor Fischer[5] (BNSE) was sued as author of the pamphlet and editor of the journal "Der Eidgenosse" (Swiss Confederate) which published an offensive anti-Semitic article[6] written by Alberto Meyer, Zurich, in the manner of Julius Streicher.

"Protocols of the Elders of Zion"

Frontist propaganda declared the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as "echt" (authentic), i.e. as a secret program produced by Jewry in order to gain worldwide political power and control by every possible means (e.g. supporting corrupt politicians, bombing in underground-stations, economic measures etc.). Fritsch claimed in his incriminated edition that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were produced during the First Zionist Congress at Basel (1897) and cited Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis (1869–1951) from Stockholm Synagogue, who participated at the Basel Congress 1897, in a misleading manner as a pretended proof for Jewish authorship in the foreword of his incriminated print.

Litigation

Main Court Session, October 29–31, 1934

Citation of Dr. Chaim Weizmann to the Berne Trial as witness 1934, State Archive of Berne / Staatsarchiv des Kt. Bern

The trial soon focussed on the plagiarism and forgery of the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In the Main Session of 1934 witnesses were cited: Participants of the First Zionist Congress at Basel (1897), among them Rabbi M. Ehrenpreis; then several Russian witnesses living in exile (mainly at Paris) to tell the judge about a possible Russian origin of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (as a forgery by the Tsarist police to promote anti-Semitic feelings during the time of Pogroms). The alleged link between Freemasonry and Jews was also a point of interest and masonic witnesses were cited. The plaintiffs nominated these witnesses and paid a considerable amount to the Court to make the appearance of those important eyewitnesses possible, among them also Chaim Weizmann, the future first president of the state of Israel. The only witness nominated by the defendants was Alfred Zander, Zurich, who wrote some articles on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the newspaper "Der eiserne Besen" (Rod of Iron) of the National Front.

Witnesses at the Main Session 1934[7]

First witness
Witnesses about Russia
Witnesses who participated in the First Zionist Congress at Basel (1897)
Witnesses about Freemasonry
Only witness of the defendants
Witnesses cited, but not appearing before the court

Main Court Session, April 29-May 13, 1935: Three experts

In the Main Session 1935 three experts intervened: (1) C. A. Loosli, Bern-Bümpliz [13] (expert appointed by the judge); (2) Arthur Baumgarten, Basel [14] (expert appointed by the plaintiffs); (3) Ulrich Fleischhauer, Erfurt/Germany (anti-Semitic expert appointed by the defendants[15]). The appointed experts had to answer four questions by the judge of the case, Walter Meyer:[16]

  1. Was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a forgery?
  2. Was it plagiarized?
  3. If it was, what was its source?
  4. Do the Protocols fall under the term Schundliteratur?

Further questions to be answered by the experts were formulated by the plaintiffs.[17] During this session no further witnesses were heard.

While the experts Arthur Baumgarten and C. A. Loosli declared the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a plagiarism and a forgery produced by helpers of the tsarist Russian Okhrana, anti-Semitic expert Ulrich Fleischhauer claimed that they were genuine but of uncertain authorship, possibly composed by the Jewish author Ahad Haam and passed at a secret meeting of Bnai Brith which purportedly took place in 1897 during the first Zionist Congress at Basel, Switzerland.

Decision of the court

Eventually the defendants Theodor Fischer and Silvio Schnell were sentenced by judge Walter Meyer in his verdict, while three other defendants were acquitted.[18] The penalty was a quite symbolic fine: Fr. 50 (Fischer) and Fr. 20 (Schnell). However the defendants found guilty would have to pay a larger sum of the costs of the trial and some of the costs of the plaintiffs. Commenting on his verdict in the court, judge Walter Meyer said he was convinced by his evaluation of the testimonies of the witnesses and the statements of the experts that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a forgery and "Schundliteratur" that might instigate crimes by agitation against a minority.

