Several hundred displaced Jews clashed here today in hand-to-hand fighting with about 50 German policemen when the latter tried to break up a protest demonstration against a German newspaper which yesterday published a letter expressing regret that the Nazis had not gassed all the Jews.
Several Jews were reported injured when a German policeman used his revolver, as the demonstrators hurled stones at the police in their attempts to continue the demonstration. In retaliation, the demonstrators set a police car on fire and damaged three others.
American military police were cheered by the demonstrators when they arrived on the scene. When the German police were withdrawn, an American officer addressed the demonstrators in Yiddish, the German news agency D.P.D. reported. Declaring that he was not speaking as an American officer, but as a Jew, he said the demonstration had shown once again that the Jews were not willing to allow themselves to be insulted. He then asked them to disperse quietly.
GERMANS URGED TO REMAIN TRUE TO HITLER; THREE FOREIGN JEWS SERIOUSLY WOUNDED
A statement issued by the Jewish Central Committee said that the German police acted "ruthlessly and according to Gestapo methods." The statement reported that three foreign Jews are among those shot, and seriously wounded, by the German policemen.
The anti-Jewish letter which provoked the demonstration appeared in the Sued-Deutsche Zeitung, a daily newspaper called by the displaced Jews the "Stuermer of 1949"–referring to the violently anti-Semitic paper Der Stuermer published by Julius Streicher, top Nazi Jew-baiter under the Hitler regime. The letter was published under the title, "The Jewish Question–a Test Case," and was signed "Adolf Bleibtrue" which means "remain true to Adolf."
The letter urged Jews to go to the United States, but added that they were not wanted there either. "They already have enough of these bloodsuckers in America," the writer of the letter said. Declaring that he works in an American Military Government office in Germany, the author of the letter stated:
"I work for the Americans, and they say they can forgive us everything except that we did not gas all the Jews who are now bringing their "blessings" to America. I am doing all that I can to clear the American minds for them. I belong to those known as the ‘silent ones’ and our rumor propaganda is worth more than a hundred newspapers. At the right time you will hear more from me."
Herman Easer, former high ranking Nazi Party leader, was today sentenced in absentia to five gears imprisonment in a labor camp, lose of civil rights for life and confiscation of all property by a Munich degasification court.
Easer is believed to be at large somewhere in the British zone of Germany. He is the author of the virulently anti-Semitic book, "The World Jewish Plague."
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.
