Jabès against van Meeteren and Safarowsky

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Jabès against van Meeteren and Safarowsky was a trial before the mixed courts of justice in Egypt from 1933 to 1935. On the occasion of an anti-Semitic paper on “The Jewish Question in Germany”, published by the chairman of the German Association in Cairo , Wilhelm van Meeteren, Umberto had Jabès, an Italian Jew living in Cairo , filed a lawsuit for damages for libel , incitement to racial hatred and disturbance of public order. The process met with considerable public response, both in Egypt itself and in Germany. Nazi propaganda in particular used it intensively as a test field for its new possibilities and labeled it as the Cairo Jewish Trial . The lawsuit was dismissed in the first and second instance for formal reasons. The tenor was that a Jew living in Egypt could not feel offended by a brochure on the Jewish question in Germany. Nazi propaganda celebrated this court decision as a great victory.

prehistory

boycott

The violent actions against Jewish businesses in Germany in the first months of 1933, but especially the announcement of the so-called boycott of Jews for April 1, 1933, had provoked protests around the world. These protests found particular expression in the Jewish community in Egypt, which comprised around 75,000 to 80,000 people. On March 24th, the Zionist magazine Israel called for a boycott of German goods. At a well-attended protest meeting on March 29, 1933 in the main synagogue in Cairo, an Egypt-wide Ligue Contre l'Antisémitisme Allemand, Association formée par toutes les oeuvres et institutions juives d'Egypte (League against German anti-Semitism, of all Jewish associations and institutions) was founded Egypt's formed committee) chaired by the lawyer Léon Castro , which a few months later joined the Ligue Internationale Contre l'Antisémitisme (LICA) as its Egyptian branch. She sent telegrams to the French League for Human Rights and to President Paul von Hindenburg . Numerous articles have appeared in the (mainly French-speaking) Egyptian press. In an article on April 18, 1933 in the Egyptian newspaper La Voix Juive , Castro called for the Ligue to boycott all German companies and institutions.

This boycott call was by no means generally followed, especially since there were very different opinions on it in the Jewish community. Economically, it had practically no effect. But the effect on individual companies and industries was clearly noticeable: for example, it was hardly possible to show German films in Cairo, and in some cases products from the German textile industry were no longer accepted. The high-profile actions led to a prominent Egyptian, Amin Yahya Pascha, member of a wealthy family and brother of the former Foreign Minister and later Prime Minister Abdel Fattah Yahya Ibrahim Pascha, worried about the German ambassador in Cairo, Eberhard von Stohrer , inquired about the conditions in Germany.

The brochure

The German colony in Egypt, which had between 500 and 1,000 members and consisted largely of business people, teachers, scientists, employees of the German legation and their families, was somewhat worried about this development. In particular, the existing for several years Cairo local group and founded in 1933 Egyptian National Group of the Nazi Party , led by Alfred Hess , brother of from Alexandria originating Rudolf Hess , pushed for aggressive measures. In this situation, Hans Pilger , the Counselor in Cairo, took the initiative. In a letter dated May 15, 1933, he complained to the Foreign Office that there was a lack of material on how to combat what he called “Jewish agitation” in journalistic terms, and it was sent immediately. On May 24th, he thanked the German colony for the receipt and reported that he had made the material available to the German colony “after having worked through it”. At the same time, he announced that it would appear “these days together with a brief overview of the relevant German legislation of the last few weeks in the form of a print and ... be widely [sic!] Distributed”.

The result was a brochure entitled “The Jewish Question in Germany”. The President of the German Association, Wilhelm van Meeteren, who was also the Managing Director of Siemens Orient, was the publisher . The brochure was printed by the in-house printer of the German and Austrian Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, the Russian citizen Safarowsky. The brochure was published and distributed in German and French (French title: L'Extension du judaisme en Allemagne ) and was apparently also used for agitation in connection with the boycott.

Pilger spoke of "thoroughly factual material" that had been used in the brochure. However, this was by no means true. It was an anti-Semitic pamphlet which, on the basis of appropriately collated figures, claimed, among other things, that Jews were overrepresented in intellectual professions, incapable of productive work, lived at the expense of the working population, were racially degenerate and therefore tended to both mental illnesses and diseases Crime. Among other things, a section entitled "Jews as Criminals" said: " Judaism is a leader in all crimes and offenses that require the perpetrator to be particularly cunning and unscrupulous overreaching of the other."

Gudrun Krämer described this publication and the subsequent actions of the Germans as the first attempt "to export European-Christian anti-Semitism to Egypt". His aim was to "separate the Jews from the mass of local minorities and make them the target of attacks specifically directed against them."

