Stanley High, for the last six weeks special correspondent in Germany for the Literary Digest, on his return aboard the Majestic yesterday declared that Hitler “has placed in peril not only the rights of the German people but of the entire world.”
“The fate of Jews in Germany has been sealed,” he said. “So long as Hitler or any National Socialist successor to Hitler holds sway in Germany there is nothing ahead for the German Jew but darkness and, in the end, extermination.”
Mr. High termed Hitler’s persecution of the Jews “a war against civilization, of which anti-Semitism is only the crudest indication.”
TRAGIC FOR JEWS
“If Hitler gets away with it,” he said, “it will be tragic for the Jews. But if the world allows Hitler to get away with it, it will be more tragic in the long run for the structure of free institutions which with the Jews bearing the brunt of it, Hitler is threatening. What is at stake in Germany is the whole system of elemental human rights, which have been won at a vast cost and are the lifeblood of America and the world, and which are now placed in peril.”
Mr. High foresaw the need of changing or abandoning many of the planks in the Nazi program, and he prophesied drastic changes in a majority of Nazi principles, “excepting only that which calls for the eventual ousting of the Jews.”
“Hitler,” he said, “would like to be more moderate than his followers on many issues. He has tried to play in the realm of economics and international politics a somewhat milder game than was expected; but Hitler’s moderation on any issue will be dictated, not by honest conviction, but by expediency.”
NO LET-UP IN PERSECUTION
The correspondent stated that he saw no let-up in Jewish persecution. “It goes forward as violently and relentlessly as it did in the early days of the revolution. I did not meet a single objective observer in Germany who believed the Jews’ lot was one whit better than it was four or five months ago. The only difference is that, after so much experience in the business of persecution, the Nazis have developed a technique which enables them to carry forward their pogrom with more finesse.”
Mr. High believed that Hitler would drive the Jews out of Germany as rapidly as the German economic situation permits.
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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.
