An assertion attributed to Benjamin Franklin that the Jews should be expelled from the United States received wide circulation in German newspapers today after the official German News Agency had picked it up from Der Angriff.
The importance attached to the alleged Franklin document by the Propaganda Ministry was indicated by the fact the German News Agency carried the full text to newspapers outside of the Reich, as well as the German press.
Chancellor Hitler’s Voelkischer Beobachter featured the article on its front page with this headline: “Franklin was right; the Jews will swallow the United States.”
Der Angriff quoted from the “text” of a reputed speech by Franklin before the United States Congress in 1789 as follows:
“The Jews are a great danger to the United States. They are vampires degrading the morale of a country whenever they settle in large numbers. If Congress does not adopt measures to expel the Jews, they (the Congressmen) will be cursed by their grandchildren.”
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.
