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(p.249)
At the beginning of the afternoon session of the fifth day of the hearings, the court
chairman Kluth became outraged over the fact that one letter among others
arrived for him in which it was said that he should now finally proceed against the Jew
Buschhoff more quickly and not in such a friendly manner!
The chaplain Bresser wanted to work to calm the aroused populace in Xanten, to
prevent thoughtless excesses from occurring. He told the court that these efforts had earned
him the nickname "Chaplain of the Jews." For our purposes this would be entirely meaningless
in itself, but the chairman of the court responded to this: "You (Chaplain Bresser) can
(250) refer to St. Bernhard, who also protected the
Jews. . ."
The resident Beekmann is supposed to have come out of the barn of Oster, the head of
the synagogue, one night, and the next day have been blind drunk. One of his relatives
is supposed to have said: "God, if only that goes well, the man has a lot of money. . ."
-- The chief state's attorney refused to summon this witness, with the argument, as casual
as it was outrageous: "If Beekman is supposed to reveal something and is given money by
the Jews for it, that has no bearing on the case!"
Several witnesses had noticed a strange Jew on the day of the murder. These witnesses expressly
emphasized that he was a stranger, for the few Jewish families who lived in Xanten,
a small city of then barely 4000 inhabitants, were naturally all known. It seems incomprehensible
to us today that the prosecution did not pursue these tracks. In all probability, this was
a case of the Dutch beggar-Jew Vellemann , who smuggled the blood of the victim over
the border in the well-known black bag in combination with some middlemen.
Once again we have now compared all of the relevant interrogation protocols with one another.
Their slight extent is already striking at a glance: in all, they take only a few lines,
then the hearing is broken off without warning -- while entirely unimportant matters fill
many pages! One gets the painful impression:
Buschhoff is not supposed to be further incriminated!
The witness Lenzen gives a short description of the strange Jew with a statement of
the exact time. The chief state's attorney merely replied: "To me that does not seem likely.
It was probably on the day before, when a Jew was at Buschhoff's?"
The witness is certain: "No, on Peter-and-Paul's Day!"
The witness Bernsmann is also questioned: "Are you not mistaken, aren't you confusing
the Sunday with the Monday?"
Witness: "I saw it with total certainty on the Monday!"
When the witness Dornbach is just at the point of giving detailed evidence concerning
"the strange Jew," the questioning is cleverly stopped (251)
and the witness led over to: "Were you satisfied with meat purchases (at Buschhoff's)?"
The mayor of Xanten, Schleß, wanted the reexamination of a witness, who had
important evidence about the surfacing of a stranger in Xanten on 29 June 1891,
"whom she believed to be a Jew." The prosecution, however, "found no reason to move
to summon the witness again from our side". . .
On the sixth day of the hearings a dispatch from the prosecutor's office in Dortmund
came in to the jury-court in Cleves, according to which the book printer Reinhard
had come in and wanted to make it known that 30 years before in Wesel blood
was withdrawn from several girls by Jews by means of needle sticks. -- State's Attorney
Baumgardt: "I find no cause to make application [for summons]" -- "The court regards
the matter as inessential and the summons of Reinhard for it unnecessary."
But staff physician Dr. Steiner, who possessed a reputation far beyond Xanten as a
skillful doctor and researcher of the region -- he acquired the greatest merit for his
historical research about Xanten -- and who was so "tactless" as to state that the quantity
of blood found was much too scant for the butchering of the child to have taken place in the
barn, had to see himself made the object of the public reproach in the courtroom, that he
had [been the one to] first carry the "vague assumption" of a ritual-murder to the people!
In his summation on the next to last day of the hearings, Chief State's Attorney Hamm
also attacked him: "The entire erroneous management of the case at the scene is based upon
the mistake, so that it, misled by the assertions of Dr. Steiner that not all the
blood was present [at the scene], believed that: The child was not killed at the scene but was
brought there as a corpse. . ."
