A vicious anti-Jewish campaign was launched today in the three leading Nazi newspapers, Hitler’s Voelkischer Beobachter, Goebbels’ Der Angriff and Goering’s Essener National Zeitung, removing any remaining hopes that the new ghetto laws enacted last Sunday by the German Reichstag would mean the regulation of Jewish life or the establishment of a definite restricted basis for Jewish existence within the Reich.
The Essener National Zeitung, published by the Prussian Premier and Minister of Air Defence, Hermann Wilhelm Goering, came out with the sensational declaration that the Nazi Party in its new capacity as organ of the state will deal with the Jewish problem and that the fight against the Jews will henceforth be conducted not by the State alone but by the Nazi Party.
“Jews must therefore rest assured,” the paper says, “that the Part which has left no doubt as to its activities on the Jewish question, will take a proper hand in handling the Jews as provided by the party programs.”
The article in Goering’s paper outlines a program for treating the Jewish question. First, district leaders and local organizations would be mobilized to see that the fight against Jews is carried on to completion. Secondly, all anti-Jewish measures promulgated by the various party organs would be considered legal in accordance with the laws. Thirdly, state officials, including the court and police would assist the party leaders in carrying out the anti-Jewish measures.
The Angriff and the Voelkischer Beobachter accuse the Jews of allying themselves with the Communists against Germany on the Memel issue. The whole issue of the Angriff featured the attack against the Jews under a bold first-page streamer.
The attack puboished in the Voelkischer Beobachter was written by Alfred Rosenberg, cultural leader of the Third Reich.
The proclamation of the Nazi Party’s state powers was today supported by a decision of the Dusseldorf court in a case where a Nazi trade official was sued by a firm for libel on the grounds that he called the firm Jewish in an article in the Stuermer, leading anti-Semitic weekly, published By Julius Streicher. The firm accused the trade official of acting in this manner for competitive reasons.
While a lower court admitted the suit, the Superior Court dismissed the case, ruling that under the new laws a Nazi trade official must be regarded as a public official. His actions are, therefore considered to be in the interests of the state and cannot be challenged by the courts.
Reporting this decision, the Berliner Tageblatt points out that this ruling is of most far-reaching importance because it clothes Nazi officials with government powers.
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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.
