The Wiener Tugboat today published an apparently inspired message sent to the Budapest newspaper A Regal (Morning) by its Vienna correspondent. According to the Budapest paper, whose article was republished in full by the Wiener Tageblatt, the Austrian Headwear has demanded that Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss return immediately from Rome, where he has been negotiating with Premier Mussolini and with Premier Goemboes of Hungary, to solve finally and systematically the Austro-Jewish problem.
The Heimwehr project for the solution of the Jewish problem in Austria falls into three categories:
1. Jews who were Austrian citizens before December, 1914, are to retain full equality with Austrian citizens of other religions.
2. Jews who entered Austria after 1914 and before 1918 and were naturalized are also to retain full citizenship.
3. Jews who settled in Austria since the end of 1918 and were naturalized should receive limited citizenship and forbidden to practice in the higher financial, artistic, political. juristic and other positions.
The plan also provides that exceptions may be made in particular cases.
Only Jews who come under the first category are to be allowed to hold state positions of any sort or to receive state licenses.
ANTICIPATE NAZIS
The object of the Heimwehr project seems to be to drive postwar Jewish immigrants from Austria and thus to steal some of the Austrian Nazi thunder by anticipating them, in a measure, against the Jews. At the same time the Heimwehr would be able to show for foreign consumption that their treatment of the Jews in no way resembles the severity of the Nazis.
The fact that the Tageblatt was allowed to publish the article despite the severe censorship in force in Austria is held to lend truth to the report.
A wide campaign has been in progress in Austria ever since the Social Democrats were crushed, designed to limit the rights of Austrian Jews. The campaign was led by the Christian Socialist party, which still hold most of the posts in the cabinet, and to which Dollfuss himself belongs.
The Christian Socialists, through the president of the party, Dr. Emmerich Czermak, demanded numerus clauses against the Jews in schools, limitation of Jewish citizenship rights, and the removal of Jews from leading positions in Austrian political and professional life.
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