How Jewish Groups Voted in German General Election

It is now possible to disentangle the variety of Jewish groups supporting one or another of the German political parties during the recent election.

The position of the Jewish voters was one of the utmost difficulty because all those Jews who could not, on principle vote for the Social Democrats — and only a minority of Jews supported the Socialist ticket — were compelled to vote for a party which may ultimately enter a coalition government with Hitler.

The Jewish group supporting the Centre Party was led by Herr Georg Kareski, Dr. Max Kollenscher, Dr. Joseph Meisl, and Herr Kreindler.

There was also a group of Jews working for the German National Party. The election proclamation of List No. 5., which comprised the German National (Hugenberg) Party, the Steel Helm and several smaller parties of the Right was signed also by five prominent Jews, Herr Oscar Wassermann, Dr. Max Naumann, and Councillor Siegmann, the two leaders of the Union of National German Jews, Advocate Fraenkel, and Dr. Manfred Blochert, who is a prominent industrialist.

The third group founded by Dr. Bruno Weil, and Dr. Margarete Ede heim, the editress of the organ of the Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith, supported the Democratic State Party.

The Central Union itself, as a nonpolitical body, embracing Jews of all political opinions, did not urge support of any particular party, calling upon Jews only to vote for parties which had no anti-Semitic program.

In the last Reichstag elections, the Central Union asked Jews not to vote for the German Nationals, who have an Aryan paragraph in their Constitution, under which Jews are not admitted as members. This time, however, the Central Union was silent on this point.