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 caused an international sensation.

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 during a meeting of June 13, 1933 organized by the National Front and the Heimatwehr in the Casino of Berne (with former chief of the Swiss General Staff and Frontist Emil Sonderegger as main speaker). The National Front distributed a print "Die zionistischen Protokolle, 13. Aufl. 1933" 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 (BNSE) was sued as author of the pamphlet and editor of the journal "Der Eidgenosse" (Swiss Confederate) which published an offensive anti-Semitic article written by Alberto Meyer, Zurich, in the manner of Julius Streicher.

Frontist propaganda declared the 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 were produced during the First Zionist Congress at Basel (1897) and cited Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis (1869–1951) from , 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.

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 (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 in the newspaper "Der eiserne Besen" (Rod of Iron) of the National Front.

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