German Minister and Berlin Mayor Clash over Anti-semitism

The effects of last week’s anti-Semitic developments at the German Party rally here, when a number of persons were beaten and called “Jewish swine” for refusing to sing an ultra-nationalist song, spread today to a wider front as Bonn Minister of Transport Christopher Seebohm and Berlin Mayor Walter Schreiber exchanged attacks over the affair.

Herr Seebohm, who was the major speaker at the rally, threatened to bring a libel suit against Heinz Galinski, president of the Berlin Jewish community, who had expressed surprise that the Minister would address a meeting at which anti-Semitic acts and statements were made. While Herr Seebohm challenged the veracity of Herr Galinski’s statement, Mayor Schreiber came to the Jewish leader’s defense, asserting that the Jewish leader had truthfully related the incidents which took place while the Minister was at the German Party rally.

Herr Seebohm, who minimized the anti-Jewish incidents which occurred at the rally and charged that they had “undoubtedly been provoked by our political foes,” defended fully the Berlin section of his party, which all observers here describe as neo-Nazi in character.

He also protested against the Berlin City Council’s plastering the streets of Berlin with posters expressing the council’s “indignation” at what had occurred at the German Party rally, and describing these developments as reminiscent of Nazi activities prior to 1933.

The council protest also stated that the Sportpalast (Berlin’s equivalent of New York’s Madison Square Garden) must never again be allowed to become a “starting point on the road to catastrophe, ” This was an allusion to the fact that the Sport-paints has become associated in the public mind with the huge Nazi propaganda rallies of Joseph Goebbels. It is for this reason that the German Party apparently chose the stadium for its rally, and the very reason that all other parties in the city shun it.