The League of Nations was asked today to safeguard the rights of Jews under the Danzig constitution in a telegram to the president of the League Council and to Capt. Anthony Eden, rapporteur on Danzig, from the Committee of Jewish delegations, bearing the signature of its president, Dr. Stephen S. Wise of New York.
The communication held that changes in the Free City constitution constitute a menace to civil and religious equality guaranteed by the constitution and by the League.
The message was sent after Dr. Arthur Karl Greiser, president of the Free City’s Nazi-controlled Senate, had issued a series of decrees virtually setting aside the constitution, crushing opposition groups and prohibiting kosher slaughtering of animals.
The decrees permit dissolution of any organization whose members, with the knowledge of its executive board, spreads news “endangering the state interest.” Three-month protective custody is permitted for anybody considered endangering public peace.
The measures were said in many quarters to foreshadow erection of a dictatorship on the Nazi model and eventual annexation of the Free City by Germany. The decrees were understood to have been authorized by Reichsfuehrer Hitler.
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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.
