A Nazi’s threat to denounce a Jew to the police for an imaginary offense unless he got 1,000 marks has cost the author eighteen months imprisonment and loss of civil rights for three years for “sullying the purity of the fight against the Jewish people.”
It was testified in the Greizer court that the defendant had threatened a Berlin Jewish tradesman to report to the police that the Jew had committed an offense against German schoolgirls in 1926.
The public prosecutor scored the accused for trying to explain his action on the basis of hatred of Jews and charged he had merely wanted money. “By such methods,” the prosecutor said, “an entirely false picture is given to foreign nations about the German attitude toward the Jews.”
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.