Theodor Fischer himself[19] and the lawyer of Silvio Schnell (Hans Ruef, Berne[20]) immediately appealed to the Berner Obergericht which acquitted both defendants in 1937 on purely formal legal grounds, arguing that the term "Schundliteratur" of the Bernese Law is not applicable to "political publications" but only to "immoral (obscene) publications".[21] The Berner Obergericht refused the obligation of the private plaintiffs to pay the costs of defence of the acquitted defendants explaining that "the one who circulates such sort of most vulgar instigating articles has to pay himself the costs resulting from them."[22] Fischer had to pay Fr. 100 to the state fees of the trial (Fr. 28'000, paid by the Canton of Berne).

Background information: German Nazi agents involved

The defendants were financed in their defense by Nazi agents[23] working for the German government, including anti-Jewish activist and Welt-Dienst / World-Service / Service Mondial[24] publisher Ulrich Fleischhauer, the expert appointed by the defendants. The plaintiffs, the Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund (SIG, Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities)[25] and the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bern, were represented by the Bernese lawyers Hans Matti and Georges Brunschvig[26] (helped by Emil Raas[27]). The plaintiffs financed a larger part of the costs of the citation of witnesses and of the pay of the experts C. A. Loosli and A. Baumgarten.

Important archival material, e.g. the so-called Russian Documents transmitted to expert Loosli

The various findings of the court, regarding the series of events leading to the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, are now regarded as a treasure trove of archival material for scholars and historians.

Of special interest are the so-called Russian Documents transmitted to the expert C. A. Loosli with permission of the Soviet government by the librarian Tager in Moscow for personal use only, copies of authentic material from the tsarist administration, especially on the Russian Okhrana and on the Russian Jews.[28] Boris Lifschitz,[29] a Swiss lawyer in Berne of Russian origin speaking both Russian and German, had contacts to the Soviet administration and played an important role in procuring the Russian documents and contacting various Russian witnesses to appear at the court in 1934 (who were all opposed to Bolshevism).