Dr. Steiner was torn to shreds: "At any rate it is a misfortune (aha!) that the first
doctor (i.e., Dr. Steiner!) was a private physician not sufficiently trained in forensic
medicine. It has already been more frequently lamented in medical circles, that private
physicians are so poorly informed in matters of forensic medicine. That is how the whole
false idea originated. . ." (Chief State's Attorney Hamm).
Again, eight years later, after a completely similar (252)
blood-murder in Polna, "there was a dearth of" -- according to the Jewish "verdict" --
"positive knowledge and critical capacity, especially in the local experts, who, cut off
from the progress in science, conduct their practices in rough-and-ready style. . ."
Concerning the motive of the horrible crime, the chief state's attorney was of the
opinion that the question of whether this had been a ritual-murder or not, did not belong
within the boundaries of consideration; for him, this was merely an "academic" issue! One
of the defense attorneys of Buschhoff, the lawyer Stapper, supported by medical
"experts," made the attempt to portray the boy Hegmann as a victim of an unnatural assault.
According to this notion, the perpetrator had been "overcome by strong arousal impelling him
to great violence," and cut the child's neck open! -- President: "Herr Dr. Steiner, do
you concur in the opinions of the professors?" -- Dr. Steiner: "That I cannot do!"
With bated breath, the public awaited the start of summation by the prosecuting attorneys
on the next to last day of court. Going by the attitude of the Court of Justice up till now,
nobody believed any longer that Buschhoff would be found guilty of the murder and condemned.
At least it was to be hoped that a position would be taken on whether Buschhoff was to be
regarded as an accomplice or as accessory.
But what the public got to hear exceeded even the worst suspicions of all levels of German
society who were conscious of national events!
Chief State's Attorney Hamm spoke first. He had not the remotest thought of making
any sort of charges against Buschhoff, but on the contrary gave a defending speech which
had been composed from the start in a extremely clever and talmudic arrangement. The reasons
on which he based his deductions stood in direct contradiction with the clear and definite
evidence of the most significant and most credible witnesses, whose statements the chief
state's attorney pushed aside as "meaningless" with a brazenness that simply flabbergasted
the listeners. Hamm came to the end of his summation in this manner: "It is proven
that (253) Buschhoff cannot have committed the crime, and the
prosecution must (!) come to the proposal of moving for a verdict of not guilty for
the accused. . . The proof will be deduced with mathematical exactitude by my colleague
Baumgardt, that Buschhoff cannot have committed the crime and pulled the child inside
around ten o'clock. . ."
After the chief prosecutor, the state's attorney stepped forward with equal zeal as
defender of the accused. He developed the already mentioned "proof of alibi" with
the assistance of the statements of the ill-reputed Ullenboom. This prosecutor also put
forward the basic argument that the scene of discovery was simultaneously the scene
of the crime, and that therefore the murder was committed in the barn of Küppers! His
memorable and happily delivered plaidoyer concluded with the words: "Buschhoff is
therefore, I declare, neither the murderer nor an accomplice to murder, nor even an accessory
to the murder, he must (!) be excluded from any suspicion. I come then to the conclusion
that we are by no means dealing with a case of non liquet [Latin: "it is not evident"];
one thing is clear, by no conceivable means could Buschhoff be the perpetrator; regrettably
it is unclear who did commit the crime. . . By duty and conscience, I cannot move for a
guilty verdict for Buschhoff. I move for his acquittal."
All the stenographic records make note of this moment with the significant word "commotion."
The three actual defense attorneys, since the prosecuting attorneys had taken on themselves
the task of defense, really produced nothing essentially new in their long arguments --
their main mission seems to have consisted of spreading a kind of halo around Buschhoff;
they all moved perfectly in the direction indicated to them by the prosecution!
Attorney Stapper: "Gentlemen of the jury! The outcome of this trial will not
be in doubt, and you yourselves, gentlemen, will think back upon this day with satisfaction
your whole life long, the day when you were called upon to restore freedom to a poor,
unfortunate man, to restore to his persecuted family, which was abandoned for months to
hatred and to the agitation of a rabble without the ability to judge, their head of
the house, to restore to his children their father, and to his community its member. . .On
(254) the evening of 29 June 1891, the bloody specter of
ritual-murder climbed out of the darkness to which it was exiled for decades. . .Behind
it lies a system, gentlemen, it is the conflict of anti-Semitism which got ahold of the
Buschhoff case. . .Yes, gentlemen, there was a risk that an innocent man might lose his
life, had we not had dutiful officials. . ."
