The Ugly Scar

As he stood before a judge in the courtroom of Offenburg (pop. 28,000) last week, the very look of Ludwig Pankraz Zind, 51, betrayed his past. His slim body was ramrod-erect, a prim, Hitler-like mustache decorated his face. On his left cheek were the proud, ugly scars of old duels. After his Heidelberg student days, Zind had become a Nazi Storm Trooper, then a reserve captain in the Wehrmacht on the Russian front. Back in Offenburg after the war, he was first barred from his old teaching post by the Allies, but in 1948 he got his job back as a mathematics and biology teacher at Grimmelshausen Gymnasium (secondary school). He became head of the local sports club. But unlike the millions of Germans who tried to forget the past, or wanted to improve upon it, Ludwig Zind never composed the hate that filled his heart.

Favorite Subject. One gay midnight a year ago, Zind was drinking champagne and schnapps in an Offenburg bar when a stranger strolled in, and Zind invited him over. The pair got along famously until 2 a.m., and then Zind began to discourse on his favorite subject: his hatred of Jews. "I ought to tell you," said Kurt Lieser, 47, the stranger, "that I spent the war in a concentration camp, and am Jewish." "What?" Zind exclaimed. "That means they forgot to gas you, too? The Nazis did not gas enough Jews." Two bar companions stepped in to prevent a fight, as Zind shouted: "And Israel--Israel should be removed like a carbuncle!"

Lieser protested to the state government of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Nothing happened. When he pressed his case, officials, hoping to hush up the matter, tried to arrange a reconciliation between Lieser and Zind. But instead of apologizing, Zind snapped: "I would rather clean the streets than crawl to a Jew."

One Man's Words. In December West Germany's weekly Der Spiegel took up the story. One hundred thousand members of the teachers' association demanded that Teacher Zind be brought to trial; the Baden-Wuerttemberg parliament belatedly investigated and was told that Zind had aired similar opinions in the classroom.

Suspended from his job, Zind went on trial last week, accused under ancient statutes prohibiting public approval of crimes or slandering the memory of the dead. In the dock Zind denied nothing, and arrogantly announced that if Germany did not want him, a teaching job awaited him in Egypt. After three days of testimony and six hours of deliberation, the three judges and two lay jurors brought in their verdict: guilty; one year in jail. "Zind's words rip open the old, barely healed wounds of the German people," declared Presiding Judge Johannes Eckert. "What thousands have tried to repair, one man with such words can destroy." But as Ludwig Zind walked out of the courtroom, where the audience had been plainly on his side, women wept at the verdict and men reached out to shake his hand.

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