David Frankfurter

David Frankfurter (; 9 July 1909 – 19 July 1982) was a Croatian Jew known for assassinating Wilhelm Gustloff, the founder and leader of the Swiss branch of the Nazi Party, in February 1936 in Davos, Switzerland. He surrendered and confessed, telling the police that "I fired the shots because I am a Jew."

Frankfurter was sentenced to 18 years in prison for murder. Shortly after V-E Day, he was granted a parliamentary pardon and released. As he left prison, sympathetic crowds cheered him as a hero.

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.

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?"

As the Second World War came to an end, Frankfurter applied for a pardon on 27 February 1945. The Swiss press was overwhelmingly in favor of clemency, which was granted on 17 May, by a vote of 78 to 12. However, 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.

Later years and emigration to Palestine

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