Ernst Toller

Highcroft

The Edge

Stroud

Gloucest.

January 23rd 1935

Dear Professor Laski,

I was very sorry that you and Mrs. Laski and Miss Diana did not come to see me this week-end. I hope you will come another time.

To day I ask you for a very great favour. Please do help Ossietzky. I am sure you know this man, who was one of the most courageous fighters for European peace since 15 years, and one of the finest German writers too. He has given the proof on many occasions that he is a fearless and pure character. During the night after the Reichstag-Fire he was arrested and is living since this time in a concentration camp. His treatment was and is humiliating. He is an ill man and his friends are afraid he may not survive this period of suffering. The Hitler Government cannot make him other reproaches then that he has written powerful essays against dictatorship and militarism, before Hitler came to power. I add an article written by Hellmut von Gerlach the former editor of the weekly “Welt am Montag” and president of the German Peace Society, living now as an emigrant in Paris. He will propose Ossietzky for the Nobel Prize of Peace and will send a detailed statement to Stockholm. The constitution of the Nobel Prize gives to every Professor of Political Science the right to propose a candidate. I am sending enclosed a copy of Art. 3 of the constitution. It would be a great help if you could decide to propose Carl von Ossietzky. It is not necessary to make a detailed statement. You can refer to the foundation (statement) of Herr von Gerlach. Many people in many countries will do so. Even a member of the Prize Committee in Stockholm. But it is important that well-known people in every country do it. You would help a man who deserves it. I am enclosing also copies of letters of O. G. Villard, and answers of Lord Marley and Lady Astor. Dear Professor Laski do help. If you know anybody else who is entitled to propose Ossietzky, please suggest it to him.

With kind regards

yours sincerely