Attorney Fleischhauer: "Gentlemen! I have taken on the task of defense, infused
with the noble mission of the advocate to give protection and aid. . .I am happy to have
participated according to my abilities in the work whose cornerstone is being set
today. I permit myself to say that in the accused I have come to know a man for whom every
man, be he Christian or of another faith, must have the greatest respect. Buschhoff
cannot possibly have been the perpetrator. . ."
Frau Buschhoff, who had called out in the presence of Frau Hegmann: "But console her, [that]
she is getting a replacement for it," and who had imposed herself in the most disgusting
fashion, experiences via this lawyer the following "evaluation": ". . .In what a touching
manner did Frau Buschhoff deplore the crime, how well did she strike the proper tone,
the tone of tenderest sympathy and genuine mother-love! Gentlemen! These expressions
of human empathy, of true unfeigned sympathy, witnesses dare to criticize, these sounds of
a good heart. . ."
"Gentlemen of the jury! When I ask you after this present day to take with you the image of
these proceedings, I also ask you to take along with you the image of a man who lived
modestly but peacefully and quietly with his family and his neighbors, who up till now
enjoyed the friendship of all and gave friendship to all. . .who from now on must eat the
bitter bread of charity, since his middle-class existence, which he had grounded in a
blameless life(8) is destroyed for a long time. . .This trial
is for us, who are experiencing it, and hopefully also for wider circles of our people for
may years, if not for always, a comforting release from the unkind agitation which has
sullied the story of the past year!"
(255) Attorney Gammersbach entered the area of religion:
"Gentlemen of the jury, there would be no sharper weapon against the charge of ritual-murder
that that basic law: 'Thou shalt not kill!' But if we can refer to this commandment, which
for us has been valid for 1800 years, the Jews are in a position to refer to this particular
commandment, which for them has been in force for more than 3000 years, and to the law that
prohibits the Jews from the consumption of blood. . ." -- "What has held Buschhoff up? His
firm trust in God! When I said to the accused: 'Now you are coming before your judge,' he
answered: 'I trust in God! God will not let me, an innocent man, be condemned!' Gentlemen
of the jury! This trust in God has preserved the accused right up to this hour. . .I am
convinced that we will all agree in the decision: By honor and conscience before God and
man: The accused Buschhoff is not guilty!"
The chairman declared before the pronouncement of the judgement: "In the slaughtering of a
five year-old innocent child, the blood cries out to Heaven" (but he forgot to add that it
couldn't cry out to Heaven, since it was no longer there). . .
The jury was now securely nailed in advance to one question, shrewdly formulated under
a sham frame of reference; as such, this already meant a catastrophe in the tragedy of
Cleves. It read: "Is Adolf Buschhoff guilty of having killed by intent the boy Johann
Hegmann in Xanten on 29 June 1891 and of having committed this killing with
deliberation?" The juror Graf Loë proposed a practical division of the issue,
so that the jury could also speak to the aiding and abetting or instigation of the
crime. The chairman of the court rejected this, because aiding and abetting and incitement
did not come into consideration; the prosecutor did not, he said, include any such issue
relating to this! "You only have the right to answer the questions put to you about murder.
Should you be of the opinion that no murder took place but rather perhaps aiding and abetting
or perhaps abuse with a fatal outcome, then you must acquit, because a question
dealing with that has not been put to you. . ."
The verdict of the jury consequently had to read "not guilty"!
(256) The President: "In consideration that the accused
Buschhoff, through the verdict of the jury, has been declared not guilty, on this
basis it is adjudged that:
The accused Buschhoff is acquitted, the order for custody is lifted, and the costs
of the proceedings charged to the state treasury. The session is concluded."