The lawsuit

On June 27, 1933, Umberto Jabès, an Italian Jew living in Cairo, filed a complaint in the mixed courts against the publisher and printer of the brochure, van Meeteren and Safarowsky. He sought damages of 101 Egyptian pounds for insulting , spreading racial hatred and disturbing public order. The amount of damages that should go to a hospital according to the application was chosen because an appeal against a first instance judgment was only possible from a value in dispute of 100 pounds . In addition, the plaintiff requested that the defendants publish the judgment in eight Egyptian newspapers of their choice. The mixed courts, i.e. courts of international composition, had jurisdiction because it was civil proceedings between foreign nationals - these proceedings remained outside the regular Egyptian judiciary due to the country's limited sovereignty. Jabès appointed Léon Castro to be his lawyer.

The aim of the action was clearly not to compensate the plaintiff. Rather, Jabès and Castro intended to force a political process: The National Socialist persecution of the Jews was to be tried in an international court under the eyes of the world public.

The German reactions

The German embassy did not initially succeed in finding a suitable lawyer for the threatened court hearing. Felix Dahm , her lawyer of trust in Cairo, was paralyzed and therefore unable to represent the defendants in terms of health. A lawyer was needed who could familiarize himself with the legal fundamentals of the Mixed Courts and who was able to plead in French as that was the language of the court. In addition, there was concern about the expected great public impact, among other things because, according to press reports, Jabès and Castro wanted to hire the internationally known Parisian lawyer Henri Torrés (which did not happen). On August 7, 1933, envoy Stohrer wrote to the Foreign Office in Berlin that a “really first-class” lawyer was urgently needed for the trial.

There, on August 30, 1933, various ministry representatives, including those from the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , were invited to a meeting to discuss the case. The Foreign Ministry formulated an “official interest” in providing the German Association in Cairo with an experienced litigator because the brochure in question was based at least in part on official material and there was fear of a precedent . At the same time, however, it became clear that the Foreign Ministry initially wanted to hang the delicate affair as low as possible. But another result of the meeting was that the Propaganda Ministry commissioned the young lawyer Wolfgang Diewerge , a staunch National Socialist who had spent part of his legal training at the German consular court in Cairo, to prepare an expert opinion on the case.

The ten-page report was submitted to the Orient Department of the Foreign Office on September 29, 1933. In complete contrast to the foreign ministry's initial reluctance, Diewerge recommended a decidedly aggressive approach: the process should be branded as the “weapon of the Jews against the National Socialist uprising”. In particular, a uniform press strategy is required for this. Diewerge gave precise information about the purpose and means, tactics and costs of such a large-scale press campaign, which had already been discussed with the national group leader of the NSDAP for Egypt. A uniform label is also necessary; Diewerge suggested the “Cairo Jewish Trial”. The propaganda should specifically exploit the opposition between Arabs and Jews with regard to Palestine . Felix Dahm essentially agreed with these considerations, but recommended that the focus should be more on the Egyptian government than on the public, as the public in Egypt has little influence on politics.

This aggressively anti-Semitic strategy prevailed. German media, especially the press and radio, soon published articles by Diewerge with the tenor mentioned; Diewerge also launched corresponding reports in Egyptian newspapers through the German legation. The German envoy tried to generate further political and economic pressure by suggesting that some German textile companies should refuse to buy their cotton in Egypt with reference to the boycott - admittedly without bringing German diplomacy into play. With this, Stohrer had unexpected success: On October 28, 1933, the working committee of the German Cotton Spinning Associations announced a boycott of Egyptian cotton, much to Stohrer's displeasure, who would have preferred a more cautious approach. But the massive approach was effective. The Egyptian government contacted the Foreign Office several times with the request that they refrain from this measure; because of the limited sovereignty, it is unfortunately not in a position to prevent the gatherings and boycott measures of Jewish foreign citizens. A boycott of Egyptian cotton is therefore not justified. As a result, the boycott - probably never seriously planned anyway - was called off, whereby the Foreign Office was able to present itself as a mediator.

The Ministry of Propaganda also commissioned Victor Huecking , the President of the Senate at the Berlin Court of Appeal, to provide an expert opinion on the legal question of the extent to which "according to the leading Western European rights" an action for damages like the one brought by Jabès is permissible. In a letter to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign and International Private Law dated September 27, 1933, the ministry stated that it was "in the Reich's interest" if the institute wanted to "support" Huecking's work and if the person in charge wanted to "work together personally" be ready. In fact, the KWI initially wrote an expert opinion that provided 43 pages of information about the French legal situation. This did not end the Institute's work for the Propaganda Ministry, as the following year showed.

