Mystery veils the sudden demand of the Prussian Minister of the Interior, that figures on the number of Jews who fell in the war and the number of Jews who fought in the war be submitted to him.
The official Prussian press service found it necessary yesterday to give publicity to figures submitted to the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. This data largely minimizes Jewish participation in the war, reducing the Jewish proportion to 0.6 of one per cent and going out of its way to explain that twenty per cent of the Jewish soldiers did not carry arms. These figures compiled by the Reich’s archives are not based on the racial principle which now prevails in Germany, but only on a religious basis.
Only soldiers who stated that they were Jews are considered as such. The figures omit a large number of Jewish soldiers who considered themselves as Jews but recognized no religion. The data similarly omits all Jewish soldiers who entered the army after 1917, giving no figures after that year.
As a result of these defective figures, the Ministry of the Interior states that only about 7,000 Jews fell in the war while the Memorial Book published in 1932 by the Jewish Soldiers Association lists the names of 10,623 Jews who were killed in the war, whose identity was definitely established; and estimates the total number of Jewish dead including the unidentified as no less than 12,000.
Undoubtedly if the figures had been compiled on a racial basis, the totals would have been far greater, as the Memorial Book records only the one hundred per cent Jews, omitting half Jews and the descendants of Jews such as Colonel Theodore Dusterberg.
Colonel Dusterberg, one of the leaders of the Stahlhelm, staunch Protestant and one-time candidate on the Nationalist ticket for President of Germany, was accused by the Nazis during the political campaign of being of Jewish descent. Upon examination of his family records he found that he was of Jewish descent. Since the advent of the Nazis, Colonel Dusterberg has disappeared from public life.
A strong challenge to the figures on the Jewish war dead submitted by the Reich’s archives to the Minister of the Interior was issued today by the Jewish War Veterans’ Association through the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The Jewish war veterans repudiate the tendencious figures submited by the archives and declare that they will undertake to prove from documents in government files that the number of Jews who died in the war is 10,623, fully identified through the central government military bureau.
The association challenges the claim of the archives that its figures were based on racial and not religious affiliation. They insist that all of the Jewish dead listed in the Memorial Book were all affiliated with Jewish communities or with Jewish organizations. A special investigation was carried out, the Jewish soldiers declared, before the Memorial Book was published.
“We are ready to prove the correctness of our figures,” the Jewish soldiers association declared, “at any time that we are requested to do so.”
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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.