Buschhoff was immediately set free. Jews and free masonic comrades of Jews of all faculties
had gotten together in order to point out to the little Jew entrusted to them the tiny hole
through which he could slip, a tiny hole in the net which, despite their desperate
countermeasures, was contracting more and more tightly around him.!
This final and decisive chess move in Buschhoff's favor aroused extreme astonishment in all
circles, even in judicial ones! In the Prussian house of Deputies Stoecker, referring
to the scandal in Cleves, said: "Certainly there is uncommon alarm also in legal circles
over the growth of the Jewish element in the judicial profession, because one fears that
influences, as I have characterized them here, will continue to grow, the more the Jewish
element permeates our justice system.
It is necessary to speak about these matters from another point of view and to procure clarity,
because there are people among our folk -- perhaps unique on the Earth and in world history --
people who today, where Jewry arrogates to itself and exercises an unbearable
influence upon our folk -- feel themselves induced -- I do not know for what reasons --
to act as protectors of over-powerful Jewry and to offer the world the miserable
spectacle that a nation is left in the lurch, is not protected by its own citizens,
among them respected citizens. Such is the case with the so-called protection troops, this
association for the warding-off of anti-Semitism. In the face of this smoke-screen we want to
bring these matters to the agenda and, Mr. Deputy Rickert, may you be convinced, I
know my folk, in our German folk three-quarters will be on our side, not on yours." (Laughter
from the left, robust applause from the right.)
"That a nation is not protected by its own citizens" -- Free Masonry had so judaized
just those "citizens, among them respected citizens," (257)
mentally and morally, that they were no longer aware that they were acting against and had to
act against the most elementary interests of life, that they were betraying their folk -- they
had become without will, unnerved tools of international Jews! [How much more profoundly true
this is today, thanks in large part to Jewish control of the brainwashing instrument
of the ages, television, and all other forms of popular media!]
To this let us add a small illustration from that Cleves courtroom: A Jewish paper out of
Berlin which had sent in its own correspondents to Cleves, reproached -- we are sufficiently
familiar with the motif -- the Xanten populace with lack of education, with fanaticism, with
superstition, etc., etc. It was suggested to the court President that the press card be
revoked from the Jewish rats involved, "because it isn't right that anyone who enjoys a
privileged place as a guest, should use the opportunity of this trial to express such
adverse and contemptuous comments about the local populace." -- What did the court chairman
do? Let us allow him to say it in his own words: "I have not agreed to this proposal
because I like to allow everyone his own opinion. . ." His strained arguments for the
"rehabilitation" of the populace could only have a embarrassing effect upon his audience!
Incidentally, among the trial correspondents, just as at Tisza-Eszlár, sat Paul
Nathan. . .
In conclusion we wish to establish the following for the characterization of the trial,
"that bitter comedy of the last decade of the aging century"(9)
:
1. For the Jew Buschhoff were toiling -- omitting from our account the most
basic legal and practical elements -- one President, two prosecutors, three defense attorneys,
eight medical "experts" including those of the "Royal Medical College," and obviously the
Jewish press, while
2. from the side of the Court of Justice not one single individual acted for the
innocent non-Jewish victim, the small boy Johann Hegmann! -- When the mother
of the victim, fiercely crying, entered the courtroom, she was received by the President
with the words: "One must yield to what is irrevocable, (258)
since nothing can be changed. . ." Then began the cross-examination! The Hegmann family
was delivered up defenselessly to Jewish extortions and threats. As the state's attorney
Baumgardt himself had to admit in the later pending Oberwinder trial, the Hegmann
family was beset by threatening letters of every sort!
3. The unanimity and consistency with which all parties cooperated in court
with the single purpose of dispersing any strongly incriminating factors to the favor of
the accused, seems to us, who are these days accustomed to seeing more sharply into these
matters, downright uncanny.
4. As the main reason for the ineffective manner in which the trial was conducted,
we recognize the enormous Jewish influence and the cleverly insinuated opinion that something
like "ritual-murder" could not exist and never has existed among the Jews -- and that, as an
ancient "cultured people" the Jews were ethically too far above such a thing!
