High officials of the Nazi party and members of the cabinet were today busily engaged in mobilizing their forces for a bitter, last-ditch fight on the issue of whether or not Jews are to be ousted by executive decree from the economic life of Germany.
Leaders of both factions, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learns from the most reliable sources, are already recruiting support in their stand for or against the decrees.
On the outcome of this fight depends the inclusion or exclusion of the decrees from the second instalment of regulations implementing the Nuremberg anti-Jewish laws.
Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Reich Minister of Economics, who has long been in the forefront of those who are fighting anti-Jewish measures in commerce, has issued an order to the larger banks to submit to him detailed figures showing the turnover of Jewish capital as evidenced by activity in the bank accounts with Jews. The purpose of this order, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency authoritatively learns, is to supply Dr. Schacht with added evidence to present personally to Reich Chancellor Hitler in order to convince him of the danger to an already shaky economic system of ousting the Jews from commerce.
On the other hand, Nazi extremists are publicly proclaiming that it is imperative to force Jews from the country’s commercial enterprises. Such a demand was voiced by State Secretary Decke addressing yesterday’s Third Annual Peasants Day congress at Goslar. Declaring that the Jews are an alien race, Decke said:
“We consider that for the Jews to remain in commerce is in complete opposition to the national principles of our economic system.”
Dr. Schacht’s viewpoint on this vital issue is supported in a full page article in the independent Frankfurter Zeitung. Reviewing the economic situation as it exists in Germany today, the Frankfurter Zeitung warns that the elimination of Jews from commerce will result in increased unemployment or the shortening of the number of working hours for workers, especially for those employee in the textile and allied industries.
The article predicts that if Jews are expelled from commerce, ma Jewish firms will move abroad and establish themselves as competitors of German enterprises. It emphasizes the role which German Jews have played in the development of Germany’s clothing industry, pointing out that even Jewry’s enemies cannot deny the importance of that role.
“A further decrease in the number of ‘non-Aryan’ firms in the clothing industry,” the article states, “is of tremendous import There may be certain branches of industry where there are few Aryans, but the average participation of Jews in this particular industry is estimated at being from twenty to thirty per cent. And in the ladies garment manufacturing industry not less than fifty per cent of the firms are Jewish. ###lin Jews, despite pressure exercised against them still control eighty per cent of the industry. As far as the men’s clothing industry is concerned Jews in Berlin control between sixty and seventy per cent Jewish firms are particularly active in exports.”
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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.
