Right of Hostage

Scratch a stolid Swiss and you have scratched the most orderly of men. In Berne last week the Swiss Government decided they could no longer wink at the disorderly Nazi practice of sending German spies abroad to kidnap or murder Germans who have "opposed Hitler" (TIME, Feb. 4). The case of Berthold Jacob seemed to Swiss one kidnapping too many, and last week spunky little Switzerland made it a cause celebre. Thundered Swiss Foreign Minister Giuseppe Motta: "The Jacob affair constitutes a serious violation of Swiss sovereignty capable of shaking the destiny of Switzerland !"

Every thread of the case had been laid bare last week by Swiss Prosecutor Anton Ganz working in London with Scotland Yard and in Paris with the Surete Nationale. Jacob is a German, a Jew and an undistinguished journalist who has done articles critical of Nazidom for English papers. In London a certain Dr. Hans Wesemann, believed by Swiss last week to head an international kidnap & murder ring operating for the German Government, arranged for Jacob to go from his home in Strasbourg to Basle, Switzerland on promise of pay for further free-lance work. On the night of March 9, Wesemann, posing as an anti-Nazi, and Jacob left the Basle Restaurant Zum Schiefen Eck in a Swiss motor car No. ZH9512.

Too late Jacob discovered he was being taken for a Nazi ride. Speeding at an estimated 80 kilometres per hour, the car nearly ran down a Swiss frontier guard who jumped aside just in time, plunged out of Switzerland and into Germany where it stopped. Same night Jacob was announced by Nazi newsorgans to have been "caught and arrested on German soil." Dr. Wesemann incautiously returned to Basle and was nabbed by Swiss detectives to whom he confessed. Last week the Swiss Government officially informed the German Government that Wesemann is held as hostage for the safety and release from Germany of Jacob.

In London two German women, one of whom had told Swiss and Scotland Yard investigators that they were "working without pay for Dr. Wesemann." died suddenly last week. Said the Paddington police doctor, "Poison." Said Swiss Prosecutor Ganz, "Something must be very wrong. When I saw those two women they were well and happy. I shall be surprised if it is found they committed suicide."

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