Berlin.
Every now and again the Nazi rules of the Reich permit some glaring anti-Jewish manifestation that the world beyond the Rhine, callous as it must be by this time to varied acts of persecution, cannot disregard. The recent arrests of Jews who had returned to Germany on the assurances of the authorities that they would not be molested (indeed, on the specific invitation of Dr. Schacht) make a case in point. Another is the brazen kidnaping of the anti-Nazi refugee journalist, Berthold Jacob, from Switzerland.
Because, months ago, Nazi Germany’s persecution of the Jews had settled down almost into a vicious routine, the world outside heard little of it and had come to the comfortable conclusion that the situation was slowly stabilizing, that the worst had been passed and that some amelioration was now to be expected in the condition of the Jews.
This correspondent is firmly of the opinion that this hope, unfortunately, is far from true. Before the question arose whether Jews were to be afflicted with the crowning indignity of being refused the right to become cannon-fodder in Germany’s conscript army, as intensive a campaign against the Jews was under way as any that Germany has succumbed to since the advent of the Hitler regime.
The Nazi press, of course, took a prominent role in one phase of this campaign. The authorities also were active with rulings and decrees hampering and harassing the Jews in every sphere of activity left to them. But the most significant part of this campaign was (and still is, for it is continuing strongly at this writing) the taking of this fight to the provinces and the determination of the Nazi leadership to win the peasantry over to an active anti-Semitism. High ranking. Nazis have taken the field in outlying districts of the country where the Jew is almost unknown, to warn the populace solemnly that the Jews are trying to tear them from their beloved soil and steal their farms. Newspapers circulated in these areas preach the same gospel.
Leading the entire campaign is the Voelkischer Beobachter, the newspaper owned by Chancellor Hitler and edited by Alfred Rosenberg, the foreign affairs expert of the Nazi party and the philosopher of the movement.
The Voelkischer Beobachter recently concluded a series of articles on the celebrated Berne trial over the spurious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Apparently expecting a decision adverse to the Swiss Nazi defendants, the paper has carefully pointed out that the judge hearing the case is a Social-Democrat under the thumb of the Jews; that most of the witnesses who have testified that the “Protocols” were forged were “Free Masons” and participants in the Jewish plot; that the Jews fear the outcome of the case to such an extent that they are using every possible method to hamper and checkmate Herr Fleischhauer, the anti-Semitic propagandist and defense “expert,” in his work, etc. It also dug up an old forgery of a hundred years ago holding up the Jew to ridicule and recently featured a serial story with the villain element furnished by a black-hearted Jew.
But what is happening in Germany can best be shown by the following condensed reports, all of which took place or came to light in the one-week period immediately preceding this writing. Several of the items may already have been published abroad.
The Nazi district leader of Wupperthal prohibited the use by Nazis of the city assembly hall because one of its smaller rooms had been rented for a meeting of a Jewish cultural organization.
Breslau.—The National Socialist Schlesische Tageszeitung editorially denounced “dirty Jews dancing with Aryan women” and announced a newspaper pillory of all “Aryan” women associating with Jews.
Berlin.—The Voelkischer Beobachter reports the closing of five “scandal sheets” which had continued under Jewish principles. (At least one of the five was an anti-Semitic paper published by a notorious Jewbaiter.)
The Westdeutscher Beobachter published a special anti-Jewish edition for which it canvassed all shopkeepers for special advertising.
Stettin.—Nazi leader Walter Poetsch exhorted a large audience of women not to buy from Jews even though they might offer better bargains.
Frankfurt.—A Jewish department store buyer of Wiesbaden lost her position because the Nazi district office had demanded her dismissal threatening to halt Nazi purchases at the store. The buyer, sole support of her father, aged seventy-one, and her brother, a wounded war veteran, sued to invalidate her dismissal. The labor court, and subsequently the Frankfurt district court, upheld her dismissal.
Nuremberg.—Gauleiter Streicher warned Nuremberg women against the Jews and painted a terrible picture of the results of mixing Nordic and Jewish blood.
Berlin.—Two officials of the Tietz department store were arrested because they refused to permit posters advertising Der Steurmer to be displayed in the store.
The Frankfurter Zeitung reported a speech by Gauleiter Sprenger before farmers at Friedberg, Hesse, declaring Jews were a separate nationality from the Germans and should be kept from intermixing.
The Official Gazette reported 139 names, mostly non-“Aryan,” stricken from the citizenship lists. Those affected had been
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.
