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Berlin Jewish Community Fears Wave of Suicides Among Its Officials Whom It is Compelled by Financial

September 3, 1931
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In view of the continuing wave of suicides among German Jews, owing to their desperate economic position, (four cases occurred in Berlin to-day, apart from others in the provincial towns-Joseph Molling, a well-known banker, Manfred Katz, a dentist who was being evicted from his home, and Madame Erna Gerson and her 11 year old daughter Ruth) the Berlin Jewish Community is in a state of consternation over its decision to dismiss a large number of its officials, because it has no means of paying their salaries, and must take drastic economy measures, fearing that these dismissed officials, having no other employment open to them, will be moved to join the increasing number of Jewish suicides in Germany.

At the same time, the alarm of German Jewry over the dangers confronting them on the political side is added to to-day by the announcement made by Deputy Goebbels, the Hitlerist leader in Berlin, that a new big Hitlerist offensive is to be launched this autumn, which he is convinced will be successful in establishing a Hitlerist Government in power. The Hitlerist Party, he declared, has now 600,000 members enrolled on its books, besides another 200,000 storm troops.

There are, however, acute party differences, it appears, in the Hitlerist ranks, and it is believed that the Party may split, following the action of two of the chief leaders, Deputy Franzen, who was Minister of the Interior in the Brunswick Government, and Deputy Groh, the Chairman of the Hitlerist fraction in the Brunswick Diet, in announcing officially that they have left the Hitlerist Party. They have done this as a protest against an order sent out by Hitler that Deputy Rust, another prominent Hitlerist in Brunswick, should be the next Minister of the Interior in Brunswick instead of Deputy Franzen.

The entire activist group of the Hitlerist Party throughout Germany is protesting against the dictatorial attitude of Hitler in appointing and dismissing his leaders in the various States, and it is said that they are considering a secession on masse.

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