Alone I Did It: Hitlerist Minister of Interior in Thuringia Boasts to Public Meeting That His Object

I alone, as the representative of Thuringia in the Reichsrat, the German Federal Council, prevented 500 East European Jews obtaining citizenship in Prussia, Dr. Frick, the Hitlerist Minister of the Interior and of Education in Thuringia, boasted at a Hitlerist public meeting held to-day at Stuttgart.

The disclosure that the veto exercised by Thuringia, through its Hitlerist Minister of the Interior, Dr. Frick, is sufficient to prevent a Jew of good character who has lived in Germany for as much as twenty years, and whom the Prussian Government wants to give citizenship, from being able to acquire his naturalisation in Prussia as a German citizen, was made in the Prussian Parliament about a fortnight ago by the Prussian Minister of the Interior, Herr Severing, when he replied to a protest made by Deputy Otto Nuschke, of the Democratic State Party, against the rejection of numerous naturalisation applications made by Jewish aliens of good character who have lived in the country for twenty years, although the law requires only ten years residence to be eligible for citizenship.

The Prussian Government favours the acquisition of citizenship by aliens of good character, Herr Severing, who is one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party and the organiser of the anti-Hitlerist movement said, and the Federal Minister of the Interior, Dr. Wirth, has called upon the Governments of the other States to act in accordance with the law by granting citizenship to aliens entitled to it, but the Hitlerist Government of Thuringia has exercised its veto in the Reichsrat and thus makes it impossbiel for Prussia or any other State to naturalise Jewish aliens. Under the law of the Republic the veto of any one of the States is sufficient to prevent citizenship being accorded to anyone, so the Thuringian veto prevents Prussia from granting naturalisation to aliens whom it wishes to have as citizens.

The Reichsrat represents the States constituting the Federal Republic and consists of sixty-six members. It has rights of preliminary sanction of and protest against a Reichstag bill and has supreme powers in matters of naturalisation. In cases where a deadlock is reached over a Reichstag bill, the President of the Federated Republic may order a referendum where the Reichstag majority is less than two-thirds and he must where the majority is over two-thirds.

The fact that Dr. Hermann Badt, the Permanent Chief of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, who is the first Jew to hold so high a position in the German Civil Service, represents Prussia on the Reichsrat, is a source of constant annoyance to the antisemitic parties who have made several attempts to secure his dismissal. The Prussian Premier, Herr Otto Braun, on one occasion, made a special point of attending a meeting of the Reichsrat to declare that Dr. Badt is a capable official and a splendid representative of the Prussian Government in the Council, and that the Prussian Government has complete confidence in him.