David Frankfurter

Frankfurter was born in Daruvar, Croatia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and later part of Yugoslavia for years), to a Jewish family: father Mavro and mother Rebekka (née Figel) Frankfurter.[2][3] His father was a rabbi in Daruvar and later the chief rabbi in Vinkovci, where the Frankfurter family relocated in 1914.[3] Frankfurter was a sickly child and suffered an incurable periostitis for which he underwent seven operations between the ages of six and twenty-three. His doctors feared he would not live a normal lifespan. He graduated from elementary and later secondary school, in 1929, with high marks.

After completing his basic education, he began studying medicine. His father sent him to Germany to study dentistry, first in Leipzig and then in 1931 in Frankfurt, the town of his ancestors. [3]

While studying in Germany, Frankfurter witnessed the Nazis coming to power and their imposition of anti-semitic measures. The rise of Nazism in Germany and the banning of Jews from German universities compelled him to move to Switzerland to continue his studies, and he settled in Bern in 1934. There among the Germans and German-speaking Swiss, the Nazi movement gained ground, led by Wilhelm Gustloff. Having become convinced of the danger posed by the Nazis, Frankfurter kept an eye on Gustloff, head of the Foreign Section of the Nazi Party in Switzerland (NSDAP). The latter man ordered the propaganda piece, Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903), to be published there for distribution.

Motivated by such insults and attacks on Jewish people, Frankfurter bought a gun in Bern in 1936 and resolved to assassinate Gustloff. Frankfurter easily found Gustloff's address, which was listed in the phone book. On 4 February 1936, he went to the Gustloff home; Gustloff's wife Hedwig received him and showed him into the study, asking him to wait since her husband was on the telephone.[3]

When Gustloff, who was in the adjoining room, entered his office where Frankfurter was sitting opposite a picture of Hitler, the young man introduced himself as a Jew and shot Gustloff five times: in the head, neck and chest. He left the premises, went into the next house, and asked to use the telephone. He rang the police and confessed to the murder. He immediately went to the police station and calmly told the police what had happened.

The assassination of Gustloff was widely publicized throughout Europe, especially due to Nazi propaganda directed by Joseph Goebbels. Adolf Hitler prohibited an immediate retaliation against the Jews of Germany at the time, fearing an international boycott of the winter and summer Olympics that were due to be held in Germany. He wanted to use the Games to promote propaganda on the world stage about the size, power and ideology of the Nazi movement. Nevertheless, an editorial on the front page of Völkischer Beobachter demanded Frankfurter's execution.[3][4][5]

Gustloff was declared a Blutzeuge/Blood Martyr of the Nazi cause. His assassination was later used in propaganda, serving as pretext, along with Herschel Grynszpan's assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, for the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom. While most people in Switzerland were sympathetic towards Frankfurter, the Swiss government prosecuted the case strictly. It wanted to maintain its position of neutrality. Frankfurter was convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison and subsequent expulsion from the country. His father visited his son in prison and asked him, "Who actually needed this?"[3]

In 1941, as the Nazis occupied Vinkovci, Frankfurter's father was forced to stand on a table while the German soldiers spat in his face, pulled out hair from his long beard, and struck him with their rifle butts. Frankfurter's father and mother were later killed by Ustaše in the Jasenovac concentration camp during the Holocaust.[6]^: 148[7]

As the Second World War came to an end, Frankfurter applied for a pardon on 27 February 1945. It was granted on 17 May,[8] but he still had to leave the country and pay restitution and court costs for his case. In 1969, the cantonal parliament of Graubünden revoked the expulsion.

David Frankfurter garden in Ramat Gan.

After his release from prison, Frankfurther had to leave Switzerland, and he migrated to the British Mandate of Palestine.

There Frankfurter settled in Tel Aviv. He later became an employee of the Israeli Minister of Defence and later an officer in the Israeli Army. He lived and worked in several Israeli cities until his death in 1982.[3]

Frankfurter died in Israel, in the city of Ramat Gan on 19 July 1982, aged 73.[3]

Several books were written about the Gustloff assassination.

Frankfurter published two memoirs. The first in German called Rache ("revenge") and the second in English, called The First Fighter against Nazism.[3]

Frankfurter's assassination of Gustloff is the subject of the Swiss film Assassination in Davos (1975), which gives an account of events. Much of the film is devoted to Frankfurter's trial. The film ends with documentary footage of David Frankfurter living in Israel.

In Israel, Frankfurter has been hailed as a hero. After his death, several cities named streets or parks after him. [3]

• Günter Grass's novel Crabwalk, in which Frankfurter plays a large role, English 2003, ISBN 0-15-100764-0
• Peter Bollier, 4. Februar 1936: das Attentat auf Wilhelm Gustloff; in: Roland Aergerter (ed.), Politische Attentate des 20. Jahrhunderts, Zürich, NZZ Verlag, 1999
• Matthieu Gillabert, La propagande nazie en Suisse, L'affaire Gustloff 1936, Lausanne: Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2008
• Emil Ludwig; Peter O. Chotjewitz; Helmut Kreuzer (eds.), Der Mord in Davos, Herbstein: März, 1986
• Heinz Schön Die Gustloff - Katastrophe. Bericht eines Überlebenden über die größte Schiffskatastrophe im Zweiten Weltkrieg. (The Gustloff Catastrophe: Account of a Survivor of the Biggest Ship Disaster in the Second World War.) Motorbuch Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-613-01027-5

• "Simon Wiesenthal Center" about David Frankfurter
• David Frankfurter in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
• Konfrontation at the Internet Movie Database.
• Newspaper clippings about David Frankfurter in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW