Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

180
Dr Kulmey, insisted that Fliess be detained and Judge Pippig obliged. 179 Fliess
was eventually found guilty and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment in
January 1936. Sabatzky wrote that ‘not long thereafter in a moment of despair
Fliess took his own life.’ 180 Sabatzky also wrote that the campaign of public
defamation in the city’s press had shattered Fliess’s already fragile nervous
state. 181
The case of the prominent Magdeburg banker, Philipp Schmulewitz, and three
of his clients in August 1936 mirrored the situation of Fliess. Schmulewitz was
accused of the same crime. Once again the combination of the judiciary and the
press proved no match and all of the defendants were publicly harangued. On 8
August 1936, Sabatzky reported that all four defendants had been found guilty as
charged. 182 Throughout the course of the trials Die Mitteldeutsche Zeitung had
reported in sensationalistic and antisemitic rhetoric the entire proceedings and the
final verdicts. Philipp Schmulewitz was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment,
ten years’ loss of civil rights and ordered to pay a fine of RM 320,000; Max
Friedländer was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, three years’ loss of civil
rights and ordered to pay a fine of RM 5,000; Ilse Friedländer was sentenced to
two years’ imprisonment, three years’ loss of civil rights and ordered to pay a fine
of RM 3,000; and Jenny Lederer was sentenced to fourteen months’
179 Kurt Sabatzky, Meine Erinnerungen an den Nationalsozialismus, undated, File ME
541; MM65, LBIA NY, op. cit., p. 26.
180 Betr.: Prozessangelegenheit Rechtsanwalt Fliess, 1. Februar 1936, Collection RG-
11.00M.31, Reel 130, File 721-1-2845, USHMMA, op. cit., p. 353.
181 Kurt Sabatzky, Meine Erinnerungen an den Nationalsozialismus, undated, File ME
541; MM65, LBIA NY, op. cit., p. 26.
182 Betr.: Prozess Schmulewitz - Magdeburg, 8. August 1936, Collection RG-
11.00M.31, Reel 130, File 721-1-2845, USHMMA, op. cit., p. 335.