Vossische Zeitung
- Verdict in the First Feme Trial
- The Continuation of Thoiry
- Italianization of Surnames
The Vossische Zeitung of 26 October 1926 reported the verdict in the first Feme murder trial at Landsberg an der Warthe: a driver, Reinhold Thom, and a druggist, Alfred Rathsman, each received two years' imprisonment over an attempt to poison Lieutenant of the Reserve Richard Jahnke, while a merchant was accused of forcing the poison's purchase by threats. A second piece dismissed talk of a "failure" of the Thoiry policy, noting that Briand and the German ambassador had agreed to resume talks and that Ambassador von Hoesch was preparing the ground in Paris. A column by the Vienna professor Karl Brockhausen relayed the Italian envoy Auriti's claim that the planned changes to German surnames in Trento were limited to two groups and largely harmless.
Translation
Verdict in the First Feme Trial
The verdict was handed down today in the first Feme murder trial, which the jury court at the regional court in Landsberg an der Warthe has been hearing. The defendants were the motor-vehicle driver Reinhold Thom, the druggist Alfred Rathsman and the merchant Hans Buchholtz. Thom was charged with attempting to kill Lieutenant of the Reserve Richard Jahnke by poison; Rathsman is alleged to have procured the poison, and Buchholtz is alleged to have forced him to do so by threats. The verdict reads: "The defendant Thom is sentenced to two years' imprisonment for attempted killing; the defendant Rathsman is likewise sentenced to two years' imprisonment for aiding and abetting the crime.
The Continuation of Thoiry
How absurd it is to speak of a "failure" of the Thoiry policy is best shown by the fact that the Franco-German exchange of views on the whole complex of problems that go under this name is continuing unremittingly and most actively. In their conversation on Friday, Briand and the German ambassador agreed to resume the talks immediately after Briand returns from his leave, and we believe we know that Herr v. Hoesch has not been idle in the meantime either, and has had the opportunity, in close contact with the personalities who set the course of French policy, to prepare the ground for continuing the discussions.
Italianization of Surnames
By Hofrat Dr. Karl Brockhausen, Professor at the University of Vienna.
In a conversation intended for the public, the Italian envoy in Vienna, Auriti, presents the announced change of German surnames in Trento as a fairly harmless matter that has caused unjustified agitation only as a result of false reporting. The Italian ordinances, he says, do not intend to turn all German surnames into Italian ones; it is merely a matter of two groups: namely, names of Italian and Latin origin, which are to be restored to their original form, and further, names and nobiliary designations of a local or similar character, which, in keeping with the alteration of the place names, would logically have to follow these changes.
Context
What a 'Feme' killing meant in 1926
The term Fememord referred to vigilante justice by a political group: the killing of supposed "traitors" who knew the group's secrets. When the paper calls the Landsberg case the "first" Feme murder trial, it uses a label that had just acquired official weight. In January 1926, at the request of the Social Democrats, the Reichstag set up an investigative committee into Feme organizations and murders, and in the same year a Reichstag commission formally distinguished Feme murders from political assassinations of opponents. Police and judicial investigations of these crimes had been slow, and killers who were identified often received light sentences or were acquitted. The two-year prison terms reported here for an attempted poisoning can be read against that record. The excerpt itself does not say which organization the defendants or Jahnke belonged to.
The Black Reichswehr and the Schulz trial that followed
The Black Reichswehr was a paramilitary organization that supplied extra manpower reserves for the Reichswehr in violation of the Versailles Treaty, and Feme killings of alleged "traitors" took place inside it. Oberleutnant Paul Schulz was involved in those killings. About five months after the Landsberg verdict, on 26 March 1927, a court sentenced Schulz to death for inciting the murder of Black Reichswehr Sergeant Walter Wilms. First Lieutenant Fritz Fuhrmann and Sergeant Erich Klapproth, who carried out the murder, were also sentenced to death. The Landsberg excerpt names neither Schulz nor the Black Reichswehr, so the link drawn here to the later prosecution rests on the shared Feme label, not on anything in the excerpt itself.
