Ousting Jews from Public Offices in Germany: State Secretary to Finance Ministry Resigning Because T

For a long time the German antisemites have been conducting an agitation and trying to exercise pressure on the Federal Government to induce it to dismiss Ministerial-Councillor Hans Schaeffer, the State Secretary to the Federal Ministry of Finance, because he is a Jew. Now the Berlin Hitlerist paper “Angriff”, which is edited by Deputy Goebbels, the Hitlerist leader in Berlin, reports that Herr Schaeffer is resigning because he has been offered the position of Director-General of the big Ullstein publishing firm.

The J.T.A. on enquiry learns that the Government is very anxious to retain Herr Schaeffer’s services, but Herr Schaeffer says he is tired of the attacks made on him in the antisemitic press and by the antisemitic Deputies and of the pressure which is being brought to bear on the Government to get him dismissed, so that when the offer was made to him by the Ullstein firm, he decided that it would be best to accept it.

In Jewish quarters, however, there is a desire that Herr Schaeffer should not yield to the antisemitic pressure, and leave his post, because if he does, it will create a precedent and will encourage the antisemites to intensify their agitation, so that before long all the Jews in high places in the German State would be squeezed out.

The German antisemites have for years been endeavouring to bring about the dismissal of various Jewish high officials, and Dr. Hermann Badt, the Permanent Chief of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and the Prussian Representative in the German Federal Council (Reichsrat), which is composed of 66 members, representing the German States, has been a particular butt of theirs. Ever since his appointment to the position in October 1926, when he became the first Jew to hold so high a post in the Prussian Civil Service, he has been subjected to personal annoyance, and formal resolutions have been introduced year after year into the Prussian Parliament demanding his dismissal. A few months after his appointment, early in 1927, the then Federal Minister of the Interior, Herr von Keudell, who belongs to the German National Party, attacked Dr. Badt, at a meeting of the Federal Council, accusing him of having broken the rule of secrecy binding members concerning the proceedings. Dr. Badt immediately replied, declaring that the accusation was entirely unjustified. The press described the attack as the beginning of a campaign to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of all Jewish officials. The Prussian Premier, Dr. Braun, made a point of attending the next meeting of the Federal Council, and stated there publicly that there was not the slightest justification for the accusation against Dr. Badt, and that the Prussian Government guaranteed absolutely his loyalty and good faith. The Reichsrat thereupon unanimously decided that the accusation was without foundation, and demanded that Herr von Keudell should make a personal apology to Dr. Badt.