Defying all forecasts that the strength of the Nationalist Socialist Party was on the wane, would not attain executive power, following its loss of 35 seats in the last November’s election, Adolph Hitler today realized a boast of three years and became Chancellor of Germany.
The appointment of Adolph Hitler today following a conference with President Paul von Hindenburg, was as unexpected as the sudden fall of General Kurt von Schleicher after less than two months in office.
With the appointment of Hitler the Jewish population of Germany are faced with their worst fears that now the Nazis will put into effect the threats they have been levelling ever since their Parliamentary victory in 1930 made them a leading party in the German republic.
These fears are further strengthened by the appointment to Hitler’s cabinet of Nazi leaders notorious for the violence of their anti-Semitic stand. To the key position of Minister of Interior, Hitler has named his friend and ally, Dr. Wilhelm Frick, former Minister of Interior of Thuringia, who in the latter office gave practical effect to his anti-Semitism.
Herman Goering, Speaker of the Reichstag has been appointed Minister without Portfolio and Reich’s Commissioner of Interior for Prussia.
Thus the entire internal policy of Germany is to be controlled by Nazis who are firm believers in violence against the Jews.
The police force and the whole machinery of government will now be at the disposal of the Nazis as well and instead of protecting the Jewish population, they may soon become a menace as the instrument of Jewish oppression, it is feared.
Adolph Hitler is scheduled to hold his first cabinet meeting this afternoon, the results of which are awaited with apprehension by Jewish leaders.
The one ray of hope for the Jews is the fact that in order to achieve a workable Parliamentary majority, the Nazis must have the support of the Center Party. In return for this support, the Center Party may receive partial control of internal policy. Failing a Nazi-Center coalition, the dissolution of Parliament and a new election appear to be inevitable.
Jewish leaders are determined, not withstanding the developments, to continue their fight for their rights.
It is recalled in this connection that President von Hindenburg has on several occasions recently promised that no infringement of the rights of the Jews would be permitted.
The Center Party likewise, during last summer’s negotiations for a coalition with the Nazis, assured the Jews
that a condition of the coalition would be that the rights of the Jews were to be guaranteed.
Notwithstanding these assurances, the feeling is prevalent in Jewish circles that even if the withdrawal of the rights of Jews should not receive legal sanction, Adolph Hitler, once in office, can achieve the same end through administrative measures.
Only yesterday, Paul Josef Goebbels, head of the Nazi party in Berlin announced a bloodless pogrom against the Jews to expel Jews from employment in government office and from the economic life of the country. This he proposes to accomplish by heavy taxation on Jewish enterprises and by influencing the courts to prosecute the Jews individually and collectively to prevent them from conducting any inner Jewish activities.
In order to ensure the Nazis with their 195 seats a clear Parliamentary majority, President von Hindenburg, it is stated in some circles, contemplates declaring the Communists an illegal party and voiding in this fashion the mandates of the Communists who gained 100 seats in the last election, becoming the third largest party with the Nazis in first place and the Socialists in second place with 121 seats.
President von Hindenburg’s action in entrusting Hitler with the Chancellorship is a departure from a policy to which he had rigidly adhered since Chancellor Heinrich Bruening’s cabinet fell. In the past he has persistently refused to countenance the Nazi leader’s aspirations to complete power. The gulf between the two apparently seemed unbridgeable when Hitler ran for President, opposing von Hindenburg. Once Hitler was offered the vice Chancellorship which the Nazi leader refused, demanding the highest office, and spurning any lesser offers.
In November of 1932, President von Hindenburg offered a conditional opportunity to Hitler to become Chancellor commissioning him to "establish whether and under what conditions he could form a government with a positive working majority in the Reichstag and with a unified program."
When Hitler failed to secure cooperation of other parties and asked permission to head a cabinet independent of the Reichstag, President von Hindenburg definitely refused, on November 19th, to name him Chancellor. Instead on December 2nd, General Kurt von Schleicher was appointed Chancellor, to whose office Hitler now succeeds.
Adolph Hitler and his cabinet were sworn into office today, constituting the twenty-first cabinet in the fourteen years of the history of the German republic.
