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Levinson Refutes Nazi Charges of Jewish Hold on Profession

July 15, 1934
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A revealing refutation of the Nazi charges that Jews overcrowded the professions in Germany, with actual facts and figures, is given by Salmon. O. Levinson, outlawry of war advocate and chairman of the Chicago Committee for the Defense of Human Rights Against Nazism, in a pamphlet issued by the Committee signed by Mr. Levinson.

In a foreword to Mr. Levinson’s statement, Joseph M. Kraus, vice chairman of the Chicago Committee, declares that the “philosophy of Salmon O. Levinson will make history—and his efforts should make history a sane philosophy.” The statistical facts contained in Mr. Levinson’s presentation, Mr. Kraus points out, and his able analysis of them, will serve as an enduring refutation to some of the pernicious propaganda emanating from Hitler Germany.

SMALL PERCENTAGES

Mr. Levinson shows that of the 52,000 physicians in Germany, only 8,000, or about seventeen per cent, were Jews. Of the 16,000 attorneys in Germany only about 3,500 were Jews. Only in Berlin, says Mr. Levinson, was there a preponderance of Jews in the legal profession.

The same ratio holds in industry and banking, Mr. Levinson reveals. Among 1,000 merchants, he states, there are not more than thirty Jews. “The foregoing examples show how exaggerated and false these claims and propagandist arguments are,” Mr. Levinson says, and continues: “But suppose the percentage of Jews in these various lines and professions had been twice what they were. What of it? In a land of any liberty the contest for success and accomplishment is an open one in which an enlightened public opinion delights to see the best man win. It seems an ignoble confession of impotency and inferiority on the part of German ‘Aryans’ that although in an overwhelming majority, they are not able to compete in an open and honorable way with a small minority of ‘non-Aryans.’ “

NOT A JEWISH PRESS

Coming next to the press, Mr. Levinson tosses back into the faces of the Nazi propagandists the lying impression they have broadcast that the German press was controlled by the Jews. “As a matter of fact,” he states, “only ten of the eighty-five most prominent German newspapers had a Jewish editor-in-chief. Among the editors of the German socialist press, about 400 in all, there were only about twenty Jews.”

Statistics as to the theatre are similar. Of the fifty most prominent actors only ten are Jews. The actual statistical fact is that of a toal of 12,000 actors in Germany there were only 300 Jews.

“There is but one great threat to world peace,” Mr. Levinson says in conclusion, “but one danger of European war today. That danger is Germany, and in that Germany the danger is Nazism. … The only language these demons understand and that we can talk to them, is the language of economic pressure. Only if the world continues its outraged hostility to Germany and its economic pressure under the common title of boycott, the unspeakable war for which Nazi leaders are preparing may be thwarted and averted. And with the thwarting of their plans for war will come the collapse of the Hitler regime.”

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