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Appeal to all Swiss Confederates loyal to their native country and conscious of their blood!Aufruf an alle heimattreuen und blutsbewussten Eidgenossen! Staatsarchiv des Kt. Bern, Documents of the Berne Trial
  2. ↑ Cf. Heimatwehr (Wikipedia Deutsch)
  3. ↑ Other speakers of the Meeting of June 13 in Berne's Casino were Swiss officer Arthur Fonjallaz and Heinrich Wechlin, chief-editor of the newspaper "Berner Tagblatt" in 1933 (cf. more biographic data in:Diplomatische Dokumente der Schweiz 1848-1945. Benteli-Werd, Bern 1994. Vol. 12 = 1937-1938, p. 1095-1097 ISBN 3-7165-0846-2). Swiss high rank officer (Oberstdivisionär) Emil Sonderegger was introduced by the Swiss officer (Major) Ernst Leonhardt, Basel, Gauführer of the National Front
  4. ↑ Theodor Fritsch:Die zionistischen Protokolle 13. Aufl. 1933 The incriminated edition distributed by the National Front (Silvio Schnell) during the manifestation of June 13, 1933 in the Casino of Berne
  5. ↑ Personal papers of Theodor Fischer are now deposited in the Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH, Zurich, cf. Deposit Theodor Fischer, with further biographical details
  6. ↑ Swiss girl be on your guard against ravishing Jews!Schweizermädchen hüte Dich vor den schändenden Juden! Staatsarchiv des Kt. Bern, Documents of the Berne Trial
  7. ↑ Cf. our illustration of Dr. Chaim Weizmann's citation with autograph; further material from the Documents of the Staatsarchiv des Kt. Bern, citation of witnesses
  8. ↑ Weizmann was not a participant in the First Zionist Congress at Basel (1897), but many of his friends were. In his statement at Berne he made a short survey of the main Jewish groups and of Zionism.
  9. ↑ Cf. portrait and Cyber-Memorial Mayer Ebner
  10. ↑ David Farbstein Wikipedia deutsch
  11. ↑ Max Bodenheimer Wikipedia deutsch
  12. ↑ More details on webpage on Alfred Zander in German
  13. ↑ C. A. Loosli (Wikipedia in German)
  14. ↑ Arthur Baumgarten (Wikipedia in German)
  15. ↑ Fleischhauer was appointed as a replacement of Pastor a. D.Ludwig Münchmeyer, an antisemite first nominated by the defendants, but not traceable by German mail in Oldenburg/Germany when his nomination was sent to him by judge Walter Meyer. Prof. Hausherr, Orientalist at the University of Zurich, was proposed as an expert by the defendants, but refused
  16. ↑ Walter Meyer was a member of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party (Sozialdemokraten)
  17. ↑ Fragen der Kläger an die Experten im Berner Prozess, Staatsarchiv des Kt. Bern, Documents of the Berne Trial
  18. ↑ Sentence presented by Judge Walter Meyer, Berne (official shorthand notes), Staatsarchiv des Kt. Bern, Documents of the Berne Trial. The "Gauleiter of Berne" of the "Bund Nationalsozialistischer Eidgenossen", Georg Haller, an officer in the Swiss Army and the son of a reverend at Berne's Church of the Holy Ghost, was sued but not found guilty by Judge Meyer.
  19. ↑ Fischer's lawyer Heinrich Büeler from Zurich had no authorization as an attorney within the Kt. Berne; so Fischer appealed himself. Cf. Deposit Büeler, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zürich
  20. ↑ Hans Ruef was a member of the Bernese Bürgerpartei, now Schweizerische Volkspartei; later on he was elected at the parliament of the city of Berne as a representative of the Bauernheimatbewegung (Jungbauern) during World War II. Another lawyer active in the defence of the defendants was Werner Ursprung, Zurzach, member of the National Front and its favorite attorney.
  21. ↑ Revision of the Sentence by Berner Obergericht, Judge O. Peter 1937, Staatsarchiv des Kt. Bern, Documents of the Berne Trial
  22. ↑ "Wer aber solche Hetzartikel gemeinster Sorte in Verkehr setzt, muss die ihm daraus entstehenden Kosten selber tragen". Cit.Revision of the Sentence by Berner Obergericht, Judge O. Peter 1937, p.50.
  23. ↑ The role of Fleischhauer as an informant of the Nazi regime was made public when the Swiss Federal Police confiscated in a house-search (1936) the correspondence of Swiss Frontist Boris Tödtli (1901-1944) who lived in Russia before and became an admirer of Hitler's Germany; letters in Russian were given to Boris Lifschitz by the police to translate them into German; Lifschitz made some of the letters public by handing them over to the Swiss press. Cf. Catherine Arber: Frontismus und Nationalsozialismus in der Stadt Bern Bern, 2002. Tödtli is also mentioned in a police report as having distributed the incriminated pamphlet on June 13, 1933; but for some reason he was not sued and is not among the defendants of the Berne Trial. In 1938 he was convicted (in absentia) by a Bernese Court as a spy.
  24. ↑ Cf. Various numbers of Welt-Dienst deposited at the Court by the plaintiffs:.Sept. 1, 1934,Oct. 15, 1934, March 15, 1935,Apr. 1, 1935 Staatsarchiv des Kt. Bern, Documents of the Berne Trial
  25. ↑ Important documents of the trial deposited by the SIG are now in the Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, cf. Deposit SIG
  26. ↑ Important personal papers of Georges Brunschvig are now in the Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, cf. Deposit Georges Brunschvig
  27. ↑ Raas wrote a book about the Berne Trial, in collaboration with Georges Brunschvig, which is a first-hand source and contains many important details: Raas, Emil/Brunschvig, Georges:Vernichtung einer Fälschung. Der Prozess um die erfundenen "Weisen von Zion".Die Gestaltung, Zürich 1938
  28. ↑ These Russian documents (some of them translated into German) are preserved in the Archiv für Zeitgeschichte of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich/Switzerland
  29. ↑ Boris Lifschitz, 1879-1967, was also a judicial adviser to the Soviet Mission in Berne during the Swiss General Strike 1918; the daughter of the expert C. A. Loosli was employed in Lifschitz' office in Berne.

External links

See also

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