German-american Group Urges Dirksen Re-election on Racial Grounds

A racial appeal for the re-election of Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Republican leader, and the return to the Upper House of “our own man” has been made by a German-American committee in Chicago. The committee, in a letter sent to the membership lists of 225 German societies in the Chicago area, warmly defended the Kaiser’s Germany and Hitler’s Third Reich against charges of responsibility for two world wars, and accused the Democratic Party of being anti-German and responsible for both wars.

A staff writer of the Washington Evening Star pointed out today that “Sen. Dirksen is of German descent. His Democratic opponent, Rep. Sidney R. Yates, is Jewish and the son of Polish (Jewish) immigrants.”

The letter, on Dirksen for Senator stationery, stated in part that “flamed to a high pitch by propaganda of the worst sort, both these wars were conducted against the German nation and everything German. The catastrophic holocaust engendered over the entire world by these actions of rapacity by the victims created the chaos and uncertainty of existence we live in today.”

It went on to advise that “German-Americans with the slightest tinge of emotion and Justice left should reflect upon these facts and remember. Let us demonstrate by actions that we, as German-Americans, want to have a voice in government by re-electing our own man as representative again.”

The Star quoted A. M. Frey, secretary of the German-American Committee for Dirksen, as explaining that what was meant by the “rapacity of the victors” was the Morgenthau Plan, a plan for the postwar treatment of Germany prepared by the then Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., that the allies “bombed little cities, old people and hospitals, not just military targets” and “went all out to bring terror into the hearts of the whole people.”