There is a proposal being discussed by some of the Jewish organisations here, to send a Jewish delegation to President von Hindenburg to intervene with him against the growing Nazi anti-Jewish campaign. If it is decided to send such a delegation it will include representatives of all Jewish groupings in Germany.
President Hindenburg has proved himself a man of uncompromising honesty and a loyal guardian of the German Constitution, the Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith, said in its election manifesto at the time of the presidential elections in March, calling on all Jewish voters to vote for Hindenburg. It is, therefore, the duty of every responsible Jewish German to vote for him. He will never permit Germany to do anything that is unconstitutional. He is the protector of Germany’s internal peace. Therefore vote for Hindenburg.
The German Zionist Federation also issued an appeal to the Jews to vote for Hindenburg.
Every Jew must vote for Hindenburg, the Zionist appeal said, in order to avert the present grave menace that is threatening the Jewish population of Germany. Jews are interested in the present election not only as citizens, but also specifically as Jews.
The Hitlerists, on the other hand, furiously opposed Hindenburg, Hitler himself standing as their candidate against the President, and the “Voelkischer Beobachter”, the chief Hitlerist organ, attacked President Hindenburg for having made common cause with the Jews. “He is the candidate of the Mosse and the Ullstein Press”, it wrote, “and of the other Jews, and therefore is not a true German, and no true German may vote for Hindenburg”.
Deputy Goebbels, the Hitlerist leader in Berlin, made a long hysterical outburst in the Reichstag against President Hindenburg as the “candidate of the Jews”, for which General Groener, then Minister of the Interior and Defence, trounced him, saying acidly:
These Goebbels lads who know of the Great War only by hearsay, dare to get up here and class Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, the supreme soldier of the war, with deserters.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
