Karl Kraus and the Halsmann trial

In 1928, Philipp Halsmann, a young Jew, later to become a photographer of worldwide renown, was convicted of having murdered his father in the Tyrolean mountains. Antisemitic feelings in the jury may have contributed to this sentence. Karl Kraus, Austria's foremost satirist and always a vociferous critic of Austrian courts, did not comment on these trials except by quoting one sentence from a newspaper article on the definite condemnation of Halsmann. In the context of the article this quotation is integrated in and of Kraus' satirical techniques in general, the few lines turn out to be a very outspoken (though indirect) reaction of the writer.