5. The prosecution played the role of the defense! Dr. Schwindt explained in
the Oberwinder trial: ". . .The entire procedure of the state's attorney in the preliminary
investigation just as in the main trial, shows that the prosecution played the role of
the defense."
And the press? At the release of Buschhoff -- insofar as it was Jewish or infected by
Jews -- it broke out in frenetic jubilation and outdid itself in extreme attacks upon all
who thought differently. The Kölner Zeitung [Cologne Times] participated in
the collection of money for the "compensation" of the "innocent" Buschhoff! As the
Deutsche Nachrichten [German News] reported on 30 September 1892, up
until 28 September 1892, at one Berlin collection place alone, 51,282.45 Marks came in
for the Buschhoff family! Only a few German papers, like the Kreuzzeitung and the
Staatsbürgerzeitung [Citizen Times] agreed in essence that the Buschhoff trial
had shown so many abnormalities, like no other trial in Prussia had up till then.
They pleaded for the invalidity of the entire proceedings. But Buschhoff himself,
"the stooping, half-deaf, white-haired Jew with the (259)
gentle facial features" (Paul Nathan), led a comfortable untroubled existence as a retiree
for several more years in Cologne, abundantly furnished with financial means which
the Jews from all parts of the globe continually sent him as "martyr's pay," without an
appeal [against the legitimacy of the trial] ever having been entered; the Prussian
authorities had readily approved his taking another name! -- Later, Buschhoff moved to
America, into the land of -- in this respect, too -- "limitless possibilities". . .
As early as the beginning of the year 1893, it was said that a half million Marks had
been remitted to Buschhoff: According to the prophesy of his defense attorney Fleischhauer,
Buschhoff could therefore "from now on eat the bitter bread of charity." In any event, the
Buschhoffs must have counted on a very fundamental improvement in their economic situation
for a long time already before the murder. Frau Buschhoff said one day to Mallmann --
thus to one of the witnesses who, since his evidence was incriminating, were "not
approved" -- when business conditions were being discussed, that they -- the Buschhoffs --
wanted to leave Xanten soon, but that they first still had a "good piece of business" in
prospect; when that had been done, they would sell their property and leave. Mallmann told
this to the court and added: "That is certainly serious. Is that then not good business?" --
President Kluth: "What are you trying to say?. . .How do you bring this expression
into connection with this case? What does this have to do with it, that the Buschhoffs
wanted to do some good business?"
Mallmann experienced then, as so often by this time, a thorough rebuff; the further
course of events, however, gave to his evidence, which the court apparently
confronted without comprehension, a wholly particular meaning!
In 1892, the Jew Paul Nathan crowed in his Betrachtungen zum Prozeß Buschhoff
[Reflections on the Buschhoff Trial]: "In Cleves the progressive culture
of the German (!) people once more struggled against the intellectually and morally
backward elements of the nation. And who is it, now, who is trying to put the
achievements which we now possess into question? Apparently only a flock of
unscrupulous people without any intellectual prestige and without any moral respect, who
(260) have placed themselves at the head of stupidity and
brutality; this gang ought to have stayed in the dark and gloomy corners in which it
belongs. . ."
The Oberwinder Trial
To the "intellectually and morally backward elements of the nation," and to
the "flock of unscrupulous people," now belonged, according to the notions of philosopher
Nathan, the owner of the "Vaterländische Verlagsanstalt" [Native Country Publishing
Institute] in Berlin, the editor and publisher Oberwinder. After the end of the
Cleves jury-court trial, he self-published a brochure under the title: Der Fall
Buschhoff. -- Die Untersuchung über den Xantener Knabenmord [The Buschhoff Case. --
The Investigation of the Xanten Boy-Murder], in which Oberwinder pilloried, in summary
form again, the impossibility of the entire proceedings. He was straightaway and promptly
dragged before a Berlin court on grounds of libelling the state's attorneys Brixius
and Baumgardt and sentenced to two months' imprisonment!