The hearing in January 1934

The trial was originally scheduled to start on October 16, 1933, but the trial was postponed until January 22, 1934. In the meantime the German side had achieved some successes: It had succeeded in engaging the Münster law professor Friedrich Grimm , NSDAP member and member of the Reichstag , who had earned a reputation in various femicide trials during the Rhineland occupation before French courts. She also had a well-known Egyptian lawyer. Above all, however, under the economic and political pressure exerted by the German authorities, there had been preliminary agreements between the German legation and “Egyptian officials”, as can be seen in a report by Felix Dahm to the Foreign Office. The embassy had obtained the promise from the Egyptian public prosecutor's office that as soon as the plaintiffs raised “political questions”, the public would be excluded. In view of this previous history, Albrecht Fueß comments: "The process could not be won by the Jewish side."

The hearing took place in the First Chamber of the Civil Court in Cairo, the chamber was chaired by the Italian judge Falqui-Cao. The public rush was enormous, the courtroom was completely overcrowded - the Journal des Tribuneaux Mixtes wrote that there had never been such public interest in the history of mixed courts. Right from the start there were signs that the Germans' litigation strategy was working: The representative of the Egyptian public prosecutor's office proposed an out-of-court settlement because it was possible that the plaintiff had no right of action at all. Jabès and Castro refused and asked for the proceedings to be postponed because they hoped to win the internationally renowned lawyer Vincent de Moro-Giafferi as legal representative. Since Grimm claimed to have to return to Germany, this application was rejected.

Falqui-Cao decided that only the so-called “legal question” would be dealt with at this hearing, namely whether the action was admissible at all. In the following it should only be a question of whether an Italian Jew living in Egypt could feel offended by a brochure on the Jewish question in Germany. The judge announced that the material question of whether it was an insult would not be dealt with. In principle, he would not allow any discussion of political issues in court. This meant that the goals of Jabès and Castro could no longer be achieved.

During the three days of negotiations, this question was the only one discussed. While Castro argued that the pamphlet was directed against all Jews and that it had been distributed in several languages ​​in Egypt, Grimm withdrew that it was exclusively about the German Jews - even if one assumes that the attacks were In relation to world Jewry , belonging to such a large group could not justify an individual right of action.

The judgment of January 24, 1934 essentially followed the statements made by Grimm: The action was inadmissible for formal reasons (“irrecevable”). The court preceded a declaration of honor for the Jews in Egypt and elsewhere: it was inevitable, due to their long history of persecution, that attacks against Judaism would hurt them. But for a claim for damages, a violation of the physical, moral or economic integrity of the individual is a prerequisite, and even in the case of an insult to a collective, it must be clear that all members of this clearly defined collective have been insulted without exception.

This is not the case here because the brochure was originally published to defend against attacks on German politics ( animus defendendi ). At the same time, she could not have intended to insult the Egyptian Jews, whom no one judges disparagingly (“que personne ne mésestime”), especially since neither the Egyptian Jews nor the plaintiff himself are mentioned in it. The Chamber therefore no longer deemed it necessary to examine the content of the brochure.

Appointed in 1935

Jabès and Castro appealed. The German Propaganda Ministry has now received another expert opinion from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign and International Private Law. It was drawn up by Eduard Wahl and was submitted to the Propaganda Ministry and the Foreign Office on October 17, 1934. Wahl wrote that in French legal tradition a personal interest of the plaintiffs ("intérêt de l'action") was a prerequisite for the admissibility of the action; this is not the case here. Therefore, the prospects are good that the appellate body, the court of appeal of the mixed courts, will confirm the judgment. The Geneva law professor Erich-Hans Kaden confirmed this legal opinion again in 1935 in an article for the institute magazine of the KWI: If the attacked group of people is not "precisely and narrowly defined", the lawsuit must be considered inadmissible.

On April 11, 1935, the appeal hearing took place in front of the appeal court in Cairo. Friedrich Grimm came again to represent the defendant. The court of appeal confirmed the first-instance judgment.

Diewerge then published a propaganda brochure about the process in the house publishing house of the NSDAP, the Franz-Eher-Verlag , the main characteristic of which was a massively anti-Semitic orientation. Among other things, Diewerge considered it appropriate to reproduce the name of the plaintiff Jabès as "Schabbes" in order to serve anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Importance and consequences of the process

The anti-Semitic propaganda in National Socialist Germany had reached its first peak in connection with the so-called "Jewish boycott", that is, in the spring of 1933. A "phase of apparent calm" followed in terms of aggressive campaigns against Jews in Germany. It was precisely in this phase that the “Jewish trials” abroad were highlighted in the party press, especially the Bern trial and the Cairo trial.

For Wolfgang Diewerge, the Cairo Trial began a picture-book career as an anti-Semitic propagandist in the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. He was then allowed to take over the "press-related processing" of further spectacular trials, above all the Gustloff affair and the planned show trial against Herschel Grynszpan . As at first in Cairo, he regularly shared the work with Friedrich Grimm, who covered the legal side. Once established and evidently regarded as tried and tested, the pattern was used again and again. After the Second World War, both met again in the vicinity of the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP .

