Dr. Erich Mix, the Nazi Lord Mayor of Wiesbaden when that city’s synagogue was put to the torch in 1938, was sworn in as new Lord Mayor this week, a few years after he was sentenced as a “Nazi activist.”
No voice was raised in opposition at the ceremony, or in the local press just as not a single vote was registered against him when the City Council held the election in January. After a deal in which they were promised the Deputy Mayoralty, the 20 Social Democrats had cast blank ballots, with all other Councilmen voting for Mix.
A few months ago the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, who then still resisted the Mix candidacy, urged, with an eye to potential Jewish tourists to Wiesbaden – a famed resort city as well as the capital of the State of Hesse – that Mix was unacceptable because “the sensibilities of our international clientele should be respected.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.