The foundation of Adolf Hitler’s popularity was not hatred of Jews as Jews but the fact that the Jews made money after the war at a time when every man was trying to outguess the other, Colonel Ira C. Copley, owner of the San Diego Tribune and Union, yesterday told the Advertising Club.
Giving his interpretation of the Jewish problem in the Reich, Colonel Copley said:
“Jews were only one per cent. #f the population, but fifty-five per cent. of all the judges and lawyers were Jews. Gentile litigants and lawyers who happened to lose in court raised a cry of unfair treatment.”
Following the armistice, he asserted, the Jews of Germany sold their bonds.
“White-collared patriots saw the bond prices go down, but they thought they would go up again, so they bought more. But the bonds continued going down and gold was sent out of Germany.
“The mark went down to nothing. Then the Jews brought back the gold and bought great properties and the white-collared people saw these properties go for little money.
“Hitler began to shape his cause to crystallize anti-Jewish sentiment back of him.”
The killings of June 30, the publisher declared, were “either justified execution for treason or plain murder.”
“There is no middle ground on that question. Only the facts can determine which it was.”
Germany’s future, he said, is problematical, and whether Der Fuehrer will remain strong “is yet to be seen.”
The farmers there are prosperous despite high taxation, Colonel Copley reported, but manufacturing is at a low ebb.
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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.