Thoiry and the franc's dependence on Washington
The "Thoiry policy" took its name from the French village where Briand and Stresemann met in September 1926. There Stresemann pledged material support to stabilize the franc, and Briand agreed to return the Saar Basin to Germany early. Objections from both the German and French governments soon reduced the scope of these resolutions. The franc's position was tied to France's war debt to the United States. Washington was quietly blocking private and public loans to France while the debt question remained unsettled. The Mellon–Berenger Agreement of 29 April 1926 had been signed subject to ratification by the French parliament, but most French people wanted the debts waived, successive governments delayed, and ratification came only in July 1929. A German-financed rescue of the franc therefore had to work around a credit channel the Americans were holding closed. The article's insistence that Thoiry had not failed shows that such doubts were already being voiced in October 1926.
Trento and the Italianization of German surnames
At its annexation in 1919, the middle part of the County of Tyrol, today's South Tyrol, was inhabited by almost 90% German speakers. A manifesto published by Ettore Tolomei on 15 July 1923 became the basis for the Italianization measures that followed. Its programme called for joining Alto Adige and Trentino in a single province with its capital at Trento, which matches the envoy's speaking of German surnames "in Trento". The same programme listed the Italianization of German surnames among its measures. Italian place names had already been made official by decree, and Auriti's argument that local names and noble titles should "logically" follow the changed place names tied the surname policy to that earlier renaming. Brockhausen's column relays the envoy's reassuring account, while Tolomei's list shows that surname changes had belonged to the Italianization programme from the start.
Original
Urteil im ersten Femeprozeß
Im ersten Fememordprozeß, den das Schwurgericht beim Landgericht in Landsberg a. d. Warthe verhandelte, wurde heute das Urteil gefällt. Angeklagt waren der Kraftwagenführer Reinhold Thom, der Drogist Alfred Rathsman und der Kaufmann Hans Buchholtz. Thom wurde des Versuchs angeklagt, den Leutnant d. R. Richard Jahnke durch Gift zu töten, Rathsman soll das Gift beschafft haben und Buchholtz soll diesen durch Bedrohung dazu genötigt haben. Das Urteil lautet: " Der Angeklagte Thom wird wegen versuchter Tötung zu zwei Jahren Gefängnis verurteilt, der Angeklagte Rathsman wird wegen Beihilfe zu dem Verbrechen gleichfalls zu zwei Jahren Gefängnis verurteilt.
Die Weiterführung von Thoiry
Wie unsinnig es ist, von einem " Scheitern " der Thoiry-Politik zu sprechen, wird am besten durch die Tatsache erhellt, daß der deutsch-französische Meinungsaustausch über den Gesamtkomplex der Probleme, die unter diesem Namen laufen, unentwegt und in regster Weise fortdauert. Zwischen Briand und dem deutschen Botschafter ist in der Unterredung am Freitag vereinbart worden, sofort nach der Rückkehr Briands von seinem Urlaub die Besprechungen wieder aufzunehmen, und wir glauben zu wissen, daß Herr v. Hoesch auch in der Zwischenzeit nicht müßig gewesen ist und Gelegenheit gehabt hat, in enger Fühlung mit den für die französische Politik maßgebenden Persönlichkeiten das Terrain für die Fortführung der Diskussionen vorzubereiten.
Italianisierung der Familiennamen
In einem für die Oeffentlichkeit bestimmten Gespräche stellt der Wiener italienische Gesandte Auriti die angekündigte Aenderung der deutschen Familiennamen im Trento als eine ziemlich harmlose Sache dar, die nur infolge falscher Berichterstattung eine unberechtigte Erregung hervorgerufen habe. In den italienischen Verordnungen sei nicht beabsichtigt, alle deutschen Familiennamen in italienische zu verwandeln, sondern es handle sich lediglich um zwei Gruppen, und zwar um solche italienischen und lateinischen Ursprunges, die in ihre ursprüngliche Form zurückversetzt werden sollen, und ferner um Namen und Adelsprädikate örtlicher und ähnlicher Kennzeichnung, die entsprechend der Abänderung der Ortsnamen logischerweise diesen Aenderungen zu folgen hätten.