This "Oberwinder trial," which can be described as a continuation of the Xanten murder
trial, threw a significant as well as revealing spotlight upon the whole conduct of the
proceedings against Buschhoff.
As "witnesses," among others, of all people, Chaplain Bresser from Xanten, the Head
Rabbi Horwitz "including his wife" (Cleves), and the synagogue head Oster (Xanten) were
summoned to this trial!
The accused upheld before the court his attacks against the examining judge Brixius and the
state's attorney Baumgardt in full compass and stated besides that the sins of omission in
Xanten were of a still more serious nature than he had earlier accepted. -- Oberwinder:
"I am at least of the opinion that the persons entrusted with the investigation of the Xanten
murder were biased. I am of the opinion, and found it confirmed when I was in Xanten,
that Baumgardt made no thorough investigation, but instead only a promenade through the
Buschhoff house. What also demonstrates the prejudice of the officials of the investigation,
(261) is the treatment of the prosecution witness Mölders,
who was simply insulted and twice was summoned, in order to get him to make a different
statement. Respectable citizens were even accused of having taught their children untrue
claims, which could cost a man his head. . .
That was simply bias out of fear of the power of Jewry. The trial was a downright
pyramid [colloquial expression for a confusing mess]." President: "What you are saying
about the individual passages (of the Cleves documents), I know of course. I've studied
the case for six days and have almost been driven crazy." -- Oberwinder: "I believe it! I
would like to say a few words about the attempts at collusion Such have been made.
Dr. Hirsch-Hildesheimer has been with the Justice Minister, other rabbis have been with
the Minister of the Interior. The attorney-at-law Fleischhauer had his people
everywhere, who brought him information, even a detective bureau in Berlin. The people
who first saw the murdered child -- there were fourteen of them -- were not questioned in
the preliminary investigation. State's Attorney Baumgardt didn't want to know anything about
a sack -- to him that was all news! -- The viewing of the scene had to be ordered first by
the Justice Minister, and it amounted to the opposite [of what had been claimed], despite
the statement under oath by Brixius. The investigation was conducted only with
reluctance. . .On the 24th of September, 1891 the first state's attorney, Baumgardt,
stated publicly in Cleves that the investigation against Buschhoff had not yielded the
least bit of evidence. The populace of Xanten naturally became very angered by that."
The hearing of evidence in the Oberwinder trial began with the questioning of the first State's
Attorney Baumgardt. He stated: "I reject the reproach of rudeness as untrue and false. That,
someone would have to prove to me first. I am chivalrous toward everyone, not just toward
Jewish girls. At any rate I protest in advance, because of my official position, against
any possible sort of inquisitorial questioning, as if I should have to justify myself against
blame. . ."
The President of the Berlin Court of Justice expressed his unconcealed astonishment over the
fact that no alternate charges of participation, instigation, or aiding and abetting
had been given to the Cleve jurors. (262) Baumgardt, who in
this trial was sitting on the witness stand, gave in response to this as the revealing main
reason, that consideration for his superior, the Chief State's Attorney, had kept him from
doing so!
Oberwinder's defense lawyer, attorney-at-law Dr. Schwindt, stated in open court
session: "From the question of Graf Loë it emerges that at least one portion of the
jury was of the view that there was at least aiding and abetting. In such a case it is the
duty of the state's attorney, if the President does not do it, to move for related
charges [to be included in the charge to the jury]." In the opinion of Dr. Schwindt, in
this case these alternate charges simply had to have suggested themselves to the state's
attorney! Dr. Scwindt explained: "The evidence has been produced that State's Attorney
Baumgardt entered upon the investigation only with reluctance and neglected the most
rudimentary criminological rules. . .But it is a matter of course, that, when a murder
occurs, the first state's attorney must appear himself; in any case there can be
no justification for the fact that he sent an assessor who had been handed over to him for
training." The further, very serious recriminations of this legal authority we shall pass
over here.
