After appointing recently Professor Guenther, the notorious antisemite, to the Chair of “Raceology” at the world-famous University of Jena, which has associations with Luther and Goethe, and numbers among its teaching staff of the past giants like Fichte, Hegel, Schelling Schlegel and Schiller, and has since its foundation in the sixteenth century been in the forefront of all German Universities in liberally accepting new ideas and in the democratic opinions obtaining there, Dr. Frick, the Hitlerist Minister of the Interior and of Education and Fine Arts in Thuringia, in which State both Jena and Weimar, the world-centre of Wagnerian opera are situated, has now carried further his policy of “Germanification” by dismissing Herr Praetorius, the General-Director of the famous Weimar National Theatre, which has had Richard Strauss and other famous musicians among its conductors, because his wife is a Jewess and appointing the Hitlerist conductor, Nebbe, in his place.
Dr. Frick alleged that Praetorius is under the influence of his wife, who has prevailed upon him to give preference to Jews in engaging the singers and musicians for the theatre. Artistic circles throughout Germany are infuriated by the dismissal of Herr Praetorius, which they denounce as a piece of vandalism endangering the future of the Weimar Theatre, which owes its present prestige largely to the successful manner in which Herr Praetorius has maintained the high artistic standards of his predecessors.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.