The official Nazi press today began a campaign for elimination of Jews from Germany’s economic system on the grounds that “Jews are ruining German economic life” and that “Jewish commercial methods do not fit into Germany’s four-year plan of managed economy.”
The signal for the drive was given by Bernhard Kohler, chief of the economic commission of the Nazi Party, at a conference of party officials. According to newspaper accounts of the conference, held at party headquarters here, he declared that Germany could be saved from its present economic position only by a “well-planned and well-managed economy, the meaning of which Jews are unable to understand.”
S.A. Mann, organ of Chancellor Hitler’s praetorian guards, indicated that the question of eliminating Jews from certain fields of commerce, particularly foreign trade and peddling, had already been decided. Referring to Jews as traders, the periodical declared: “By trading one can dispose of the nation’s commodities against the nation’s interests.”
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.
