Julius Streicher and Roberto Farinacci stood shoulder to shoulder on the speakers’ platform here last night in the Rome-Berlin partnership’s first great joint demonstration against the Jews. Farinacci, member of the Fascist Grand Council and former general secretary of the Fascist Party, took the rostrum in the Sportpalast a few hours after Chancellor Adolf Hitler had welcomed him here from Rome.
The Italian politician and editor devoted much of his speech to a bitter tirade against the Catholic Church, which he declared had lost the support of its masses for its defense of the Jews. Streicher sponsored the rally, which was attended by Italian Ambassador Bernardo Attolico, his staff, members of the Berlin Fascist cell and a number of high Nazi and German army figures.
“The Catholic Church,” Farinacci exclaimed, “has no right to fight anti-Semitism, since the Church itself in the past has persecuted the Jews pitilessly and sometimes cruelly. Why this sudden change of attitude? Why have the Jews been successful in winning over the high Catholic prelates? Today the church shows more sympathy for the countries friendly to the Jews than for us, who reintroduced morality in the schools and among the people.”
The Catholic laity was “saddened and surprised” by the “strange and perfidious” attitude of its priests, the Fascist extremist declared. “In France and elsewhere,” he said, “the Jews have succeeded in polluting the Catholic masses.” He warned that “religion must not be confused with politics” and the Church therefore has no right to fight anti-Semitism, which he said was a purely political issue.
“It is the holy gospel that should be preached from the pulpit,” Farinacci said, “while the priest, by his example, should prepare for the Kingdom of heaven. Anything more is abuse, treason deceit.”
To whip up public enthusiasm for the rally Streicher had placarded the city with posters declaring Germany’s Jewish problem was still far from solved. On the speakers’ stand he described the last November’s anti-Jewish disorders and measures as “nothing more than a small foretaste of things yet to come.” He matched Farinacci’s attack on Catholicism with an assault on the Confessional branch of the German Evangelical Church and particularly on its imprisoned “U-boat pastor,” the Rev. Martin Niemoeller, whom he branded a traitor to the Reich.
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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.
