The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed through the American Consulate General here today that the German government has lifted its prohibition and granted permission to the organization to resume its foreign news service. The lifting of the ban permits the correspondents of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here to send once again to the organization’s offices throughout the world news of the latest events in Germany under the Hitler regime.
The German government lifted the ban after intercession by American Consul General George S. Messersmith and American Consul Raymond Geist whose insistent efforts on behalf of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, as an American-owned news organization, finally brought the German authorities around to the United States’ viewpoint on the subject.
Efforts are now being continued to have the German government permit the reopening of the local office of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and resumption of publication of the daily German Bulletin issued by the bureau to subscribers of the service.
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS PROTEST
The Association of Foreign Correspondents in Berlin earlier today had lodged an official complaint with the Nazi political police against the closing of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency office in Berlin and the prohibition imposed upon Ber Smolar, chief J.T.A. correspondent, an American citizen, who was forbidden to cable news out of the country. The Association of Foreign Correspondents pointed out in their protest that by depriving an American citizen of the right to continue his work the German government was preventing an American newspaperman from fulfilling his duties to an American news agency.
The Association of Foreign Correspondents’ protest also expressed surprise over the meaning of the official reason which the German government gave for closing down the Jewish Telegraphic Agency bureau. The bureau was closed last Thursday at the order of Ludwig Diels, chief of the Prussian state police and of the German political police “for the maintenance of public security and order and for the prevention in the future of acts endangering the State, such as may be expected.”
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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.
