Germany and Frankfurter On Tuesday David Frankfurter, a Yugoslav Jew,
was convicted of the murder of Herr Gustlov, chief Nazi agent in Switzerland, and sentenced to eighteen years' imprisonment ; there is no death penalty in the canton of Grisons, where the trial took place. Frankfurter's crime was essentially political, provoked by the persecution of the Jews in Germany. His sentence, though heavy, is just, and the Grisons tribunal is guilty of no political prejudice in passing it. But any punishment short of the heaviest seems an outrage to the German Press, which in the course of the trial violently attacked Frankfurter's defence and deplored the absence of the death penalty ; it asserts that Frankfurter was the tool of a conspiracy of world Jewry against Germany, and that the political aspect of his crime has not yet been settled. The crime at Davos has not yet been expiated ; it is alarming to conjecture what kind of expiation Germany may demand. For these threats and protests are a direct provocation to an intensifica- tion of anti-Semitic persecution in Germany. They will no doubt bear their intended fruit.
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