Blumenfeld Tells About Nazi Mind and Things Germans Don’t Know

Chairman of the Board of the London Express and cable contributor to the Jewish Daily Bulletin

It is a notorious fact that Germans are hopelessly incompetent in the study of the psychology of other nations. They simply cannot understand why foreigners should have a viewpoint different than from their own. We had occasion over and over again during the war to observe this strange kink in the German make-up. They made gaffe after gaffe and could not see that with every new effort they were increasing still further the contempt of the civilized world.

Who but a German could have referred to a sacred and honorable treaty between responsible nations as a scrap of paper? The failure to measure the world’s estimate was never more fittingly illustrated than by the historic “spurlos versunken” edict with regard to the destruction of ships at sea. Whenever I pass the statue of Nurse Cavell at St. Martin’s Place in London I think of the Hun mentality and wonder how a nation which has so many praise-worthy characteristics can yet be so utterably stupid, so criminally brutal as to fling itself in the face of the world with such a challenge of irresponsibility as well as ruthless disregard for decency and honor. You tell this to a German and he will hold up his hands in shocked protest and disbelief, yet this same apparently kind and sympathetic descendant of Attila’s gangsters will, when the opportunity comes, do exactly the same thing. So you can make up your mind when dealing with a Nazi that you are dealing with a primitive Hun who does not, however, believe that he is a sort of beast. The only way to convince him is to beat him where he feels it most. That’s where the boycott comes in.

I have been amusing myself with the perusal of the German propaganda department’s frantic efforts to cover up the stinkpot at home. When they first began to harass and persecute poor unprotected Jews early this year and the world at large uttered its protest in no uncertain terms, the Nazis mobilized all the Jews on whom they could lay their hands, and caused them to send millions of letters, post cards and telegrams to all and sundry across the seven seas swearing that the atrocity reports were untrue, and were merely the reprehensible work of mischief-makers and enemies of poor old misunderstood Germany. Of course not many people believed this flood of protestation. We all know German propaganda methods and how stupidly they work.

Now comes some more of that stuff. The Leipzig Fair, in spite of the roseate reports of over-crowding, was a ghastly failure, a ghastly failure from the German business point of view, a glorious success from the standpoint of the Jewish boycott. I have not access to the figures. If I had they would probably have been doctored anyhow, but I do not think I would be far from wrong if I put the drop down by fifty percent, which is pretty good for the first year. Next year the success of the fair will depend largely on how the German government, if it is still in power then, behaves toward the Jewish citizens of that crazy state. A report published in paper called Schild, the alleged organ of the Union of German Jewish Front Soldiers, about the great meeting held at the Fair and its wonderful broadcasting results, together with the great overcrowding, may be taken with a handful of salt, and then some more.

Observe how the propaganda department mobilizes what is left of the Jewish press in order to mislead the world. The same methods are applied in the case of the Juedische Liberale Zeitung, which was ordered to read a severe lesson to world Jewry for daring to intervene in the affairs of German Jews, who appear quite content to be left to their own devices. They do not want the boycott and above all are so much in love with Germany that nothing would ever persuade them to turn agaist those dearly-beloved, sweet-tempered Nazis. Of course we believe every word of that. In the expressive slang of today, I would say: “Oh yeah?”