Former Chancellor Franz Von Papen was sworn in as Vice Chancellor and Federal Commissioner for Prussia.
Other members of the Hitler cabinet are Herman Goering, Nazi speaker of the Reichstag, Prussian Minister of Interior and member of the national cabinet without portfolio, Dr. Wilhelm Frick, Nazi chieftain, Minister of Interior; Baron Constantine von Neurather, Foreign Minister; General Werner von Blomberg, Minister of Defense; Schwerin von Krosigk, Minister of Finance; Dr. Alfred Hugenberg, leader of the Nationalist Party, Minister of Commerce and Agriculture; Franz Seldte, head of the Steel Helmet organization, Minister of Labor, and Eltzron Reybenach, Minister of Ports and Transportation.
The appointment of Dr. Frick to the important position of Minister of Interior, is regarded as an indication that the recent rift between him and Hitler, was not as serious as reported to be.
Dr. Frick, a native of Munich, and one of the leaders of the Hitler revolt of 1923, is notorious for his anti-Semitic views. As the Nazi Minister of Interior and Education in Thuringia he introduced anti-Semitic prayers in the public schools.
GOERING WOULD SUFFER JEWS TO REMAIN AS ALIENS ONLY
Captain Goering set forth his views regarding the attitude of the Nazis toward the Jews in an interview given to a representative of the "Gazetta del Popolo" of Turin, last May.
At that time he made it clear that the Nazis would tolerate no equality rights for the Jews whom he charged with being a "disruptive and poisonous element which has brought harm to the German people."
Although he denied that the Nazis plan to murder the Jews, when they come into power, he emphasized that the Jews would be suffered to remain in the country as aliens only.
"The Jewish question is not fundamentally for us a theoretical question," he stated at the time. "Nazism defends itself against the Jews. It does not persecute them. We defend ourselves against Jewry, not against the Jewish religion. In the Third Regime, religious liberty will be complete for all confessions which do not conflict with the customs and moral feelings of the Germanic race.
"It would be ridiculous to allege that we seek to persecute the Mosaic religion, which leaves us quite indifferent," he asserted. "We are defending ourselves against an element that is alien to our race, against a disruptive and poisonous element which has brought harm to the German people."
Continuing his tirade against the Jews, Captain Goering said: "For a very long time, but especially since the end of the war, during the post war period, Berlin has become the centre of attraction for all Galician and Russian Jews. They have come here in hordes, with their lice and their caftans, possessed of nothing save an insatiable desire for acquisition. Berlin has become the filter of this mob. After a few months here they learn how to dress in European fashion, to speak German and even to take baths. Most of them have done well here and some have even become rich. They have left the East Side and gone to live in the West, and more than one who arrived at the Schlesische Railway Station in Berlin wearing his caftan left after a few months via the Zoo Railway Station for London, Paris, or America, transformed into a European, shaved and scented. But for every one who leaves, ten remain behind, and most of those who remain are the dregs who have not passed through the filter.
"The Third Regime," he promised, "will enact legislation to prevent all further immigration into Germany from Poland, Russia or any other country in the world. Those Jews who have immigrated into Germany since August 2nd, 1914, will be expelled. All the Jews who have in any way insulted the German nation will be taken to the frontier or they will be punished here according to the law for the crimes of which they are convicted.
"All those Jews who have not immigrated into Germany from abroad will be left here, but they will be removed from all public positions, in the press, the theatre, the film, the school and the Universities. We shall also dismiss them from all public offices, cancel all their honors, and remove them from every position in which they may be able to exert their disruptive antinational, international or at best binational influence to the hurt of the German people.
"It has been said that we shall kill the Jews. That is untrue. The decent Israelite merchant who wants to remain in Germany as an alien, under the protection of the alien laws, will be able to continue to pursue his business unhindered and will come to no harm."
Deprivation of citizenship for all those who marry Jews or Jewesses was promised by Goering.
"The aim of the Hitlerist movement," he asserted, "is to revive German national life. The Nazi regime will allow no alliance between Germans and people belonging to the black and yellow races, nor between Germans and Jews. German citizens, men or women, who marry Jews or Jewesses, will automatically forfeit their citizenship rights in the German State."
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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.
