Nazis Don’t Molest Junk Men or Bankers, Fred Kelly Finds

Jewish junk dealers share with Jewish bankers immunity from Nazi molestation.

Berlin is full of talk that Hitler would be willing enough to “let up on the Jews,” but that Dr. Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, wants it continued.

A strong anti-Nazi movement is progressing in German universities which, in the early days of the Hitler regime, were Nazi hot-beds.

And Berlin is a city of gloom. A city in which there are more “up-happy looking people on city streets” than Fred C. Kelly, who makes the above statements in the current issue of Today, ever recalls having seen.

SECOND OF A SERIES

The article from which the above summaries are taken is the second of a series on Germany by Kelly, the magazine’s traveling correspondent. It is called, “Berlin; City of Gloom.”

Excerpts from the article follow:

“I am constantly surprised by the number of Jews in Berlin, who, despite the Jewish persecutions, appear to be getting along rather well. One group, I discover, is treated with great courtesy and consideration. These are the junk dealers—I mean the dealers in such items as old iron and copper, who operate on a big scale. Their business takes on great importance in these times of shortage of all kinds of goods; and it is a kind of business that only Jews understand.

BANKERS LEFT ALONE

“Nobody else has had the necessary training in collecting junk and determining values. Likewise, Jewish bankers have not been molested. They are too important in the business world. To drive them out of their powerful places in finance might upset banking in Germany more than the most ardent supporter of Hitler is willing to do.

“An American friend living in Berlin asked me to walk along and visit with him, while he went to call on his family physician regarding a minor ailment. This physician turned out to be a Jew, and his outer office was well filled with patients. They went to him, my friend explained, because he happened to be an extraordinary good doctor.

“I asked him how other doctors of his race were making out.

PRIVATE DOCTORS O. K.

“‘Oh, those who were established in private practice are getting along well enough,’ he said. ‘But those connected with hospitals, with insurance companies, or in any kind of state jobs are not. At that, we are far better off than Jewish lawyers are. No one likes to go to a Jewish lawyer here today, because it is known they have no influence in the courts, and, in fact, would instantly prejudice a German court.’

“Many brilliant Jewish lawyers are employed now in important firms, where they work behind the scenes, preparing briefs, while gentiles meet the public or appear in court.

“One hears much talk that Hitler would be willing enough, now, to let up on the Jews. The real source of whatever anti-Jewish fight still continued evidently is Dr. Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, commonly looked upon as the Mephistopheles of the Administration.

“I talked with a little American girl, daughter of a friend, who is attending a private school in Berlin. She said that half the pupils are Jewish children, and that they are treated without the slightest discrimination. It is not an expensive school—only $25 tuition for a year.

“Total attendance of German universities is limited to 30,000, on the theory that there is no use educating more when suitable places cannot be found for all university graduates now. They only make unfair competition against those who ordinarily would be obtaining humble clerkships in stores or offices. Of this 30,000, only one per cent. may be Jews, since that is the percentage of Jews in the total population.

Jew or not, a student cannot enter Heidelberg, Bonn or any other university these days without first putting in six months at a labor camp. Such a plan in America would mean one couldn’t enter, say, Harvard until after he had done his six months in a CCC camp. Once in a German university, a student must spend his first six months in a club where he is constantly subjected to Nazi lectures and political discussions. There isn’t much time for actual college studies. Even a man wishing to study law must go through a camp and much ‘monkey business’ first.

“When Hitler came into power, the universities were hotbeds of Nazi enthusiasm. Now, there is a strong anti-Nazi movement coming along in the universities—simply because youth persists in liking to be contrary, to take the unpopular side. It has become a college sport to try to bait a professor into making a daring statement or remark that may get him into trouble.”