The behind-the-scenes story of how the anti-Jewish boycott was organized in Germany is now told by no other than Joseph Goebbels, in his personal diary, where he reveals that the Nazi campaign against the Jews was carefully planned.
Jews in America—those who are for boycotting German goods as well as those who do not approve of this boycott— will be interested in a few of the entries on Jews which Goebbels made in his diary. The items tell their own story and and hardly need any comment.
THE JEWS SCAPEGOATS
“We shall only be able to combat the falsehoods abroad,” Dr. Goebbels writes on March 26, 1932, “if we get at those who have originated them or at those who benefit by them, namely the Jews living in Germany, who up till now have remained unmolested. So we must proceed to an extensive boycott of Jewish business in Germany. Perhaps the foreign Jews will think better of it when they see their racial brethren hard pressed.”
The next day the diary proceeds:—
“Dictate a sharp article against the Jewish atrocity propaganda. The proclamation of the boycott already makes the whole clan tremble in their shoes. One has to employ these methods. Generosity does not impress the Jews. One has to show them one is equal to anything.”
PRESSING THE BUTTON
Three days later follows the entry that “the boycott is organized. We need only to press a button to set it going.”
On the last day of March Dr. Goebbels wrote:
“Held a last small conference and decided that the boycott is rigorously to begin tomorrow. It is to be carried out for one day and then to be interrupted by an interval till Wednesday. If the atrocity stories cease abroad, it will be stopped. Otherwise it will be a fight to the finish. Now the German Jews must bring their influence to bear upon their brethren elsewhere to mitigate their own lot at home.”
The following day—on the day when the historic anti-Jewish boycott was officially proclaimed by the Nazi government—Dr. Goebbels registers his satisfaction.
“The boycott,” he writes, “has begun vigorously in Berlin and in the whole Reich. I motored down the Tauentzienstrasse on a tour of inspection. All Jewish shops are closed. Storm troops stand on guard in front of the entrances. The public has everywhere observed the decree.”
THE BOYCOTT PHILOSOPHY
The few entries quoted not only give the historic background of the anti-Jewish boycott proclaimed by the Nazi government, but they also disclose the entire philosophy behind this boycott.
In the light of Dr. Goebbels’ disclosures every liberal-minded person in the world is held virtually directly responsible for the sufferings of the Jews in Germany. The fact that the Jews were made hostages by Dr. Goebbels in revenge for the “atrocity stories” on Germany, spread by Americans in America, by Englishmen in England, by Frenchmen in France and by civilized people in every civilized country now emerges very clearly from Dr. Goebbels’ diary.
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.
