7 FEBRUARY 1936, Page 2

The Murder at Davos The assassination of the German Nazi

agent Herr Gustloff at Davos by a young Yugoslav Jew has naturally aroused intense indignation in Germany, and reprisals against Jews in that country are to be feared. That serious complications will arise between Germany and Switzerland seems unlikely. The Swiss Government can in no way be held responsible for what has happened. Nazi activity, fostered from the German side of the frontier, has been a serious threat to Swiss cohesion; and the presence of the murdered man and other Nazi agents was grossly distasteful to the authorities, the more so since there was always the possibility of such a crime as -has just been committed: Political assassination is a foul and despicable thing at all times, but the German Government's condemnation must be tempered by chastening recollections. Quite apart from the murders of men like Rathenau and Erzberger; the slaughter of June 30th, 1934, carried out not only by Herr Hitler's orders but in his presence, leaves the Wilhelmstrasse free indeed to lodge the strongest protest against the- student Frankfurter's act on political grounds but hardly free to denounce it as an unprecedented moral outrage.