The assistant judge, district court councilor Curtius, likewise expressed himself
very clearly: "The stated time of the proof of alibi in the Buschhoff trial seems,
of course, very cute in the documents, but I consider it very risky to base
the innocence of Buschhoff upon it in advance. I find it striking that a prosecutor,
who indeed filed the charges and accordingly must be convinced of the guilt of the
accused, before one single witness has spoken, forms such a favorable judgement in
advance concerning the value of the statements of the accused, who was, after all,
charged on the basis of circumstantial evidence. . .but on what account, still before the
statements of the witnesses, do the jurors vote in favor of the accused?" --
Baumgardt: "If it was a result of my words, then it happened unintentionally." Curtius:
"So, unintentional. Thank you very much. . .But after all, you had to have been convinced
of the guilt of Buschhoff at [the time of] his arrest. The arrest certainly could
not have occurred against your will and the charges have been filed against your
convictions. . .I would like to find out when the moment was, when your
(263) soul became convinced of the innocence of Buschhoff,
between the point in time of Buschhoff's arrest and the beginning of the jury-court
proceedings, how you expressed this directly for the first time, when you began to speak.
You did not work on the completion of the questioning of the accused." Baumgardt:
"I didn't want to confuse the picture given by Buschhoff. . ." -- Despite these
scandalous methods of the Cleves jury-court proceedings, confirmed subsequently before one
other court, the publisher Oberwinder was sentenced through the state attorney's office of
the district court, Berlin I, to two months' imprisonment. The extent of the punishment
was justified by the fact that "added to this, is the necessity to protect the authority
of the court, which has been critically shaken by the accused (Oberwinder). . ." --
Therefore, it was not Baumgardt, Brixius and their comrades who had brought the worst
discredit upon German jurisprudence through their servility to the Jews, but instead a
man who had pointed his finger at the untenable conditions in just these same courts!
At this time the Staatsbürgerzeitung had written to the German people a response from
the soul: "The authority and the respect of the court are best preserved by pure neutrality,
impartiality, painstaking exactitude and unshakable justice. Woe to the folk
whose court would have to be protected through harsh punishment; its fate would be
pitiable!
In the Buschhoff trial those typical phenomena came to light, whose ever more frequent
appearance must fill the heart of every friend of the Fatherland with anxious sorrow. The
worst thing of all is the ever-sharpening dissimilarity of the natural idea of the
law of our folk with the standards of the law becoming accepted by us and their operation.
That is the consequence of the fact that our law did not originate from out of our
national way of viewing things, but a foreign law has been transplanted to
our soil, and this foreign law, which is still influenced and shaped by a currently and
unfortunately prevailing alien spirit, will never be comprehensible to our folk.
Indignation flares up to bright flames, however, when on the basis of this law
things happen as they (264) have more and more often in
most recent times. And when, in addition to this, circumstances are such that in these
events the alien element living among us is obviously given the advantage over those who
belong to our folk, it is no wonder that the universal dissension becomes greater and
greater. . ." -- Buschhoff-Xanten/Cleves and Oberwinden-Berlin: Two trials which produced,
on the one hand the release of a Jewish ritual-slaughterer denounced by the voice of the
people as a ritual-murderer, and on the other hand the condemnation of a German, who was
making an effort to uncover indefensible conditions at the risk of his existence -- in itself
a thoroughly logical development of the "administration" of justice in Wilhelmic Germany!
Once again, Stoecker lifted his voice in the House of Deputies: "I consider this entire
discussion (of the Buschhoff case) all the more necessary, when in spite of this uneasiness
of public opinion due to such trials, we face the fact that in the Ministry of Schelling the
career of justice has expanded unusually for Jewry. This ministry will be described
in history as a ministry under which the Jews, contrary to the awakening sentiments of the
German people, have bestridden higher rungs of the justice career than ever before
That this disturbs us, there is no doubt. This is not the thinking of "anti-Semitic,
agitating circles," this is the thinking which moves our whole folk, up to the circles of
the most level-headed jurists and advocates. (Vigorous opposition from the Left.) If you deny
this, you do it against your better convictions." (Unrest and shouting from the Left.)
Go to Chapter 7: Polna
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