News Brief

Dismay at the force of President Roosevelt’s attack on religious-racial terrorism, coupled with a drive by moderate German elements to curb anti-Semitic excesses, were responsible for Chancellor Hitler’s silence today at the funeral in Duesseldorf of Ernst vom Rath, qualified foreign observers said here tonight. The Fuehrer’s failure to speak at the obsequies caused considerable surprise in those German circles which had expected the Chancellor to use the occasion for launching another of his customary vehement assaults on “international Judaism” and democracy.

It was recalled that Hitler had made a veritable declaration of war against the Jews here and abroad when he delivered a funeral oration over the bier of Wilhelm Gustloff, Nazi Party chief in Switzerland, who was assassinated by a Yugoslav Jewish medical student at Davos two years ago. But today, despite predictions Hitler might make a direct reply to President Roosevelt’s denunciation of the pogrom, the Fuehrer remained a silent spectator at Duesseldorf. His sole share in the ceremony was to lay a wreath on vom Rath’s coffin and extend his personal condolences to the bereaved family.

Chief speakers instead were Ernest Bohle, chief of the Nazi Organization for Germans Living Abroad, and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. Both speakers glorified the “martyrdom” of the young diplomat and other Nazis killed abroad and repeated the familiar Nazi charges against the machinations of “international Jewry” and its alleged efforts to bring about the downfall of the Nazi State. “If today a new wave of hatred of us is unloosed in the world, if they try again by lies to profane the memory of these dead,” said von Ribbentrop, “then a tempest of indignation will sweep across Germany. The will of this people will be all the firmer and more determined.”

Competent German circles attempted to explain Hitler’s decision not to speak by the fact that vom Rath was “only” a German diplomat, whereas Gustloff was member of the National Socialist Party and a militant party worker abroad. But foreign quarters said Hitler’s failure to attempt any justification of the nationwide pillage which followed vom Rath’s death was caused by far more profound considerations.

Although President Roosevelt’s remarks on the pogrom were at first honored by the German press and even now have been mentioned only in passing comment, with no semblance of quotation, they have had an overwhelming effect on official circles and on other persons who have knowledge of events abroad. Nobody in a high place here was prepared for so complete and unqualified a condemnation by the head of the American Government.

Moreover, the moderate elements in the Nazi Party bitterly deplore the harm done to Germany by the anti-Semitic riots, which they regard as inspired by Joseph Goebbels and his propaganda machine. These groups are now laboring to put a brake on the terrorism directed both against the Jews and the Catholics. On the contrary the party’s extremists, represented by Goebbels, Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler and Julius Streicher, want to continue their agitation and are working for a policy even more radical than hitherto.

As always in such circumstances, Hitler is hesitating between the two opposing camps. Past performances show that the Fuehrer habitually listens to advisors who advance the more racial counsels, but that he always delays as long as possible making a public choice between contending factions within the party.

Meanwhile the sole comments here on President Roosevelt’s declaration have all been designed to throw discredit on the President’s motives and to link his stand on anti-Semitism with Washington’s alleged campaign for economic and political dominion in South America.

A German political spokesman today branded the Roosevelt attack as “veritable interference” in Germany’s internal affairs, and the anti-Nazi campaign in the United States as a device to justify the American rearmament program. The Nachtausgabe said editorially: “If in Washington they talk of boycotting Germany, that is designed only to trouble German trade in South America.”

The Lokalanzeiger accused Roosevelt of “greed for power” and a desire to establish “the economic and military hegemony of the United States over the entire American continent.” In an article from its New York correspondent on an inside page, the newspaper said Roosevelt was using every possible means to strengthen his position and to intensify rearmament following his recent electoral attack.

“It is necessary that the Jewish question likewise serve these ends,” the Lokalan zeiger said in its single, laconic reference to the President’s denunciation of the pogrom as “unbelievable.” He linked this question, the paper went on, to another declaration at his Tuesday press conference which portended nothing less than American rule over the whole western hemisphere.

Meanwhile, German official circles shook with fury over the story from New York that Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had placed Jewish policemen to guard the German Consulate. Der Angriff, organ of Goebbels, said editorially: “We know that Mr. LaGuardia, Mayor of New York, whose fat Jewish face is known to us through his innumerable demonstrations of incitement against Germany, is not a man of taste or decency. Placing a Jewish guard at the German Consulate is a gross lack of tact and a greasy lie. American Jewry can never protect the German flag because it furnishes anti-German demonstrations and pays the yowling rabble.”