The boycott of German goods and institutions in Egypt continued despite the legal failure. In the course of the process, however, profound differences of opinion and interests had become apparent in the Jewish community in Egypt, including the fact that individual representatives contacted the German legation to negotiate a compromise (withdrawal of the brochure and lifting of the boycott). The political initiative of Castro and the League Against Anti-Semitism clearly lost its strength. The Ha'avara Agreement , which was to be extended to Egypt in 1935, may also play a role.

The Cairo trial found a late literary echo in the novel Le Tarbouche ("Der Tarbusch ", German title: The Merchant of Cairo ) by Robert Solé , which received the 1992 Prix ​​Méditerranée . The hero of the novel Michel Batrakani, an Egyptian of Christian-Syrian origin, is indignant ( indigné ) about the anti-Semitic pamphlet of the German Association and stands in line with 1500 other people in front of the trial room to boo the German lawyer ( pour huer l'avocat de la défense , Me Grimm ).

literature

  • Albrecht Fueß: The German Congregation in Egypt from 1919-1939 (= Hamburg Islamic and Turkish Studies and Texts , Volume 8). Lit, Münster / Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-8258-2734-8 .
  • Malte Gebert: The Cairo Trial of the Jews (1933/34). In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Hostility to Jews in the past and present . Volume 4: Events, Decrees, Controversies . Berlin / Boston 2011, pp. 214–215.
  • Mahmoud Kassim: The diplomatic relations of Germany to Egypt 1919-1936 (= studies on contemporary history of the Middle East and North Africa , Volume 6). Lit, Münster / Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-8258-5168-0 .
  • Gudrun Krämer: Minority, Millet, Nation? The Jews in Egypt 1914–1952 (= studies on the minority problem in Islam , part 7). Oriental Seminar of the University of Bonn, Bonn 1982, ISBN 3-447-02257-4 .
  • Rolf-Ulrich Kunze: Ernst Rabel and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Comparative and International Private Law 1926–1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-798-5 .
  • Stefan Wild: National Socialism in the Arab Near East between 1933 and 1939 . In: Die Welt des Islams , Vol. 25, No. 1/4, pp. 126–173.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fueß 1996, p. 96.
  2. ↑ Kassim 2000, p. 297.
  3. ↑ Fueß 1996, p. 96; Kassim 2000, pp. 290f., 293. Kassim gives the complete text of the telegram on p. 290.
  4. ↑ Fuss 1996, p. 97; Kassim 2000, pp. 294, 296f.
  5. ↑ Kassim 2000, pp. 301-310.
  6. ↑ Kassim 2000, p. 291f .; Fuess 1996, p. 97.
  7. ↑ 500 in Dierge in Wolfgang Diewerge: As a special reporter on the Cairo Jewish trial. Judicially hardened material on the Jewish question . Munich: Rather, 1935. See p. 10 there
  8. ↑ a b Fueß 1996, p. 95.
  9. ↑ Fueß 1995, p. 102; Kassim 2000, p. 361.
  10. ↑ Cf. Fueß 1996, p. 103, and the list of members of the Chamber of Commerce 1932/1933, Fueß 1996, p. 93.
  11. ↑ Kassim 2000, p. 62; Fuess 1996, p. 103.
  12. ↑ Kassim 2000, p. 361.
  13. ↑ Fuss 1996, p. 103; Kunze 2004, p. 84.
  14. ↑ Quoting from Kunze 2004, p. 84.
  15. ↑ Krämer 1982, p. 259.
  16. ↑ Fueß 1996, p. 103.
  17. ↑ Fueß 1996, p. 109.
  18. ↑ Kassim 2000, p. 363.
  19. ↑ Kassim 2000, p. 364.
  20. ↑ Kunze 2004, pp. 84f.
  21. ↑ Fueß 1996, p. 110.
  22. ↑ Fuess 1996, p. 111.
  23. ↑ See the judgment text, printed in the Journal des Tribuneaux Mixtes , see web link.
  24. ↑ Kunze 2004, pp. 85–87.
  25. ↑ Wolfgang Diewerge: As a special reporter on the Cairo Jewish trial. Judicially hardened material on the Jewish question . Munich: Rather, 1935. See p. 24 there.
  26. ↑ Peter Longerich: “We didn't know anything about that!” The Germans and the persecution of the Jews 1933–1945. Pantheon, Berlin, 2nd edition 2007, p. 67.
  27. ↑ Peter Longerich: “We didn't know anything about that!” The Germans and the persecution of the Jews 1933–1945. Pantheon, Berlin, 2nd ed. 2007, pp. 70–72.
  28. ↑ Kassim 2000, p. 313f. and 369ff .; Fuess 1996, p. 112.
  29. ↑ Krämer 1982, pp. 270ff .; Fuss 1996, p. 112f.
  30. ↑ According to Fueß 1996, p. 102.