Germany would be glad to be rid of its Jewish inhabitants and “would gladly pay their freight to the United States and make them a present of a bank account in addition if America would only harbor them,” Adolf Hitler, Nazi ruler of Germany, said in an interview with Bernard Ridder, president of the Staats-Herold Corporation, and William J. Margreve, Berlin correspondent of the Staats-Zeitung and Herold, which appeared in that paper and in which the Nazi chieftain is described as a “saint”.
“The future of Germany, of a nation of sixty millions, is at stake and we’re not going to let this picayune issue hamper us,” Hitler is quoted as saying. “This new persecution aimed at Germany is as incomprehensible to us as, it seems, Germany’s awakening is to the outside world.”
After discussing the alleged Communist plot for which the Reichstag fire was to have been the signal, Hitler is quoted as saying:
“JEWISH COMMUNISM”
“We have excoriated Jewish communism and we will never again let Bolshevism raise its hydra head. As far as freedom of the press for the Jewish-Marxist press is concerned, we are determined to rid Germany of this cancerous growth. May I ask you, gentlemen, if the American press may print the truth, then let it disseminate the German truth.”
“But we too have not complete freedom of the press in America,” Mr. Ridder is quoted as saying.
“Then why the crocodile tears because the majority of the German people have elected a national democratic government which is now ruling them according to principles based on truth and incorruptible justice?” Hitler questioned, and thereupon, in the translated words of Mr. Margreve, “we saw before us a saint, incorruptible, volcanic, and what he said hereafter was a single-hearted prayer.”
“Should a nation of sixty million suffer destruction because six million have already been led astray by the Jewish-Communistic poisoners of our people? Why does the world weep crocodile tears at the richly deserved fate of these criminals? Where was the conscience of the world when millions of Germans suffered hunger and death, when more than 200,000 Germans were driven to despair and suicide?” Hitler asked.
“JEWISH BOLSHEVIST DEMONS”
“I ask President Roosevelt and the American people who believe themselves justified, because of the atrocity stories, in sympathizing with these Jewish Bolshevist demons, I ask them, I say, are you prepared to harbor among you those who have poisoned the wells of Germany, of the whole Christian world? Gladly would we give each and every one of them a railroad pass and a thousand-mark note for pocket money to be rid of them.”
Discussing displacement of Jews from their positions, Hitler exclaimed: “What does the world know of the misery of intellectual German youth during the last fifteen years? On completion of their studies they have for years had to accept the fate of beggars. There were no Jews in that vast army of unemployed, whereas a hundred thousand German academicians died on the streets or committed suicide.
“Shall I allow thousands of Germans to be destroyed so that all Jews may continue working undisturbed, to live and grow fat while millions of Germans may be driven to despair and Bolshevism by hunger? Should the German youth be sacrificed to these foreigners? No, never!”
And, to quote Mr. Margreve, “The man with a holy mission had spoken.”
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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.
