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Nazi Actor Banned from West Berlin Stage Following Protests by Jews and Germans

December 13, 1950
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Protests from the Jewish community and many Germans last night forced the West Berlin authorities to reverse an earlier ruling and bar ##rner Krauss, an actor who performed in the Nazi-made anti-Semitic film “Jew Suess,” from acting in an Ibsen play here.

Krauss, who returned to the Berlin stage in Ibsen’s “John Gabriel Borkman” first Friday night, was greeted by heckling from the audience and by protest demonstrations over the week-end. Several persons were injured during the protest rallies and ##auss is said to have written Mayor Ernest Reuter stating that he did not wish to see ##y other people hurt on his account.

However most observers here agree that Mayor Reuter’s latest decision was taken because the Jewish community and the Berlin Student Association had called a demonstration for last evening. The rally, which was later cancelled following the preposition of the ban on Krauss, was to be held a few hundred yards from the theatre ## which the Ibsen play is being presented.

Scheduled to address the meeting was Franz Neumann, chairman of the Berlin Social Democratic Party, of which Mayor Reuter is a member. Kurt Schumacher, head of the West German Social Democratic Party, also denounced the municipality’s earlier decision to permit Krauss to continue in the play. In Hamburg yesterday, the Central Council of Jews of Germany issued a statement protesting Krauss’ appearance on the Berlin stage.

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