Ministerial Councillor Hans Schaeffer, the State Secretary to the Federal Ministry of Finance, the only Jewish high official in the German Government, has resigned, and his action is understood to be the result of the Hitlerist successes in the last elections, which have made intolerable the position of all Jewish Government officials.
It is expected that the Jewish high officials in the Prussian Government, Dr. Hermann Badt and Dr. Hans Goslar, will have to follow suit.
Councillor Schaeffer’s resignation was foretold last December by the “Angriff”, the Hitlerist organ in Berlin, edited by Deputy Goebbels, which stated that he had been offered the position of Director-General of the big Ullstein publishing firm, which issues among others the “Vossische Zeitung”. The J.T.A. was informed on enquiry at the time that Herr Schaeffer was contemplating resignation, because he was tired of the attacks made on him in the antisemitic press and by the antisemitic Deputies and of the pressure which was being brought to bear on the Government to get him dismissed, so that when the offer was made to him by the Ullstein firm, he decided that it would be best to accept it.
In Jewish quarters, it was stated in this connection, Herr Schaeffer was urged not to yield to the antisemitic pressure, and leave his post, because it was feared that this would create a precedent, encouraging the antisemites to intensify their agitation, to squeeze out all the Jews in high places in the German State.
Dr. Hermann Badt, the Permanent Chief of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and the Prussian Representative in the German Federal Council (Reichsrat), which is composed of 66 members, representing the German States, has been a particular butt of the antisemites. Ever since his appointment to the position in October 1926, when he became the first Jew to hold so high a post in the Prussian Civil Service, he has been subjected to personal annoyance, and formal resolutions have been introduced year after year into the Prussian Parliament demanding his dismissal.
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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.
