Austrian Heimwehr Disclaims Anti-semitism

(J. T. A. Mail Service)

After the fears of a clash between the “private armies” of the Fascist Heimwehr and of the Social Democratic Party at their rival demonstrations last Sunday in the Wieney-Neustadt, which owing to the action of the Government, passed off without disorder, the two bodies are now engaged in a controversy on the subject of whether the Heimwehr is or is not an anti-Semitic organization.

The Socialist papers are trying to show that the Heimwehr is an anti-Semitic organization and reproach the Jewish industrialists here for supporting it. “Are they going to continue to support an anti-Semitic body?” the papers ask. “Dr. Steidle, the Heimwohr leader,” they declare, “speaking at the Heimwehr demonstration on Sunday in the Wiener-Neustadt made use of anti-Semitic phrascology, but when the reports were given to the press afterwards, these passages were cut out because it was feared that the Jewish capitalists would take fright and withdraw their financial support.”

The Heimwehr Organization immediately issued an official communique denying there were any anti-Semitic passages in Dr. Steidle’s speech at Wiener-Neustadt. “The Heimwehr,” the communique says, “is in no way directed against any religious community. It has no anti-Semitic tendencies whatever. The only purpose of the Heimwehr Organization is to protect all citizens without distinction against Marxist terrorism.”