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Nazi Terrorism Understated, Roy Howard Finds; Reich Capitalists Held Disillusioned

April 2, 1939
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Reports of Nazi anti-Jewish terrorism have been “understated rather than exaggerated,” Roy W. Howard, president and editor of the New York World Telegram, said today in the fifth of a series of articles from Paris on the European situation.

“Discussion of the liquidation of Jews is virtually taboo in friendly German circles today,” Mr. Howard declared. “Professional Nazis have closed their minds to reason, justice and human consideration. Argument is futile. To the average, normal German the subject is distasteful.

“Many will tell you the situation needed correction because the Jew was crowding the German out of the professions and forcefully substituting his own culture and philosophy for that of the Germans. But very few even attempt a defense of the frightfulness and terrorism, which have been understated rather than exaggerated. This is true even as to some persons who are high in the Nazi party, though there is little evidence that any of these men made a serious attempt to moderate the purge.”

Discussing economic aspects of Nazism, Mr. Howard reported that German capitalists and industrialists “now realize their fatal error in employing Hitlerism to escape something else. Today they realize that the cure is almost as bad as the malady.”

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